Cloistered Shame in Israel – Child Abuse, Rape and Haredi Coverups

The recent spate of haredi sex crimes – most of which involve molestation or rape of children – that so shook Israel has now made real international news.

Time Magazine has a report on the problem called Cloistered Shame in Israel. Time has discovered what many of us have been saying for years now – haredi Omerta, the code of silence based on shame and (mis)use of halakha – allows single molesters to molest even hundreds of children, which means it is likely many more haredim suffer abuse than non-haredim.

Here's a brief quote that tells the story:

…Sex predators operate with ease among the ultra-orthodox communities because female victims often keep quiet, knowing that to speak out will damage their prospects of finding a husband. "The families all want their girls to have a AAA marriage to a religious scholar from a good family, and nobody's going to marry a girl who gets raped," says [author and social activist Naomi] Ragen. In Bnei Brak, a predominately Haredi city near Tel Aviv, social worker Doron Agasi says one young Haredi man told him that he had molested more than a hundred girls. Agasi, director of the Shlom Banaich Fellowship, the only organization in Israel that treats pedophiles and their victims, convinced the young man to confess to the police. But, says Agasi, the authorities refused to bring charges because none of the parents of the alleged victims had filed complaints. Agasi says the rapist is now roaming free.…

While Time notes things are beginning to change for the better, it also notes this:

Among Israel's ultra-orthodox Jews, the Haredim, social workers are often called "child-snatchers" and the police "Cossacks"…

How can things really change when haredim think like this?

I don't think they can – which is why I suspect that much of what is being hailed as "change" is nothing more than surface veneer.

Still, that surface veneer will help some haredi women and children and, perhaps generation or two from now, it might become real.

But the lesson to be learned should be clear: Without screaming newspaper headlines and breathless TV news reports, and without intervention through police and social workers – all largely secular phenomena – no change would come. Change needs to be imposed on haredim from the outside, but in a way that lets haredi leaders take credit for it.

What happens without that outside pressure? This.

[Hat Tip; Dr. Rofeh-Filosof.]

PDF Archive:

Cloistered Shame in Israel TIME.pdf

Comments

[formely frum]

the same can be written about the Haredi Coverups in USA. Also the writer missed the famous or infamous mosser excuse.

[Yochanan Lavie]

If chareidim would work as social workers, and chareidi parents would be assured that their children would be surrounded by their own culture while in foster care, perhaps there would be more cooperation. Kosher women's shelters did alot to help abused spouses and their kids, for example. This is not to excuse chareidi "omerta" but I think it reasonable that a parent would want their child cared for in a manner consistent with their values. That would hold true in any community.

[Aaron]

To Yochanan: IF charedim would work as social workers? Who is stopping them? .... it's their leadership (or lack thereof) and insular, Fortress Charedi Kulture. It's remarkably easier to blame the secular majority than to take a good close look at themselves.

[Isa]

If a 'chardi' butcher sold treif as kosher, he would have to run for his life-and this actually happened-yet molesters are given a pass

[Missing the Point]

The only truth in the Time article and it's its TAINTED JOURNALISM reflection here, is that a normal human emotion called SHAME does in fact exist and in the frum community as it exists by most of the civilized world.

The less civilized anyone is, the less shame they have. In Jungle people walk completely naked. In civilized society people walk around "more or less dressed" because they have the civilized emotion called SHAME to walk around naked.

In modern society, which is often a step backwards to the barbaric dress code of the uncivilized jungle, women walk the streets with 10% to 90% of their ASS nakedness on display, just as in the jungle and just as the animals walk naked with no civilized sense of any shame.

All civilized people have shame and some have a little more than others.

Just as you can't eliminate sexual urges by banning the INTERNET, it is equally as foolish to imagine that you will eliminate sexual abuse SHAME by shaming them even more in articles like this or by bringing in more police to produce more shame in the media.

It is just a very foolish way to do things unless you fail to understand that the root of the problem is one of shame.

If shame is indeed the problem, then by increasing shame, will only make matters worse and decreasing shame is the only way to help make matters better and help put away these predators without causing anyone any further SHAME.

Shaming the frum for the actions of small handful of mentally ill perverts, such actions only result in even deeper shame and more cover-ups.

Do you want results or do you want to "SELL PAPERS".

Sex sells!

So go ahead and have web sites like failed-messiah just like the national-enquirer, enjoy your sexual scandals while you have your hands dirty in blood because YOU are actually, actively perpetuating the problem rather than helping stop the problem.

