Case of the Unnamed Rabbi: Principal who impregnated a girl with learning disabilities

Case of the Unnamed Rabbi: 

 Principal who impregnated a girl with learning disabilities

 (Borough Park) Brooklyn, New York

 

Call For Action:  The following case has been haunting members of The Awareness Center since it was mentioned in a article put out by JTA back in 2001. 

 

The Awareness Center is looking for all the information we can find regarding the Rabbi-Prinicipal who inpregnated a girl with learning disabilities at school he was principal at.

 

If you have more information regarding this case please send it to The Awareness Center

 

In her RCA speech, Dr. Susan Shulman (a pediatrician who served on the O.U.'s commission investigating the Lanner scandal and lectures frequently about sexual abuse) told of an anonymous rabbi who impregnated a student while he was principal of a school for Jewish girls with learning disabilities. When he was fired, he moved to another community where he is "still a prominent rabbi." 

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

 

Table of Contents:  

1. Grappling with Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Community - No Longer Taboo  (2001)

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Grappling with Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Community - No Longer Taboo

For years, the Orthodox community has hidden it. Now, a confluence of factors is making their sexual abuse problem come out of the closet.

By Julie Wiener

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 2001

 

The Borough Park section of Brooklyn is one of America's most visibly Jewish neighborhoods.

 

On several residential blocks of one- and two-family brick homes, almost every front door has a mezuzah. Modestly dressed women push strollers, while girls in dresses and boys in tzitzit and yarmulkes play on the sidewalks. More on this story

 

Sixteenth Avenue, one of the main drags, is lined with religious study centers and yeshivot, a Jewish high school for girls, small synagogues and Judaica stores.

 

And in the middle of it all is an agency that runs a treatment program for Orthodox Jewish pedophiles.

 

Orthodox pedophiles?

 

For years, most people in the Orthodox world assumed their religious way of life and tight-knit communities insulated them from problems rocking the larger world, like sexual abuse.

There is still a great deal of resistance to discussing the issue, and a lingering feeling among many victims and advocates that Orthodox institutions are more concerned with protecting the reputations of men accused of sexual abuse than with believing or helping victims.

 

But fueled by a combination of factors — recent scandals, a growing cadre of Orthodox psychotherapists in whom Orthodox Jews feel comfortable confiding, and American society's growing openness about sensitive social problems — that sense of insularity is eroding both among the fervently and centrist Orthodox communities.

 

Just as it has begun to acknowledge that there are Orthodox child abusers and Orthodox drug addicts, the community is gradually coming to grips with the fact that it, too, has sexual abusers in its midst.

 

Through Jewish agencies like Borough Park's Ohel Children's Home and Family Services — whose sex offender program is believed to be the only Orthodox program of its kind — it is starting to confront the problem.

Among the indicators of change:

 

· In the wake of public allegations last year that a high-ranking professional in the Orthodox Union's National Conference of Synagogue Youth had sexually abused more than 20 teen-age girls, sexual abuse has become a household world among centrist Orthodox Jews. The O.U., which had been accused of protecting Rabbi Baruch Lanner, the alleged abuser, underwent an investigation by an independent commission, made some key staff changes and has vowed to implement policies to prevent future abuse.

 

· Four years ago, at the request of the Brooklyn District Attorney, Ohel — which already treated Jewish survivors of sexual abuse — created the first- ever treatment program specifically for Orthodox sex offenders. More than 30 people, half referred through the criminal justice system and half through rabbis and Jewish communal leaders, have received evaluation or treatment through the program; more are on a waiting list.

 

· At its convention this year, the Rabbinical Council of America, which represents 1,100 mainstream Orthodox rabbis, held an open and detailed discussion about sexual abuse led by Dr. Susan Shulman, a pediatrician who served on the O.U.'s commission investigating the Lanner scandal and lectures frequently about sexual abuse.

 

· According to the RCA's immediate past president, Rabbi Kenneth Hain, the rabbinic group is in the "embryonic stages" of creating a system for dealing with members accused of sexual misconduct.

