"We Are Awash In Mesirah [Informing]"

The Schick spills forth again. Day school and yeshiva grade school, middle school and high school expert and consultant for the Avi Chai Foundation Marvin Schick explains why newspapers, blogs and sometimes even police and prosecutors expose bad Orthodox/haredi behavior – Jews rat out other Jews and feed the "anti-Orthodox" agendas of the papers, blogs, cops and DAs. And this is especially true, Schick seems to think, when the crime or misbehavior being outed has do with various types of abuse of students in Jewish schools.

 

The Jewish Week and the Modern Orthodox
By Marvin Schick• Cross-Currents

Those of us who read the Jewish Week of New York are certainly familiar with the controversy that has arisen over Gary Rosenblatt’s article three weeks ago strongly attacking Rabbi Aharon Bina, the Rosh Yeshiva of Netiv Aryeh, a Jerusalem yeshiva that caters primarily to students who have graduated Modern Orthodox high schools and have come to Israel to study for a year or two. Rosenblatt’s article has resulted in what apparently is an unprecedented response. In his words, there have been “literally hundreds of comments posted online on our website,” amounting to more than fifty-five printed pages – and that was about a week ago. Here is how I view this matter:

1. The Bina article is but one more example of Rosenblatt’s obsessive bigotry and hatred toward the Orthodox community. There is scarcely an issue of the Jewish Week that does not contain in one way or another at least one or two attacks against Orthodoxy. In the issue in which Rosenblatt describes the Bina controversy there are two other articles hostile to Orthodoxy plus an editorial.

2. When I began to write what became a paid for column in The Jewish Week, I said that my intent was to counteract the newspaper’s hostility toward the Orthodox. I did not succeed, not by a long shot. As is true of all physical and moral diseases, the situation has worsened and The Jewish Week is significantly more hostile these days than it was when I began to write.

3. We do not have to accept entirely Lord Acton’s dictum about power to recognize that there are situations where power corrupts because it is unchallenged. The Jewish Week may be identified in some broad sense as a communal newspaper. It is not. It is controlled totally by one person who brings to nearly each issue his biases and hang-ups. I do not think there is another Jewish publication anywhere which is so bereft of countervailing forces.

4. As I have pointed out more than once, the proclivity and ability of The Jewish Week to attack the Orthodox is predicated in large measure on the wormy network of sources that constantly feed material to Rosenblatt. This is a phenomenon that does not occur in other segments of Jewish life. It is a lamentable aspect of Orthodox Jewish life today. We have in our midst too many people who believe that in order to get even, the path to take is to go to the media or to government. We are awash in mesirah whether or not we are prepared to acknowledge this truth.

5. In the aggregate, Rosenblatt and his newspaper have targeted the charedi sectors of Orthodoxy. There have been very few attacks against the Modern Orthodox. My observation is that when charedim have been attacked by The Jewish Week, too many of an MO orientation have applauded the newspaper. Now that one of their own has been unfairly attacked, there is a huge uproar. Isn’t there a lesson here?

Lets be clear:

1. Schick's "paid for" column in The Jewish Week is an advertisement. It is in no way part of The Jewish Week's editorial content. (The JW has never disclosed who pays for Schick's ads, and neither has Schick.)

2. There are many accusers and witnesses to Rabbi Bina's abusive behavior. Gary Rosenblatt did not make these allegations up out of whole cloth and he did not distort them.

3. Years ago, Rosenblatt exposed Rabbi Baruch Lanner's physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the NCSY students in his care and NCSY's and its parent organization, the Orthodox Union's, decades long coverups of these crimes. Lanner was eventually convicted of sexually abusing students at the day school he taught at and the OU went though a reorganization (of sorts) that basically allowed a couple senior staff to retire without being fired, and put in place some controls to (hopefully) prevent another Lanner from abusing NCSY or OU kids. But lots of people were very upset with Rosenblatt and they condemned him and his paper using the same language Marvin Schick uses today. But Rosenblatt was right, and what he did saved dozens, perhaps hundreds, of kids from abuse.

