Case of the Unnamed Rabbi At Camp Dora Golding

Case of the Unnamed Rabbi At Camp Dora Golding
(Formerly known as Camp Deal)

East Stroudsburg, PA

Allegations were made that over thirty years ago a thirteen-year-old boy was sexually abused by a 28-year-old rabbinical staff member of Camp Dora Golding.  At one point this camp was called "Camp Deal"

According to the report the alleged offender went on to having a long career in Jewish education, and based on whispers on the Internet, probably continued targeting young Jewish boys within the walls of Jewish educational institutions. 

July 12, 2013 –– A 19-year-old counselor at Camp Dora was arrested and taken into custody on charges of alleged child sexual abuse.

November 1, 2013 –– Another survivor came forward naming another rabbi as being an alleged sexual predator (see letter below)
_________________________________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves whether the resources meet their own personal needs.

Table of Contents: 

2013

1. Sharing The Secret That’s Haunted My Soul (03/28/2013)
2. It's very hard to come forward (03/28/2013)
3. Poconos camp counselor accused of indecent assault of boy (07/12/2013)
4. More allegations surface against Second Alleged Camp Dora Golding Molester (11/22/2013)
5. Camp Dora Golding Abuse Video Update (11/27/2013)

Also see: 

• Case of the Unnamed Rabbi At Camp Dora Golding
• Case of the Chisdai Ben-Porat
• Case of Rabbi Yisroel Bodkins
• Cases of Sexual Abuse Associated with Yeshiva University
• List of Alleged Enablers of Sex Offenders

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sharing The Secret That’s Haunted My Soul

An abuse victim goes public, and suggests some communal reforms.

By David Cheifetz
Jewish Week - March 28, 2013

My name is David Cheifetz and I am a victim of childhood sex abuse in a Jewish institution.

There. I have said it. After more than 30 years I have shared the dark secret that has haunted my soul.

I was 13 years old, attending sleep-away camp at Camp Dora Golding, an all-boys Orthodox camp that some of you still send your sons to. I was befriended by a 28-year-old member of the rabbinic staff. Over the course of a week he sexually abused me repeatedly. When the activity was exposed, I was summoned to the camp director’s office and forced to confront the assailant. Then I was summarily sent home, as if it were I who had committed the crime. The camp never even told my parents why I was being sent home. They were just advised to pick me up at the Greyhound terminal at New York’s Port Authority.

I do not know if the perpetrator was ever fired; to the best of my knowledge he was never reported to legal authorities. I understand that he went on to a long career in Jewish education, and based on whispers on the Internet, probably continued targeting young Jewish boys within the walls of Jewish educational institutions. [Camp Dora Golding officials did not respond to repeated attempts for comment on the author’s allegations.]

When I arrived home, I was not given a hero’s welcome. I was also not given a victim’s welcome. I was never sent to a psychiatrist or a psychologist or even a pediatrician. The bitter secret was locked away, barely thought of or spoken of over the next 30-plus years. I did once share the incident with my yeshiva high school principal who insisted, “No, Duvid, he could not have been a rabbi. Rabbis never do such things.”

The Orthodox community is going through its Catholic Church moment: All elements of the community, from the chasidic to the Modern Orthodox, are being inundated by reported cases of sexual abuse of minors. Each of these incidents is characterized not just by accusations of sexual abuse, but by accompanying allegations of systematic cover-ups — incidents hidden or swept under the rug, in some cases (such as the Weberman case) with allegations of extreme financial and social pressures brought to bear on the victims and their families.

But, as my experience reflects, such behaviors of the abusers and of those that protect them are not new. It is not that Orthodox groups and institutions advocate pedophilia. It is that the Orthodox community is unwilling to address this “inconvenient truth.” Instead of confronting this scourge, many members the community have taken on a “circle the wagons” mentality, perhaps to protect their friends, perhaps to protect their institutions. But in all of this, what is forgotten is the victim.

I know. I was a forgotten victim. But I will no longer remain silent or silenced.

And what happens with these child sex abusers when they are ignored, or allowed to continue working within the community? Research shows that they are serial offenders, they tend to hunt out their prey and commit their despicable crimes again and again. Such is the nature of pedophiles. In the Catholic Church. In the Boy Scouts. And in the Orthodox community.

I look with sadness at my own story. I look at all the unanswered questions surrounding the Baruch Lanner case and the full investigative report conducted by the Orthodox Union that was never released, a study led by Richard Joel, now the president of Yeshiva University. Will there be a full release of the current investigation at YU’s boys’ high school involving its former principal, George Finkelstein. I listen to the voices in the ultra-Orthodox community citing mesirah — the notion that one Jew cannot hand over another Jew to the non-Jewish authorities — a remnant of medieval fear of hostile gentile governments. Thankfully that is an anachronism in our current society. These lingering questions and troubling observations take away any belief, any faith that the Orthodox community as a whole is able to reform itself.

I ask you: how many times in recent months has your congregational rabbi delivered a sermon on the travesty that is sexual abuse of minors in our community? It is headline news, but how many rabbis have raised their voices to increase awareness or called for fundamental change? I worry when rabbis are more prepared to discuss nuclear fusion and complex geopolitical machinations than they are to discuss the despicable sex crimes that are happening in our own Jewish educational institutions.

