Orthodox Video Silent on Reporting Sexual Abuse to Police
“The focus of that video was to alert the community to the problem,” Twerski said. “It’s a complex question of who has to report, and who is a mandated reporter. I’m not sure we could do it in that video.”
Orthodox Video Silent on Reporting Sexual Abuse to Police
By Rebecca Dube, The Forward
A government-funded video made by one of New York’s largest Orthodox social service agencies — touted as its guide for dealing with child sexual abuse — makes no mention of abuse as a crime to be reported to police.
Critics say the video raises questions about Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, which is heavily supported by taxpayers and deeply involved in the Brooklyn district attorney’s efforts surrounding child sexual abuse in ultra-traditional Orthodox Jewish communities. Some Orthodox leaders, those critics say, including those at Ohel, have tried wrongly to handle sexual abuse within the community, excluding secular law enforcement authorities — leading to abuse being covered up and cases of pedophiles remaining free to molest more children.
“The only way to begin dealing with this issue is to begin reporting any incidents of sexual abuse directly to the authorities,” said Lonnie Soury, spokesman for Survivors for Justice, a group of Orthodox sexual abuse survivors. “Any organization that advocates anything but that is doing so at the expense of children’s health.”
The Ohel DVD calls the phenomenon of child sexual abuse in the Jewish community a shande, meaning a scandal or shame, and urges victims and their families to seek counseling. It warns schools that they are responsible “to do everything, by all means,” about the abuse. And it instructs parents to “do whatever you can to make sure that your child is never put into that position again.”
“What we want to do is evoke action,” declares Ohel CEO David Mandel at the video’s conclusion.
But the word “police” is not spoken once during the 10-minute video, titled “Ignorance Is Not Bliss.” Nor is sexual abuse ever described as a criminal act. None of the speakers suggests calling 911, city or state child welfare services, or any other secular authority. The DVD, produced in 2004 and updated in 2007, according to its copyright notice, is freely distributed as a resource for survivors, parents, educators and community leaders.
The Brooklyn-based Ohel, a leading social services agency serving the Jewish community, defends the video.
“This specific video, ‘Ignorance Is Not Bliss,’ which was produced some eight years ago, is not about the logistics of how to report, or who to report to,” said Ohel spokesman Derek Saker, who responded to questions from the Forward in an e-mail. “Rather it was developed as an educational and informational tool for the community, to raise awareness of such shocking abuse, communicate an understanding of what such abuse is, how it affects so many, and its consequences on victims and families.”
Mandel refers regularly to the DVD as a resource for people who want to know what to do about child sexual abuse; most recently, in a full-page advertisement published May 13 in The Jewish Week, the organization listed watching the video as a “practical suggestion” for community members who want to take action against abuse.
The video begins with testimony from survivors of child sexual abuse and the mothers of two victims, describing the devastating impact of the abuse. The presentation then segues into various community leaders explaining why it is important not to shame sexual abuse survivors but to bring their stories out into the light and stop sexual predators.
Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, a highly respected rosh yeshiva at the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, says in the video, “For victims, I would say that it is their duty… and a mitzvah, to go and reveal their stories.”
But the video never specifies to whom the victims should reveal their stories, or what responsibility adults have to report suspected abuse to law enforcement authorities.
The mother of a 15-year-old boy who was molested, whose story is held up as an example, says that she told community members about the molestation because “I was not going to let this man get away with it.”
“I didn’t treat it like it’s a secret, because the molesters, this is what they thrive on,” she says. “They think everyone should just keep it a secret.”
The woman is not identified, and she’s filmed behind a screen to hide her face. She makes no mention of calling police, or sending the molester to prison — the only surefire way to stop a pedophile from victimizing more children.
Aaron Twerski, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and a national expert on tort law, says in the video, “Every case that exists is a tragedy, and the fact that one molester can affect so many people makes this a problem that we just can’t look away from.”
Twerski does not suggest any legal remedies to the problem.
Contacted by the Forward, Twerski said that reporting abuse to police is a complex issue that could not be fully raised in the 10-minute video.