 

· In the aftermath of two publicized cases of pedophilia — one concerning a rabbi teaching at a day school and another concerning a kosher butcher — the Chicago Rabbinical Council recently created a special Beit Din, or rabbinical court, to address sexual abuse. The court, which has four rabbis from different sectors of the local Orthodox community, consults with a team of psychologists, social workers and lawyers. It is believed to be the only permanent North American Beit Din focusing on this issue.

 

· According to David Mandel, chief executive officer of Ohel, Orthodox schools and other institutions increasingly are hosting workshops educating parents and teachers on how to prevent abuse against children and identify the symptoms indicating that a child may have been abused. In the past year, Ohel participated in more than 12 seminars or conference sessions on the topic, about twice as many as in previous years.

 

Sexual abuse is hardly unique to the Orthodox community, and many who work in the field say there appear to be far fewer incidents in the Jewish community than in American society as a whole.

 

Problems like victims' reluctance to come forward, difficulty proving cases, and a tendency of people not to want to believe accusations are vexing issues in any community. Even when caught, sexual abusers are difficult to treat, and many experts say they must be watched vigilantly because they never fully recover.

 

But there are certain aspects of Orthodox life that make such problems uniquely challenging.

 

Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the wall of silence and denial.

 

"We're a community that would like to believe that our religious lives prevent these problems," said Rabbi Yosef Blau, a spiritual guidance counselor at Yeshiva University's rabbinic seminary and someone known as an advocate for victims of sexual abuse.

 

Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies and sociology at the City University of New York, said the presence of sexual abuse "calls into question some of the deeply held values of Orthodoxy — mainly that if you maintain a strict attachment to Jewish tradition and values, somehow that would insulate you from all that is evil in society."

 

In addition, there is a historic Jewish tendency, particularly acute in the Orthodox world, to keep quiet about sensitive issues for fear of publicly scandalizing the community.

 

Many Orthodox Jews also fear that embarrassing information could jeopardize future wedding matches for individuals and their families.

 

Another obstacle is that the many demands of an Orthodox lifestyle — and the fact that Orthodox Jews must live within walking distance of synagogue — make Orthodox communities tight-knit. That can make it hard for a victim to come forward, particularly if the abuser is prominent or well-liked.

 

When the perpetrator is a rabbi or other respected member of the community, victims have an even greater difficulty, given Orthodox Judaism's reverence for rabbinical authority figures.

 

"... That's no good because if he goes to another community he will do the same thing ..." -- Rabbi Gedalia Schwartz

 

"If a kid goes to a parent and says, My rebbe did something to me, the parents tend to believe the rabbi, not the child," Blau said.

 

Perhaps the greatest challenge is that most Orthodox institutions lack a formal system for preventing or reporting abuse.

 

Exacerbating the situation is the fact that Orthodox Jews generally are more reluctant than liberal Jews to go to the police for crimes committed within the community.

 

Instead, Orthodox Jews tend to rely on rabbinical courts. But most such courts are ill-equipped to handle sexual abuse cases, and many — according to victims' advocates and Shulman — refuse to hear such cases.

 

Chicago's Beit Din is one of the few actively dealing with sexual abuse. So far, it has found three people guilty of abuse, alerting community leaders so they can keep an eye on the offenders and not hire them for jobs where they will be alone with children.

 

Rabbi Gedalia Schwartz, chief presiding rabbi of the Chicago Rabbinical Council and the Beit Din of America, a national rabbinical court under RCA auspices, urges victims to go to the police as well.

 

"Some might say, send" the abuser "to another community," Schwartz said. "That's no good because if he goes to another community he will do the same thing."

However, some communities do just that.

 

In her RCA speech, Shulman told of an anonymous rabbi who impregnated a student while he was principal of a school for Jewish girls with learning disabilities. When he was fired, he moved to another community where he is "still a prominent rabbi."

 

Despite the remaining challenges, some in the Orthodox world find solace in the fact that the topic is now on the table and that some treatment programs are out there.

 

Because of the Lanner case, "people who in the past would've said, `I'm sure he couldn't have done that and Just let it go are now saying, I heard about this and we can't let this happen again,' " Blau said.