The only sensible solution to deal with peoples who are too ashamed to tell of the pain they have endured, is to provide a safe environment where Law and Order can prevail and take it's course WITHOUT FURTHER SHAME.

In all civilized societies this simple phenomenon is recognized and rape victims names are not publicized for this reason.

In the frum community, where shame is of a much higher honorable standard and of a much more refined level because of their higher level of being more civilized than you are - (as stated before, animals walk around completely naked and you, the non-frum, walk around 1/2 naked and the REALLY civilized frum, walk around completely dressed and not 1/2 dressed + 1/2 naked) - the frum need a level of sensitivity to help them eliminate the extremely small percentage of perverts who abuse them, without causing anyone any shame.

All rapists and child molesters need to be removed from society period.

Using shame upon the victims is not and should not be part of it.

If you take shame out of the equation by arresting the rapists without media publicity, then the problem is solved.

If sites like this continue the shame, you have blood on your hands by increasing the shame which is OBVIOUSLY, by definition, counter productive, to resolving the entire problem, which is, as you have said, actually rooted in shame.

You don't make people less ashamed by shaming them more, obviously.

The "Shame" is not caused by any "Rabbi" teaching the people to be "ashamed" so how can any sensible "normal" human being be so foolish to blame people for feeling an emotion called SHAME?

Are you saying that human beings are wrong for feeling an emotion called "shame"?

Do you feel that it's "civilized" to deny peoples emotions? Or do are you so "civilized" and are YOU so ABUSIVE to shame people because they feel the natural human emotion called "shame"?

Obviously I am not saying that we should leave matters as is nor am I saying that no problem exists.

Certainly there is a major un-addressed problem but the way you are dealing with it is to increase the problem, by increasing the shame, rather than to solve it, by taking action without causing further shame.

If you want to blame anyone other than the Jewish frum VICTIMIZED community, if you want to blame anyone except the VICTIM (the frum are the VICTIMS of your shame - then you should blame the District Attorney who let Kolko off the hook.

If you really care so much about abuse, why don't you make a crusade of of persecuting and shaming the DA each and every day rather than using each and every one of your days to dig up some other minuscule particle of dust and dirt to throw ate the frum community.

You care about abuse? Do you really?

I want to see you BASH, BASH and more BASH the New York District Attorney, each and every day, relentlessly just as you dirty your hands digging up all trash cans in hopes of maybe finding a spec of dust to throw at the frum community.

This web site never trashes the non frum.

Are we to assume that this web site approves of sex abuse by the non frum.

Is it KOSHER for the DA to be guilty of sex abuse, by him white-washing Kolko?

It is KOSHER of failed-messiah to help foster sex abuse by deliberately NOT publishing all sex abuse by the non-frum?

Wake Up am smell the coffee and that is that:

99.99% of all sex abuse is by people, the likes of the proprietors of this web site, who are collectively called the NON-FRUM people.

Yochanan

The charedim can create their own ambulance service, bikur Cholem, security etc. why can't they also create their own social worker network?

I think the difference is, the above mentioned does not question their own purity, Ambulance bikur cholem, is for sick people, security, is from outsiders.

HOWEVER, social worker network for there own who where abused by their own, would admit to them and the world that being charedi does not protect them or that they are not are pure as they like to claim, is something they simply cannot admit to themselves or the world.

PS "..child cared for in a manner consistent with their values." Are you sure, how many parents took their children out of Torah Temmimma when the Kolco story became public, maybe 1. However, strangely there are many and many yeshivas that the parents could have transferred their children too.

I think, they just rather say I see nothing I know nothing, the stories are simply not true. These things do not happen to us in a Torahs fearing community.
This way they can life in their fantasy world , Just be frum and one will protected from societies evils.

If not, why was there not a mass exodus from Torah Temmema?
--------------------------------------
Isa

If a 'chardi' butcher sold treif as kosher, he would have to run for his life-and this actually happened-yet molesters are given a pass
-----------------
Very very true, sadly. I am not sure but do parents really think eating treif would harm their children more than being abused.
I am sure if Torah temmima was caught knowingly serving trief Torah temmima would be a ghost town.

[Shmarya]

Missing the Point –

I see you chose your name well – you have missed the point. Plus, I think you also missed your meds.

[Mssing the Point]

Shmarya,

Not everyone takes meds like you do.

[formely frum]

Missing the point,

"99.99% of all sex abuse is by people, the likes of the proprietors of this web site, who are collectively called the NON-FRUM people."