4. Just like with Lanner, there is much opposition to Rosenblatt's exposé of Rabbi Bina. Most of the opposition comes from people who use the following logic: Rabbi Bina helps lots of kids. He works magic with them. True, sometimes he crosses the line and acts in a way that no rabbi or teacher should. But he does it out of love. And while a very small number of his students my be hurt, the vast majority benefit – they strengthen their commitment to Orthodox Judaism and go on to marry, participate in Orthodox communities, and raise Orthodox Jewish children. Why should we hurt the majority and the growth Orthodox community to protect a tiny minority, most of whom are screw ups anyway?

5. The same logic was used by OU leadership when they protected Lanner for decades. Lanner's kiruv (outreach) was phenomenal, he did great work with the vast majority of the kids he worked with. Why should we remove him? After all, only a very small number of kids ever complained about him and those kids were marginal anyway. Why should we hurt the majority of kids and the growth Orthodox community to protect a tiny minority of kids, most of whom are screwups anyway?

6. Marvin Schick has a long history of asserting that child sexual abuse and related crimes are rare in the Orthodox/haredi community, and of asserting that what little does exist has been brought in from the outside by ba'al teshuvas or converts. He also has a long history of labeling anyone who attempts to seriously cover crimes in Orthodox/haredi communities as antisemites or self-hating Jews. And even the 85 haredi pedophiles Brooklyn's DA claims to have tried to prosecute in the past three years alone haven't changed Schick's mind.

7. Schick also has a history of downplaying (or completely failing to mention) the crimes and misbehavior of his own family, one of who ran a ponzi-like scheme that defrauded investors out of millions of dollars and landed that Schick in prison. But while Schick opines about crime and its lack in his beloved Orthodox/haredi community, or rants against ratting out Jews to police, you'll be hard pressed to find him mentioning his nephew's crimes or other family misbehavior. I'm not referring to crimes committed several generations ago. I'm referring to crimes committed during the past decade.

8. And now we come to the Avi Chai Foundation, which pays Schick to study Jewish day schools and yeshivas and to recommend programs and fixes that would boot enrollment and/or stabalize these schools financially. How can Avi Chai employ a man who has a documented track record of attacking people who expose men who rape, molest or beat Jewish children? How can Avi Chai employ a man who publicly complains about Jews who turn in Jewish criminals to police or who give The Jewish Week or other media documentation of crimes? By keeping Schick on its payroll, Avi Chai is doing exactly what the critics of The Jewish week's exposé of Lanner did – it is saying that it is willing to sacrifice the minority of kids who are hurt in order to keep the majority of kids who are not. By keeping Schick on its payroll, Avi Chai is telling Jewish victims of child sexual abuse that they don't matter, that their pain does not matter, and that their very lives don't matter. To say this discredits Avi Chai and its mission is, I think, an understatement. But it does more than that. It also calls into question the ability of every Avi Chai board member and all its staff to work or serve in positions of authority in the Jewish community in the future – especially positions that involve children or vulnerable adults.

Comments

[the lionroars]

isnt it schicks nephew that stole hundreds of thousands and was facing 30 years until he gave the feds sholom wiess and got eleven

pot calling kettle black

[Yochanan Lavie]

The Schick hits the fan once again.

[Neturey karto forever]

Mesira mesira mesira, oy yoy oy yoyoyoy

v'af al pi she'ismamea, im kol ze emsor oyso

[seymour]

We have in our midst too many people who believe that in order to get even, the path to take is to go to the media or to government.
-----------------------------

of course otherwise nothing get done

[Shalom]

The reason Schick has some sort of unique role at AviChai is because he was hired by the original founder, the late Sanford (Zalman) Bernstein, who became a Baal teshuva at an old age and divorced his first non-Jewish wife, then married a much younger Jewish woman whom he also divorced and with whom he had one daughter. Schick gives a patina of "respectability" to all this with his connections to the Haredi yeshiva world, that does not really look like him anymore either.

Schick's connections in the Haredi world and his talents as a behind the scenes wheeler-dealer and Jewish political/communal fixer have kept him at AviChai. But really they don't need him, he is a liability.