 

According to Mandell and others, the changes are deeper than a mere reaction to Lanner.

 

In fact, sex abuse is being discussed and addressed not just in centrist Orthodox circles but in fervently Orthodox communities where many people — who do not read secular or even mainstream Jewish newspapers — have not heard of the Lanner scandal.

 

David Pelcovitz, director of psychology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., and a clinical professor of psychology at the New York University School of Medicine, said he increasingly hears rabbis frame the issue by talking about the concept of ha'alamah, the biblical injunction not to look the other way.

 

Mandel, Pelcovitz and Shulman all say that invitations are increasing to speak on the topic at conferences and to lead training workshops.

 

Pelcovitz, who teaches a pastoral psychology course at Yeshiva University's rabbinical school on dealing with sexual abuse complaints, said Orthodox rabbinical groups such as the RCA and the National Council of Young Israel also are starting to offer continuing education on sexual abuse.

 

Mandel noted that after almost every speech he and his staff give on sexual abuse, at least one adult privately comes forward to say he or she, too, was victimized but never before felt comfortable telling anyone.

 

"People are discussing a topic that truly wasn't discussed," he said.

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Judy's Story - The Case of Rabbi Marc Gafni (AKA: Mordechai Gafni)

If at first you aren't heard . . . 

Rabbi Mordechai Winiarz (AKA: Marc Gafni)

© (2004) By Judy

ALSO SEE: The Case of rabbi Mordechai Gafni (AKA: Mordechai Winiarz, Marc Gafni)

The overwhelming exhaustion that has washed over me from existing as a victim for the past eighteen years has ultimately been my silencer. Any remaining strength is channeled into the necessary tasks of parenting and daily survival. I will no longer be a victim.

The better part of my childhood was spent lost and invisible. My earliest recollections are of pleading to an unnamed supreme being.

"Please," I'd say, "I'll do anything, anything at all if you'll let her find me. I know she must be looking for me."

I'd scream and cry into my pillow at night. I remember waiting at the door. Anger was not an issue. If I was angry with anyone, it was the other "she", the one who had taken me away. That was how my childhood psyche worked. Adoption was not a warm fuzzy word defined by "we really wanted you". I read it as; the one person who truly mattered didn't, couldn't or was convinced not to.

So, I kept searching for my mother, for someone to love me the way I needed to be loved.

Along came Judaism, JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth) and Mordechai Winiarz.

At that time, my family was in constant turmoil. My father had brushed with death far too many times. In 1985 he underwent his second open-heart surgery – a quadruple by-pass. I hit puberty and my emotions, hormones and home-life were in shambles.

Mordechai Winiarz paid attention to me. He told me how intelligent and special I was. I spent many Shabbat lunches with him and his wife feeling like I had finally found a family. I began keeping kosher and abiding by the laws of modesty.

Mordechai had awarded me JPSYer of the Year. My sadness and isolation at home had me frustrated and doing poorly academically. I asked Mordechai if I could live with him and his wife. At the time I was hoping for a more permanent arrangement, but we agreed on taking things one week at a time. I had just turned sixteen when I moved in with them the first time.

The week went by rather uneventfully with one exception. I awoke one evening from a disturbing dream. It was maybe midnight and I heard someone awake upstairs. I decided to get some milk and try and relax and think. I soon realized it was Mordechai who was awake. He heard me in the kitchen and asked me to talk to him. When I approached the study, Mordechai was in his robe, preparing a shiur on something.

"Why are you still awake?" he asked me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" I said. "I just needed a drink."

"I can tell there is something wrong, talk to me."

"Really, it's O.K.; I just had a bad dream. I am going back to sleep."

"You'll never be able to sleep if you don't tell me."

He wouldn't give up. I felt trapped. Not physically mind you, but emotionally. I enjoyed talking and sharing with him because he listened, but the dream I had was strange, it involved me as a young child and the typical scenario of walking in on your parents' lovemaking (in the dream he and his wife were my parents). I had had general dreams involving them as my parents previously. I didn't want to share it. I wanted time to think about it. He wouldn't take no for an answer. When I finally described my dream to him, he interpreted it as my being sexually attracted to him. I felt he was completely off base. I quickly changed the topic and was able to return to bed.