“The focus of that video was to alert the community to the problem,” Twerski said. “It’s a complex question of who has to report, and who is a mandated reporter. I’m not sure we could do it in that video.”
While the legal intricacies around mandated reporting may indeed be complex, the moral obligation of ordinary citizens is clear, Soury said: Report suspected child sexual abuse to authorities.
“It’s like someone breaking into your house and hurting you — should that be handled in the community?” Soury said. “No, you call 911 when there’s a crime.”
Soury said that efforts to deal with pedophiles within the religious community have failed because rabbis, principals and other community leaders are not equipped to investigate, prosecute and punish serious crimes. “The community cannot handle it. The community is not law enforcement,” Soury said. “These are terrible crimes against children.”
This is not the first time a video has raised questions about Ohel’s commitment to reporting abuse. Mandel was videotaped speaking at a February 2008 workshop in Baltimore about sexual abuse, during which he seemed to suggest ways to avoid reporting incidents of sexual abuse.
In a response to a question about a father molesting his child, Mandel said, “One of the ways we advise the family to handle this is — for the protection of the family and so that the case does not have to become reportable to authorities, which is a whole separate conversation — we strongly advise and sometimes make a statement that the father needs to leave the house, period.”
A video of his remarks was posted on YouTube by The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based Jewish group fighting against child sexual abuse. At the end of Mandel’s remarks, an unidentified person in the audience shouts out, “What about calling Child Protection [a state agency]?” Mandel ignores the question.
Ohel’s response to child sexual abuse is not just an issue for the Orthodox community; it’s also a matter of taxpayer concern. Ohel runs a large and successful foster care program (ranked No. 1 in New York in 2006), and subsists mainly on government funding. In 2006, the most recent year for which tax documents are publicly available, Ohel received $38 million in taxpayer money, 89% of its total revenue.
The “Ignorance Is Not Bliss” video was produced with a grant from the New York State Office of Mental Health. Spokeswoman Jill Daniels said the amount of monitoring by her agency varies when it funds projects such as Ohel’s, and that she didn’t know how involved the agency had been in the video’s production. Daniels did say her agency’s policy is that anyone who suspects child abuse of any kind should report it to authorities.
Earlier this year, Ohel was selected by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office as a partner in its Kol Tzedek hot line, which is aimed at encouraging Orthodox Jewish victims to report abuse to authorities. Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said he hadn’t seen the “Ignorance Is Not Bliss” video but said that District Attorney Charles Hynes has a good working relationship with Ohel.
“We encourage anyone with knowledge of a crime to call the police. That’s all I’ll say about that,” Schmetterer said.
One unusual aspect of Ohel’s video is that it features an interview with a confessed child molester who speaks behind a screen to shield his identity. The pedophile says that his tactic for molesting children was to ask them how much they weighed, then pick them up to “test” their weight as an excuse to fondle them.
“I’m only one person, but look at all the people I messed up,” the molester says.
The Forward asked Ohel’s Saker what happened to this pedophile and whether his abuse of numerous children in the Orthodox community was ever reported to police. Saker did not respond to the question.
[Hat Tip: The Other DK.]
What a pathetic organization. Mandel and Ohel would be better off shutting up and shutting down for their own good and for the good of the community.
Posted by: steve | June 03, 2009 at 08:38 PM
"an unidentified person in the audience shouts out, “What about calling Child Protection [a state agency]?” Mandel ignores the question.
The individual who asked David Mandel the question was me (Vicki Polin). After his presentation was over I went up to him and asked again. He turned his back and walked away. Each state in the US has a child protection hot-line. According to the law of the land anyone who suspects a child is at risk of harm may make a hot-line report. I've been told by several different rabbonim, that all adults are mandated reporters.
(January,2000) At a conference of Orthodox mental health professionals, Rabbi David Cohen, urged all communities to publicize the danger, as one is not permitted to endanger an entire community for the sake of an individual. Even monitoring of the molester has proven ineffective, not only according to mental health research, but according to Rabbi Cohen, as stated in the Talmudic admonition "Ain Apotropos L'arayot" (there is no monitoring of one guilty of sexual offenses.).