Please bring up statistics to back up your claim? You say this with such conviction you should have no problem backing up your statement.

I think the Blogger has proved that the opposite is true.

Further more the Da cannot I repeat cannot do anything to the frum abusers without the help of the community. When an abuse happens and the da is informed a major lock down of information happens. Nobody was to testify, (victims and informants) and if there is a brave should who is willing he will be harassed, threatened not to supply information to the DA.

The DA needs help, the community needs to help the DA and not the perpetrator.

I play ball with a DA who who works in prosecuting child abuses in NY. They said it is almost impossible to charge a religious Jewish person, since NO INFORMATION, is coming forward from the community and is being protected by the very same community that the abuser is abusing.

In addition, please provide statistics that rape (BTY RAPE IS ABOUT POWER NOT SEX)
abuse is more prevalent in socialites like the Western societies or lets say people who line in the amazon and run along almost naked is higher than places that dress more modestly like frum communities, and many Moslem societies. Please do and prove us all wrong.

[Garnel Ironheart]

Keep watching CrossCurrents. I'm willing to bet Rav Avi Shafran or Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein will have a piece up in the next few days demolishing the "untruths" of the Time piece and once again asserting that this kind of thing doesn't happen in their community.

[chief doofis]

Just a few hours ago, Meyer and Chnyock were blasting Tommy Lapid as evil. Whatever his faults, Tommy never foisted his will upon anyone else. The piece of garbage that molested 100 girls in Bnei Brak, the Rabbis that decry Mesira, the Kolkos, Margolises, Scheinbergs, Solomons, etc.; aren't they evil...and...their brand of evil, is foisted upon..the innocent.

I will not say that they will burn in Hell, I will not even pray for them to burn in Hell. As a believer, I am sure that the Deity will handle things in an appropriate manner.

[formely frum]

Just a few hours ago, Meyer and Chnyock were blasting Tommy Lapid as evil. Whatever his faults, Tommy never foisted his will upon anyone else. The piece of garbage that molested 100 girls in Bnei Brak, the Rabbis that decry Mesira, the Kolkos, Margolises, Scheinbergs, Solomons, etc.; aren't they evil...and...their brand of evil, is foisted upon..the innocent.

I will not say that they will burn in Hell, I will not even pray for them to burn in Hell. As a believer, I am sure that the Deity will handle things in an appropriate manner.

Posted by: chief doofis | June 02, 2008 at 12:58 PM

________________________________________

I think you are head on, as far as i know
(but not sure) Tommy Lapid was not against religioun per say but against their influence in politics and mixing politics and religion. for example, the religious parties acting like whores and selling there vote to the highest bidder, who ever offered more money to yeshivas etc.
In addition getting preferred treatment, exemptions etc. that they do not deserve.

I wonder if Meyer and Chnyock would condemn the likes of kolco etc.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Even if there is one, only one , incident of abuse in the chareidi community, it concerns us all. The well-being of all Jews should be of concern- chareidi, chiloni, MO, whatever. Plus, there is the chillul Hashem factor if someone visibly Jewish perpetrates this garbadge.

I may not care for the chareidi hashkafah, but I don't want ANY child harmed, esp. a Jewish child- one of the family.

But in order to be effective, cultural considerations have to be brought into play.

[formely frum]

"But in order to be effective, cultural considerations have to be brought into play. "

true however, what to do about Mosser this is always there and it seems many cannot get passed that

[Yochanan Lavie]

Formerly: I wish I knew. We need better rabbinic leadership to handle that one. This is not Poland or Czarist Russia, and the gov't isn't out to get us.

[steve]

Plus the halacha regarding messira does not apply to child molesters and abusers. Anyone that thinks there is an issue of messira is a chassid shoteh. It is a chiyuv to report such criminals.

[formely frum]

Formerly: I wish I knew. We need better rabbinic leadership to handle that one. This is not Poland or Czarist Russia, and the gov't isn't out to get us.

That is very true, (the reason the degree was made to begin with) but where will one find a rov with the guts to say something like that?

Then again they might not want to do that, since many times, when they or some big money guys, or yeshivas get caught, they always bring that up so no one will testify against them, their children or associates. This excuse was used when I was in yeshiva and many Yeshivas got caught scamming the government.

As a matter of fact one Judge said to a Rov's son, interesting your religion does not prohibit stealing but mosser is very forbidden. Funny, I never learned that in Hebrew school.