After the agreed upon weeks' stay came to a close, my parents insisted I come back. So, much to my chagrin, I returned home. Things there went from bad to worse when my mother fell at work and was hospitalized with a broken hip. Now my mother was hospitalized and my father was trying to recoup from open-heart surgery. I felt helpless and lost. I couldn't cope. I had no siblings and no family lived nearby. So off I ran – back to Mordechai, his wife, and the warmth and safety I felt there.

This time however, it was very different. It was Tuesday evening after at school when he made his first trip into what was then my bedroom - the basement. It was very late and I had already been asleep when the door opened. From the door, he said, "You look like you need a hug". I pretended to remain asleep. He approached the bed and repeated himself. I still did not answer and conveniently I was turned away from him. My mind was racing. I was overwhelmed. I didn't know what to say. I was shomeret negiah (abiding by the stringent Jewish laws prohibiting premarital touch). Why was he in my bedroom? Why was he asking to touch me at all? I knew it was wrong. He knew it was wrong – didn't he? Certainly I needed a hug, I always needed a hug, but a hug from him was wrong. Wasn't it? If it were so wrong, why would he have offered it? I could not keep up with the fears and questions flying around inside my brain.

Before I could process them, react or respond he was sitting on my bed. I sat up to tell him "No, it's O.K. I don't need a hug. And why are you even offering?" when he put his arms around me. For a brief moment it felt good - like I was a little kid and my daddy was giving me a hug. Then I realized this was not right I tried to pull away but he held onto me and fell on top of me. He began touching me under my nightclothes. I said "No." and tried to move his hand away. He kept fondling me. I said "No." again and he stopped, abruptly stopped. It was the most bizarre thing. He rose from the bed, told me not to say anything about what happened because no one would understand. He promised me it wouldn't happen again. And I believed him. I had to.

Thursday was an early release day from school. I was emotionally exhausted and went straight downstairs for a nap. Mordechai was at the house. I thought that was odd – why was he not working? He tried to stop me, to talk again. I told him to leave me alone – I was tired and I needed rest. I had been asleep no longer than 30 minutes when Mordechai arrived in my room once again. Now he was in robe. He didn't bother to knock. He stood at the door and said something to wake me. I startled. He arrogantly stated, "You know what you want."

"What?" I asked. I truly had no clue what he was talking about and why the hell was he in his robe in the middle of the day?

"You know what you want. I will go out of this room and come back in. You just give me a sign." He stepped out and closed the door.

The shaking started again. What the hell should I do? What did he say? I was half asleep. I sat up in bed. I was fully clothed, under a thick blanket, warm and uncomfortable. I had layered my clothes so that my elbows would be covered. I removed one layer, completely covered myself up to my neck with the comforter and turned to stare at the wall hoping that he'd just not come back. I felt like such a child. I wanted him to love me, but not like this. I wanted to be their child, just start over with a new family who paid attention, cared and understood.

Then he was there in my room, standing over me at my bedside in only his underwear. I had not even heard him come in the door. He lay down next to me and began touching me again, like he had previously. I said, "Mordechai, no, this is wrong." It was as if he didn't even hear me. I just shut down and let him do what he was going to do. He continued fondling me, took off all of my clothes and his. He positioned himself on top of me ready for intercourse.

"When did you get your last period?" he asked. What a weird question. I wasn't sure of the answer. I just made something up. "That's no good." He replied. "You know I could get you pregnant." He seemed disappointed as he lay beside me. Mordechai took my hand and forced me to help him climax. I had never done anything like that before. I had never even seen a man naked. He ejaculated all over me. I felt horrible. When he was finished he stood abruptly.

"Get cleaned up and come upstairs," he ordered and left the room.

I was now shaking so fiercely I could barely follow the instructions. When I finally ascended from the basement, he was waiting in the living room, in his typical starched white shirt and dark dress pants. "We are going for a walk," he said.