Another speaker at the conference quoted the late eminent authority "Chafetz Chaim" that with regard to the possibility of mental harm, not only is one permitted, but mandated to apprise the community as this does not constitute Lashon Hara (evil talk). So telling becomes a protective community measure.
Posted by: Vicki Polin, | June 03, 2009 at 10:59 PM
Latest Yankie Horowitz Screed !!! And he is supposedly one of the "good guys".
Please help us Shmarya !! I'm sitting here literally crying over this latest column. I'm sorry that i couldn't help you with your latest fundraising campaign. Things aren't going so well with me. But after reading this article, i'm going to send you $100 within the next day or two no matter how hard it hurts. You are our only hope...
Not only is he against Markey but he slams the people that are "fearful of posting their real names". That's an out and out threat to people like myself and others who are part of the community and have children in the yeshivos and will suffer the consequences if we come out !!!
I'm sure you can find many holes in his piece. But this comment that i quoted really says it all. The stark evil of the charedei leadership (and it's lackeys like horowitz) should be crystal clear to everyone now. Not only is he parroting their views, he is also copying the way they talk and threaten !!
I know Horowitz personally and regretfully he will have to be taken down as well. People thought you were too tough on him (including myself) when he wrote the article against Markey. But sadly you were right.
Markey 2.0 - Improving Legislation to Provide More Gain and Cause Less Pain
by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz
The debate over the Markey Bill has been framed in the starkest terms on the Internet and in the street: If you are for the bill, you are for children; if you are opposed to it, you are a horrible person who is protecting child molesters.
In the weeks since I wrote an op-ed essay for The Jewish Press (“Walking the Dog Backwards,” May 8) declaring my opposition to the bill “as it is currently written” (those words were added to indicate my openness to amended versions of the bill), I have been subjected to a torrent of e-mails and blog postings calling me, among other things, a wimp, a mindless twit who blindly follows daas Torah, a turncoat, a lackey for the rabbis, and a biased person who works for the Agudah.
One cannot help but notice the irony here: Individuals fearful of posting their real names on blogs accuse me of cowardice for voicing my against-the-grain opinion and ridicule me for standing with our gedolim and supporting their position -- while at the same time these individuals treat the Markey Bill with fawning reverence, implying that no one dare oppose a single word of it or risk getting thrown under the bus.
“Da’as Markey” has become the new da’as Torah – with no compromise even brought up for discussion, as is the case with all pieces of legislation.
These columns represent a principled stand of mine, opposing the current version of the bill as it is a diversion from the broader agenda of child safety and a material threat to our mosdos overall. All this talk (and bickering) about Markey is draining the oxygen out of what should be emergency, multi-dimensional, communal efforts to keep our kids safe.
Many of us have been writing and lecturing for years now about the ravages of abuse, buttonholing anyone who would listen and begging everyone to take this issue seriously. L'maan Hashem, now that we've finally captured the attention of the public after all these years, do you think our very first rallying cry should be, “OK, let’s sue yeshivas?”
This is not to say that this particular piece of legislation and the broader move to finally enact laws to enhance child safety should be derailed. Rather, it can easily be amended to Markey 2.0 – a bill that would provide more gain and cause less pain, and I would be honored to work with any interested parties, including Ms. Markey herself, to accomplish that mission. We don’t need to drag our heels or appoint blue-ribbon commissions to examine this matter for months. The issues are straightforward and can be addressed in a short period of time.
The Markey Bill in its present form is indeed too much pain, not enough gain. The bill barely addresses non-school-related abuse, which comprises the vast majority of current cases, nor does it educate children, parents and school personnel in abuse prevention, which is clearly the most effective way to squarely address the abuse issue.
In fact, none of its provisions directly enhance the safety of today’s children. At best, it will trigger the following chain of events: The one-year window will allow for older lawsuits to be brought against private schools, which could result in catastrophic financial verdicts against those schools months or years later, which will frighten schools into doing the right thing and treat abuse prevention seriously.