If change will not come from the inside, then it must come from the outside. And so I am speaking up and encouraging the thousands of other victims of childhood sexual abuse in our community to do the same.

I am also encouraging everyone to withhold financial support from every institution suspected of ignoring or covering up sexual abuse activities in their midst. There are plenty of other important causes and institutions that can benefit from your generosity.

But that is only a start. In order for the Jewish community to seriously address this scourge it must embrace real reforms. I believe necessary reforms include:

♦The establishment of an independent ombudsman sensitive to the needs of the Jewish community, with programs in every major educational institution. Too many rabbis have been hesitant to advise victims and their families to report abuses to the police, to social service agencies, or to the local district attorney. Or they have been outright complicit in cover-ups. So a central, independently funded ombudsman program (preferably funded by a foundation, and not reliant on the financial pressures of communal mood swings) must exist for victims and their families. The ombudsman will work with legal authorities and social service agencies and the schools to investigate all credible allegations and use its voice and power to pursue and bring pedophiles and their supporters to justice.

• The institution of mandatory training programs for schools and summer camps — leaders, administrators, teachers and counselors — of what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. (Isolated programs already exist, but are only in place in limited instances.)
• The institution of criminal background checks for all school leaders, teachers, administrators and camp staff.
• The establishments of a “one strike you are out” policy, and the immediate suspension of anyone facing a credible accusation, pending a detailed investigation.
• The establishment of protocols that penalize not only sex offenders, but those who knowingly ignore, protect and enable their behaviors. These people should be held liable on both criminal and civil levels. And they should certainly not be allowed to work in schools, camps, or other Jewish educational institutions. They too should be held accountable.

Speaking as a survivor, I bear scars that will be with me for life. I wish I did not have that unique set of perspectives. But sadly, the Orthodox community has progressed very little since 1979.

We face a demon in our midst, a cancer that will not go away without harsh measures. The Orthodox community can keep Shabbat and pray three times a day; its members can keep kosher and learn Torah day and night. But that means nothing if the community remains deaf to the cries of the past and future victims, and is ultimately complicit in the atrocities committed against our children and grandchildren.

David Cheifetz is a resident of Teaneck, N.J.

_________________________________________________________________________________

It's very hard to come forward
Experts say it can take years for abuse victims talk openly about their past.
By Steve Lipman
Forward - March 28, 2013

Like David Cheifetz, many victims of abuse do not confront their past, or their abusers, for many years, or even decades, after the abuse took place, according to mental health professionals.

The experts say a combination of shame (the victims feel sullied by an act that they had not initiated or encouraged), and fear of rejection (often their relatives and members of the wider community do not accept the claims of abuse) lead abuse victims to suppress thinking about, or talking about the abuse for a long time.

“It is very hard to come forward,” says Dr. Michelle Friedman, a psychiatrist who directs the pastoral counseling program at Yeshivat Chovovei Torah in Riverdale.

Abuse victims are often reticent to confront the abusers, who typically are a relative a close friend of the family, or a respected member of the ethnic or religious community — in the case of Jews, a rabbi or trusted therapist, Friedman says. “You don’t get to molest someone you don’t know.”

The passage of time, and the occurrence of major lifecycle event like divorce or the birth of a child may prompt an abuse victim to belatedly come forward, says Richard Gartner, a New York psychologist and psychoanalyst who specializes in the treatment of men with histories of sexual abuse.

Gartner says the reluctance to face one’s past as an abuse victims “is common, particularly among men,” because such admission can affect one’s “macho” self-image. Men, he says, are “frequently socialized to think of themselves as people who cannot be victims, particularly sexual victims.”

Reactions that often range from disbelief and rejection of abuse claims, to outright criticism of the victim and defense of the accused perpetrator discourage many abuse victims from coming forward, Gartner says. “They expect not to be believed.”

The fact that someone goes public with an abuse accusation, seeking “recognition that something [bad] was done,” possibly opening that person to embarrassment and questioning, usually indicates that some abuse did take place, Gartner says. And while some details of the abuse are likely to become clouded by time, victims rarely forget the general contours of the abuse, he says. “Some of them never forget it. They’re haunted by it.”

_________________________________________________________________________________

More allegations surface against Second Alleged Camp Dora Golding Molester
Failed Messiah - November 22, 2013

More allegations against the second alleged Camp Dora Golding molester have been made, and they allegedly come from new alleged victims.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Camp Dora Golding Abuse Video Update

Failed Messiah - November 27, 2013

The edited video allegedly of Chisdai Ben Porat sexually abusing a child at Camp Dora Golding this past summer has been removed from this site and from the site that first posted it. Here's why:

The edited video allegedly of Chisdai Ben Porat sexually abusing a child at Camp Dora Golding this past summer has been removed from this site and from the site that first posted it.

Why?

Because the purpose of posting the edited excerpt has been served. CDG officials and supporters can no longer claim that what Ben Porat did was not abuse or was not serious.

Also, law enforcement in that rural region of Pennsylvania cannot downplay what Ben Porat did.

The D.A. had the full video within three weeks of the incident and, I'm told, has still not contacted the child who was abused or his parents.

_________________________________________________________________________________

FAIR USE NOTICE

Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.

We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

_________________________________________________________________________________

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."  –– Margaret Mead

_________________________________________________________________________________