We walked around Flatbush (a section of Brooklyn, NY) for the better part of an hour. First he attempted to make me think that nothing ever happened; that it was all a figment of my imagination. When that didn't work he tried to convince me that I would never be believed because he was a Rabbi and I was just a kid. Who was more credible? He asked rhetorically. He was still unsure that I was buying his argument so he moved on to threats. He would destroy my life. I would never learn in yeshiva, never get married, on and on. Now he had my attention. What was he capable of? I couldn't be certain. But I knew one thing - I was scared. Emotionally destroyed, hating myself, and hating him, just wanted to disappear.

He left me there at the house and headed toward Manhattan. I was alone in every sense of the word. I knew his wife would be home from work soon. I went to the kitchen, found the sharpest knife I could find and sat on the dining room floor screaming, crying and trying desperately to break the skin of my wrist with the blade. I had just made a few superficial cuts when his wife walked in.

My gut instinct was that he had already told her some crazy story about me. She saw me there curled in ball on the floor crying. She didn't even acknowledge my existence. Maybe she couldn't. She just walked by and went into their bedroom. I knew I needed to tell someone. I called Susan (a JPSY advisor and friend) three or four times before I reached her. I went to school the next day in shock. I was due at Susan's house for Shabbat later that evening. The evening before, I had told her briefly what had occurred. When I returned to his home after school to pack for Shabbat he was there. Again, he insisted I not tell anyone. He made me promise not to.

The train ride to Susan's house was surreal. I was crying and shaking all the way from Brooklyn to Queens. I had never been so confused. I desperately wanted to tell Susan everything that had happened but I was afraid. I felt like I was drowning, like I could barely breathe.

There were other girls there that Shabbat and I could not find the privacy necessary to continue discussing what had happened. I fell asleep crying, hoping that things could just go back to the way they had been only days before. When Motzei Shabbat arrived one of the other girls left and only one other JPSY teenager and I remained. I talked Susan's ear off about nonsense until the other girl nodded off, and then I told her the details of what happened with Mordechai. I was shaking like a leaf.

It was then that Susan told me that she had already heard from Mordechai.  He had called her prior to Shabbat "warning" her about my "delusional" stories, my emotional instability and attempting to compel her into allegiance. Susan diligently listened to the facts, my fears, and unequivocally assured me of her loyalty and confidence in my credibility. She told me that he had made inappropriate advances to her in the past.

Susan was there for me through what would be the remaining eighteen months of hell. We were kids trying to figure out how to handle this trauma with no help or support from our parents or the community. I don't remember much after that conversation.

I do remember telling my parents with Susan by my side what had occurred.

Rabbis Kenneth Hain, Yitzchok Adler and Shlomo Riskin

I remember how they blamed me since it was I who left the house to begin with. I remember the next year and a half of harassment and mental games. I clearly recollect the "camps" of people who believed what really happened and those who refused to. I remember the telephone calls at all hours of the evening – the hang-ups, the heavy breathing. Then the photos of naked men arriving at our home because Mordechai had taken out a personal add in a gay men's magazine using our P.O. Box address as the return. I remember the Rabbis telling us to "let things go" and "move on": Kenneth Hain, Yitzchok Adler, and Shlomo Riskin. I remember the ridiculous meeting held at Yeshiva University at which I had to bare my soul to men I had neither previously met nor trusted.

People keep telling me that times are different now. People will listen. Things will change. I don't know. I want to believe that. I want to believe that he will be stopped. That he will no longer hurt anyone. All the talking, emails and articles seem very empty to me.

I am placing the truth out into the world once more and putting it formally into print. If this gives other young people the courage to speak out when they are betrayed, hurt or violated by an adult maybe something good will come out of this. Maybe others perpetrators will be stopped. Maybe community leaders will learn to take a stand on crucial issues before victims accumulate in silence, erupting unpredictably later in life with unified inner-strength and piercingly powerful voices. I won't be silenced again. I'm no longer a victim, I have a voice.