Why not amend the bill so that it improves abuse prevention directly and immediately?
Another flaw in Markey 1.0 is that its “window” exposes all schools equally to lawsuits – regardless of the measures the current administration is taking to protect today’s students from pedophiles and irrespective of the continuity of school leadership. Let’s say schools A and B are sued for abuse that allegedly took place twenty or thirty years ago. School A is still under the leadership that was in place when the alleged abuse occurred and has done nothing at all to address child safety in the years since. School B went through several leadership changes and recently implemented clear, effective and transparent policies and procedures to keep their students safe. Markey 1.0 unfairly and unwisely treats both schools equally.
Finally, in addition to the inequity in the way Markey 1.0 only targets private schools while ignoring public schools, mentioned in my previous essay, I am deeply concerned about the enormous collateral damage Markey 1.0 can or will cause to our school system. Many have downplayed the potential damage to private schools by pointing to the history of similar legislation in California where the claim is made that no schools there were forced to close.
I recently spent some time in California where I spoke to a number of community leaders and attorneys about this matter – and my discussions served to magnify rather than diminish my concerns about Markey 1.0. (In my next column on this topic I will address the issue of collateral damage to our schools and make the case that comparisons between California and New York are flawed.)
The concerns noted above are not insurmountable, but until they are addressed I will continue to vigorously and vocally oppose the Markey legislation as it is currently written regardless of the consequences. I will also strongly encourage my readers to contact their elected officials and inform them that they wish to see the bill amended to offer more protection for our children and to minimize the exposure of our schools to potentially catastrophic litigation.
I have no fear of standing alone. I’ve stood alone in the past when I wrote about at-risk teens, drug/alcohol use, and child abuse. And I am proud to swim against the tide today, firmly yet humbly supporting the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, shlita, in their stand opposing the Markey Bill in its current form.
We need a far broader approach to abuse prevention with steps taken to immediately protect today’s children from all forms of abuse – school-based or otherwise. We also need to move from the cluster-bomb nature of Markey 1.0 to a laser-guided approach that will reward compliance and reduce the scope of the damages while leaving in place strong laws with real teeth that will protect children from the horrors of abuse.
The old Yiddish expression “Der zate gleibt night der hingiriker,” which expresses the notion that a wealthy person whose belly is full finds it hard to believe the poor man who is soliciting him for a donation to buy food is actually hungry. For all too long many members our community did not believe the abuse victims who were knocking on our doors, starved for our understanding and acknowledgement of their very painful and raw wounds. The incredible ache they are suffering to this very day may be temporarily soothed by the passage of Markey 1.0. But we are really sprinkling small crumbs in their direction since the vast majority of today’s children will remain unprotected by the legislation as currently constituted.
Nothing less than a paradigm shift in our treatment of abuse – one that Markey 2.0 can provide – will signal to them that they are welcome at our tables and will, more than anything else, serve as a small step in apologizing to them for missing the signals and dismissing their cries.
We can work together to immediately craft fair, meaningful, broad-based legislation with input from all involved parties – legislation that finally, after all these years, all the drug overdoses and suicides, after all the shattered lives, make our community a safer place for our children and grandchildren.
Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, whose parsha and parenting columns appear regularly in The Jewish Press, is founder and dean of Yeshiva Darchei Noam and founder and director of Agudath Israel's Project Y.E.S.
Posted by: MalachHamovies | June 03, 2009 at 11:08 PM
Interesting
They are more afraid of gentiles then child rapist.
Posted by: radical feminist | June 03, 2009 at 11:41 PM
yankel didn't write this. this was written for him. it was stuffed down his throat.
Posted by: same ol parsha | June 04, 2009 at 02:52 AM
Conditions for apologizing !!!!
SMALL STEPS !!!!
Again, this is the face of evil.
Nothing less than a paradigm shift in our treatment of abuse – one that Markey 2.0 can provide – will signal to them that they are welcome at our tables and will, more than anything else, serve as a small step in apologizing to them for missing the signals and dismissing their cries.
Posted by: MalachHamovies | June 04, 2009 at 10:50 AM