Mosser is a cop out, any intelligent person who learned halacha would know that. I did even when i was a heridie learning in Bais Medresh in my younger years. I challenged a few of the rabbis to show me, where it says if a yid did steal, and you know did the wrong doing, and you where called to testify, where does it say that mosser applies. I never got an answer, they just called a me a wise guy. I guess they said that, since the quote of the judge was in all the newspapers.

Mosser was instituted to protect innocent Jews, and not as an excuse, to protect criminals, molesters, and all type of drek.

Unfortunately, I realized many years ago,
logic and religioun is like water and oil, they don't mix.

Maybe one day, a hard nosed, tough as nail, honest heridie rov, with big balls with have it in him, to confront this matter head on. However, i am not a big believer in fantasies.

[Yochanan Lavie]

This moser stuff is like the "Stop Snitching" movement you see on the streets. But of course "WE" would never behave like "THEM."

[rebitzman]

++This web site never trashes the non frum.++

Are you saying the frum need help trashing the non-frum? That hasn't been my experience in dealing with them.

[rebitzman]

++Not everyone takes meds like you do.++

Wow! What a devastating comeback!

Did your mommy help you write it?

[Ariel Sokolovsky www.Moshiach.ws]

B"H
Change needs to be imposed on haredim from the outside, but in a way that lets haredi leaders take credit for it.

The Israeli government must empower the leadership of various chareidi communities to
impose fines and other punishments on their members who voluntarily join them.
It should give people the right to opt out of the community in leu of complying.
By doing this the leadership of the Chareidi communities will have tools to enforce it's own moral code on its members including punishing/expelling the molesters and the like. The leadership of the chareidim must have an incentive for getting into such cases and legal tools to be able to resolve them in house.
In the current situation they gain little by publicizing the scandal like this.
The family of the victim becomes upset at the diminished shiduch prospects, the secular newspapers pounce on the community trying to prove that it is no better than the rest of the society and community leadership is criticized internally for publicizing the issue creating a "chilul Hashem".
What needs to happen to as you say have haredi leaders to be able to take credit for solving such cases , to give them legal tools to punish the offenders internally and or to set up special units of the police/social services staffed by frum people or at least people who respect religion and chareidim enough to avoid trying to secularize the offenders or the victims as they are trying to treat/rehabilitate them.

[steve]

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz is one of a few haredi rabbis that have come out publicly and stated that a molester has a din of "rodef":

http://www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/ArticleDetails.cfm?Book_ID=958&ThisGroup_ID=272&ID=Newest&Type=Article

When are we going to finally realize that the molesters and abusers in our community are rodfim and evil monsters that must be reported, arrested, and l’maan Hashem locked up with the key thrown away?

[rebitzman]

++The Israeli government must empower the leadership of various chareidi communities++

Just the opposite - they need to be stripped of all power - so that the secular courts can do their job.

[formely frum]

To Ariel;

How would that work, would every type of ethnicity have their out court, fine, system. Christians would want a court system of their own so would Muslims. and what about when A heridie does something against a non-frum person?

No the herdies community rabbis can deal
punish people in their community when the issue is of a religious nature,(not violating any secular laws) otherwise the secular courts will do.

Or, maybe we can give the heridiem a piece of land to create a country of their own. Of course, they will have to agree and be willing to protect themselves against attacks from Arabs and others,(of course no protection would be needed, the boys/men learning Torah would be all the protection needed, stupid me for thinking they would need protection) not get any money from the Israeli government so boys can sit and learn Torah, and or have 7+ children.

Then and only then can they run their own court system. The community can then deal with the drek from their society, without worrying about being a mosser. They can close the country on shabbos and create a Jewish country like Iran. Start up money, can come from The World Bank.

I wonder how long they will last, not having the non-from people bail them out?

[yudel]

The irony is not lost on me. No blame here except the apologist with his shameful words but let me clue you in a little bit deeper.
Remember this. All this reporting here is laudible period. However what you are not aware is that the problem of sex abuse in the Charedi world is far worse than any of you report from any media source.
For those of us who work in the dark worlds it is clear that well over twenty per cent of mothers and kids experience some form of abuse. In truth the number is higher in some chassidic enclaves.
Victims do not in general talk to outsiders unless said outsiders are cleared as good peoples. No it is does matter if the individual is frum or not. Ability to heal wounds and extract at times entire familes has a referral network that is word of mouth and underground. However all those involved are qualified therapists or rabbeium who have toiled in the fields.

Truth is ...this is a horror story. A story that is a real tale and is not going to go away. It is and i know this will sound ridiculous but it is far beyond what any of you I believe can imagine.