Susan's Story - Case of rabbi Marc Gafni (AKA: Mordechai Gafni)

Rabbi Mordechai Winiarz (AKA: Marc Gafni)

October 10, 2004
Interviewed by Levi Ford

ALSO SEE: Case of Rabbi Marc Gafni (AKA: Mordechai Winiarz)

I talk by phone October 10, 2004 to the Susan in Gary Rosenblatt's article (New York Jewish Week):

A woman named Susan, who at the time was a 22-year-old adviser in JPSY, said she believed Judy's account. She said that when she took Judy's side, Gafni made harassing phone calls and threats against her.

"He told me I would regret it," Susan said, adding that the rabbi made inappropriate advances to her, as well.

Susan: "I became an advisor for JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth) in 1985. I was 21. I was responsible for a club at a high school in Queens, NY.  Mordecai Winiarz was the head of JPSY. There were Shabbatonim -- weekends when all the Jewish public school kids were invited to experience a Shabbat together... The goal was to help these young adults become connected with Judaism.

Rabbi Marc Gafni (AKA: Mordecai Winiarz)

"My initial impression of Mordecai Winiarz was that he was charismatic, appealing to kids, and successful as a speaker. He's engaging. These characteristics are typical of people who have been accused of the things he has been accused of. He knows how to capture people's attention. The kids were enthralled by him.

"I developed a relationship with one of the kids quoted in the [Gary Rosenblatt] article named Judy."

Gary writes:

The second woman, Judy, said that when she was 16 and deeply unhappy at home, she joined a popular Orthodox outreach group for teens that Gafni was leading called JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth), and was drawn to his charisma and concern for her.

During a two-week period when she ran away from home and was staying with Rabbi Gafni, who was then 25 and married, Judy said he abused her sexually on two occasions. Even more upsetting, she said, was that afterward, the rabbi tried to convince her the encounter did not happen, and then harassed her for many months. He threatened to keep her out of Jewish schools (she was seeking to transfer from public school to a yeshiva), called her home at all hours of the night and then hung up, mailed pictures to her home of naked men and had her followed.

"He attempted to destroy my life for a year and a half," she said.

Gafni said that Judy was a troubled, unstable teenager who fabricated the story after he rebuffed her advances.

Susan: "She came from a troubled home, so she was excited about JPSY. Mordecai took a great interest in reaching out to her.

"At that time, Mordecai had married his second wife. They lived in Brooklyn and they took Judy into their home. Judy was happy living in their basement. It gave her a feeling of worth. Wow, she was living with Mordecai.

"I remember once hearing Mordecai speak [Susan was in her teens] and I remember thinking of him then what you wrote in one of your articles. Yes, he was charismatic, but there was something about him that cult-like.

"When I started working at JPSY, I heard from people that he was peculiar. When you wrote that he's a creep, I thought wow, I've also heard that word [applied to Gafni] several times.

"[Gafni's second wife] had been a JPSY adviser. Mordecai was single. So many people were warning her to stay away from him because there were so many questions about his character -- That he was a dangerous person. That he had a dark side. That he had a sordid past. It was something that some of the JPSY advisers were talking about. People were taking her aside and warning her not to marry the guy.

"They married November 13, 1985. They invited all the JPSY kids to the wedding. I was asked to take a group of kids to the wedding. It was on Long Island. I remember the aura of disbelief among the advisors. People were worried for his wife-to-be.

"I didn't have that much to do with him. He was always very warm and friendly. He always had a way of looking at people and making them feel important. He would joke around a lot with me. He's witty and I can be witty. We would have our repartee. I was never interested in him. It was never an issue.

"We were having a meeting at my home at 6 p.m. one Sunday in May 1986. Mordecai was supposed to be there as the head of JPSY along with several other advisers and me. About 4:30 p.m., I was the only one at home. I hadn't gotten ready yet. I was wearing a robe. Just a regular robe. And the doorbell rang. I got the door.  Mordecai was standing at my front door in a dark suit with a yarmulke on his head, holding a large gemara in his hand. I just looked at him, 'Mordecai, what are you doing here? Our meeting is at six o'clock.' He said, 'Oh, I was the neighborhood. I figured I'd stop by early. Don't mind me. I have my gemara. I'll just learn while you're getting ready.'