The vast majority of people who are willing to take the risk to help do not ask for finacial renumeration.

Let's wait to see how the apologists who protect predators and are often predators themselves chew on this posting.

[rebitzman]

yudel?

Him or her?

[steven]

All my children were raped in orthodox foster care (I won't name names but in New York you can figure out there is only one) and finally placed in the care of their mother and step father (a convicted child rapist) who raped his own daughters. I was at that time going through a surealistic nightmere. The Step father and mother are outstanding members of the Boston Chasidim. I am just some loser who my ex wife did not want because i learnt Kabalah and Talmud all day and did not work. (The orthodox rabbis in LA told her to get rid of me. Even the hhead of the Lakewood KOllel. I asked him arent you learning all day and you dont work? He said we are asronauts.) The first time I went to court to recuse my children from foster care I discovered lawyers fromm almost every Orthodox Jewsih organization in New York (About ten to tweenty --the courtroom was filled with them) in the court room all determined to keep my children away from me. I was in court every week fo a year trying to do something. But no sucess. Until this day I don't know what it was about me they did not like. My laywer said it was my clothes. Before that I had been in Israel and spent my time learning Torah.

[Yudel is Full of Shit]

Yudel,
Whom do you think you are kidding.

You have no statistics to back up your so called "20 percent".

Yudel said:
For those of us who work in the dark worlds it is clear that well over twenty per cent of mothers and kids experience some form of abuse. In truth the number is higher in some chassidic enclaves.

[David Bar-Magen]

Shmarya: To give credit where credit is due, I must thank you for writing an unbiased article that didn't discount the grassroots change that IS occuring--while also not attributing undue fanfare to it, as we once discussed.

I do indeed maintain hope that the inclination to publicize sexual abuse will gain enough momentum to be more than just an inclination.

That being the case, I think I'd be remiss not to mention something I've learned while speaking to several childhood victims of molestation (by other rebbeim, not by Kolko). Evidently, the "heimish" approach to chinuch banim involves a lot more physicality and trespassing of personal territory than normative education.

Rebbeim often kiss their talmidim and pat them on the back, and this is usually done in a fatherly fashion. Nevertheless, it's easy to understand how such behavior could (and has) become grooming-oriented.

I myself remember, as a little boy, being physically carried out of the classroom by a rebbe for misbehaving.

Not that this tidbit of information solves any major questions, but it does behoove us to examine why yeshivas allow physical contact between teacher and student such acceptance.

[steve]

David,

"Al Tigu Bimshichai"-Tehilim 105:15
"Bimshichai..Ellu Tinokos Shel Bais Rabban"-Maseches Shabbos 119b

Literal meaning, "Do not touch my anointed ones!". The gemara in Shabbos says that the anointed ones are the schoolchildren. Rashi explains that the children are regarded as "anointed ones" because it was customary to anoint them with oils (perfumes). What part of this don't the "heimishe" rebbeim understand?

The rest of the passuk goes on to state "Velinviai Al Tareu" meaning do not harm my prophets. The gemara explains that the "prophets" are the rabbis and sages. Today we have a dilemma when we have rabbis that are harming children.

[steve]

With apologies to Pink Floyd and Yochanan Lavie:

We don't need no molestation
We dont need no thought control
No stark hedonism in the boiler room
Rebbes leave them kinderlach alone
Hey! Rebbes! Leave them kinderlach alone!
All in all it's just another speck under the rug.
All in all you're just another speck under the rug.

"Wrong, Do it again!""If you don't eat yer Rubashkin meat, you can't have any kugel. How can you have any kugel if you don't eat yer Rubashkin meat?""You! Yes, you behind the gemara, hold still boychik!

[Yochanan Lavie]

Steve: Yashar koach!

[steve]

Thanks YL. I can use a few pointers from you.

[rebitzman]

++You have no statistics to back up your so called "20 percent".++

Maybe yudel can't - but perhaps I can.

His statement is backed up in an article published in Mishpacha May 4, 2008

[yudel]

Folks go look up definition of moser from the Rambam...apples and oranges...mesira is snitch...you do not rat out yer fellow gang bangers...things though are changing in israel...the address to go to for help is sheri oz in haifa....She is personal numero uno the Gurer Rebbe calls on for help...and chaverim lets here avoid a discussion of the lo tov of Gur. I know mucho..but this has begun and they now work with the police and courts..
this is no way an apologist statement but here and there alittle hope does trickle into the dark worlds