"I was shocked. I was uncomfortable. I had no idea what it would be like to have him waiting in the living room while I was getting ready for the meeting. It seemed very odd (and somewhat rude) to me that he had come by so early, but. I didn't know how to say that his presence made me feel uncomfortable and that I would have preferred that he leave. Afterall, he I worked for him, and he was 'the rabbi,' so I said, ok, Mordecai.  Please stay in the living room. I didn't know you were coming this early, so I need you to stay put here.

"I ushered him into the living room. I closed the french doors.  I went back to my room to get dressed. No sooner did I get to my room than I turned around because he had left the living room and walked all the way to my bedroom , opened the door and said, 'Susan, Male Sexual Health,' as he pointed to a book he had taken from a shelf in in the corridor near my room.

"He had taken a book off the shelf right near my room. My father is a psychologist and had many books in the hallway right near my room. Mordecai had taken a book off the shelf entitled, Male Sexual Health. He held it in front of me and said, 'Male Sexual Health. I bet there's a lot you could teach me about that.'

"I was shocked. There he was standing so inappropriately and looking at me with what seemed to me to be a suggestive stare. I didn't know how to handle it. I felt scared but felt I needed to remain calm. I just looked at him and said, 'Mordecai, what are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the living room. I'm trying to get ready.' Please leave. I purposely didn't even respond directly to his crass comment.

"So he put the book back on the shelf and walked a few steps closer to me. He said, 'You really shouldn't be wearing that robe because it shows me your shape.'

"I just felt this shudder go through me. I said, 'Mordecai, please leave right now.' He was just trying to get a response from me to see if there was any interest. It was clear that he realized that there was none.

"I was shocked and frightened.

"He ended up returning to the living room. I closed the door.  I threw on my clothes.

"I was uncomfortable throughout the meeting. Did I approach Mordecai afterwards about it? No. Because nothing happened. And I was scared of the look he had given me during the incident. He had given me a look that terrified me.

"Soon after that, Judy called me. 'I'm shocked. Mordecai came downstairs to the basement and he started touching me.' She ended up crying to me about the two experience she had had with Mordecai. Soon she started telling me the details about what happened to her, which did involve a lot of sexual contact [but no intercourse]. I think he was smart enough to know that she was 16. She told me that he asked her when she had last gotten her period at a point when he seemed positioned for intercourse.

"It immediately clicked with me that this guy is so capable of that because I knew how he had been with me. I knew that so many people talked about his past. The rumors I had heard began to make sense. I realized what could have happened had I not made it clear to Mordechai that he was to stay away from me.

"It was totally unacceptable and immoral behavior Although she was enthralled by the guy and enamoured by his charm, what made her incredibly angry and hurt and terrified was the way he planned the subsequent mind games.

"He came back downstairs and said to her, Judy, I'm worried about you. I think you're imagining that something happened between us.

"When he began playing mind games with her--making her think that she was crazy--fabricating everything, everything started to fall apart for her.  Mordechai and (Wife #2) had been parenting her.

She had placed her trust in him. She could not believe what had occurred. He made her think that she was crazy and fabricating the whole thing. That, in addition to destroying her trust in him, frightened her. He started to threaten her. 'I don't know what you think happened here, but you will be sorry and I will destroy you if you tell anyone stories about what you think happened. I will make sure that you will never get into any Jewish school. Your reputation will be destroyed.'

"Of course I wasn't in the room when this happened. People in his position do not invite witnesses to observe their behavior. They don't sell tickets for the event. But as an intelligent person who had experienced Mordecai's inappropriate behavior and had heard a lot allusions to his past, I believed that this guy was capable of what Judy described.

"To validate my thoughts, Mordecai called me. 'Susan, it's Mordecai. I need to talk to you. It's really important.' This was right after I had hung up with Judy. 'Susan, you're one of my top advisers. You're terrific. I'm really worried about Judy. My wife and I took her in.... I'm a friendly guy. I went downstairs to say goodnight to her one night. She thinks that something happened. Something physical. Some sort of a relationship. If she says anything to you, please let me know.'

Rabbi Kenneth Hain

"I began to plead with other rabbis in the Jewish community [to do something about Mordecai]. His position enabled him to be in constant contact with young women and kids, and what I knew firsthand and, as a confidante of Judy was enough to make me feel that rabbis in the Jewish community needed to do something. Rabbi Kenneth Hain is a friend of Mordecai's. It was clear that Mordecai was dangerous and needed to be stopped based on what I knew at that point. (At this time I did not know about his repeated sexual assaults on the thirteen year old girl- over nine months earlier in his life--sexual contact to which Winiarz/Gafni admitted in Gary's article. He [Mordecai] needed to be stopped in his tracks.

"Rabbi Hain called me to to tell stop what I was doing, which was taking Judy's and my experiences to the appropriate people at Yeshiva University, the main group supporting JPSY. I cried on the phone to Rabbi Hain.. I told him exactly what had happened to me, and I told him how Mordechai had been threatening both Judy and me.

(Yeshiva University (Washington Heights, NY)

"Rabbi Hain knew me. There was no reason for me to fabricate a story. I had heard of all these other stories of people who had various negative experiences with Mordecai. Rabbi Hain said to me in his deep voice, 'Sometimes the bigger person is the one who can just let things go.' He kept telling me to move on.

"I was shocked and disgusted. He knew I was trying to reach the right people [to do something about Mordecai]. I did not have a lot of support. People were telling me be quiet. How dare rabbinic leaders turn their eyes and ears away from crying victims! How dare anyone say that Mordecai was exonerated! There was never any Bet Din nor were there any attempts to contact me or us to do "teshuvah" as (Mordecai) claims he did. And it is not for Rabbis Saul Berman and Joseph Telushkin and the others to claim to know who has done teshuva. They are not G-d. G-d handles exoneration of sins, and we women were never contacted by anyone supposedly exploring this case.

Rabbi Yitzchak Adler

"There was a rabbi in Jamaica Estates, Rabbi Yitzchak Adler, who also told me to move on. Since I wasn't there, [when Judy says Mordecai got sexual with her]. I had no right to spread lashon hara.

"I am learned. I have a strong Judaic background. I went to yeshiva. I know the laws of lashon hara. I know when it is permitted and not permitted to speak ill of someone. There are certain situations when it is required [to bring up harmful details about somebody's past to protect innocent people in the present].

"[In the summer of 1986] I was on an Israel program. I went to Efrat, where rabbi [Shlomo] Riskin was rabbi. He ultimately revoked [in 2004] Mordecai's ordination [after earlier being a big supporter of Mordecai]. I told rabbi Riskin everything. He was extremely unsupportive. I think that these rabbis were afraid of what a scandal might mean for the Orthodox rabbinate. He listened to me and I think he believed what I told him, but for some reason he didn't want to do anything about it.

Shalom Lamm / Dr.  Norman Lamm

"I met with JPSY advisers and filled them in on what I knew. There was a meeting at YU [not a Beit Din]. Shalom Lamm, the son of the president of YU, Norman Lamm, was there. Judy and I told of our experiences. Soon after that, Mordecai was ousted from JPSY. Throughout the process, as soon as he knew that I was making known to the appropriate people what he had done, I received harassing and threatening phone calls at my phone at home. One was traced by the Annoyance Call Bureau (which had put a tap on my phone) to Mordecai's home. The others came from pay phones. I would get heavy breathing. I would get the sounds of someone smashing a hammer into something. I couldn't press charges since the Annoyance Call Bureau needed three phonecalls traced to the same number. The calls I received were traced to different numbers. It was almost as if Mordecai knew how to make harassing phone calls without being caught.

"He would also call me and say that he was going to make sure that I was sorry. That he was going to sue me for libel. I remember thinking, for an intelligent guy, why are you using the word 'libel'? I haven't written anything.

"He said I was trying to destroy his marriage. That I had no basis. That I was making everything up."