At this point the AviChai Foundation is exactly like the OU that covered for Lanner, and like the Aguda that refused to speak up about the Kolko and Tropper scandals, but at the end of the day, just as the OU pushed out Lanner and the Aguda sat by while Kolko and Tropper were bounced out of their jobs, the Trustees and people at AviChai who know better will get rid of this Schick once and for all and send him on to his "retirement" where he can enjoy pontificating at a nursing home with the other senior citizens whose time has come and gone long ago.

[Jason]

Gary Rosenblatt is a trail-blazing hero of the Jewish community who deserves to be lauded, not criticized. It is a mark of the strength of a community, not a weakness, when it can look critically at itself, its members, and their behavior. The crime lies in covering up for people just because they are co-religionists or co-fanaticists and using outdated concepts like "mesirah" or "loshon hara" to stifle any dissent.

[maven]

Rav Bina as well is technically modern orthodox, certainly not charedi. I guess facts don't matter if you are a "paid editorialist".

[david]

Rag bins i beloved is centrist orthodox.

[Canuck]

I support Dr. Schick's contention that the New York Jewish Week is biased against orthodox Jews and orthodox Judaism. That is certainly legitimate criticism. If you don't believe it, check out any recent edition of that paper. That newspaper simply provides its readership with confirmation of their lifestyle choices, whether it's their unorthodoxy, their lack of religion, or even their having embraced intermarriage. Negative focus on visibly orthodox Jews, assuages their guilty feelings; and it may also reflect embarrassment with non-Jews equating them with those Jews who glaringly look out of place in modern, popular culture.

[Jeff]

Rav Bina as well is technically modern orthodox, certainly not charedi. I guess facts don't matter if you are a "paid editorialist".

Posted by: maven | February 14, 2012 at 06:11 PM

Rag bins i beloved is centrist orthodox.

Posted by: david | February 14, 2012 at 06:40 PM

Steg (whom I've seen here and there in the J-blogosphere for years) left the following comment, with which I think I'd have to agree:

Considering the incident where Rav Bina verbally abused and ostracized a student to the extent that other students wouldn’t count him for a minyan because the student was caught reading a book on evolution (of all things! oh noes! gasp! evolution!), I find it hard to take a claim that Rav Bina is Modern Orthodox seriously. The rabbinic pillars of Torah uMadda, Torah im Derekh Eretz and Torah va’Avoda all taught that the scientific findings of evolutionary biology are neither frightening nor offensive from a Jewish perspective. To ostracize a student for reading about it is incomprehensible to any form of Modern Orthodoxy.

Forget about whether or not one agrees with evolutionary theory. If you ostracize a student for reading a book about it, you have no business calling yourself Modern Orthodox.

[adams]

Canuck- Jewish week just rounds out the playing field. It is the frumma who are always trumpeting how great and so much superior their way of life is to the secular.

Schick is a real Yenta, a non talented
so called Macher. He is not a real Askan, very few are. An Askan gets things done for the community this one is a whiner.

[ah-pee-chorus]

nice piece, shmarya. you hit the nail on the head.

. I do not think there is another Jewish publication anywhere which is so bereft of countervailing forces.

now thats funny! can schick point me to any of the charedi pravda-like rags which have ever written anything positive about other strains of judaism? perhaps a nice article about some great work done by conservative jews? HA !!
and which of them would permit even a paid for ad espousing the viewpoint of a conserv. or reform rabbi ?

[maven]

Jeff, et al. Much like we don't like the charedim invoking the true scotsman argument to define away criminals, we can't redefine Yeshivat HaKotel as charedi because Rav Bina is a poor educator at the very least.

[Allen]

Schick is an old man who needs a forum. He has to go to The Jewish Week of all places! No other decent publicatin would allow his journalistic hatred to spew forth.

[jewishwhistleblower]

Marvin Schick has allowed the abusers to move around quietly. Here are excerpts from his own son Joe's blog (and Joe's comments to same). See my comments at http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/gary_rosenblatt/it_anti_orthodox_seek_safer_community

[BiF]

Bina is innocent until proven guilty. His accusers are adults, not young children. That not one accuser has ever even called the police to file a report speak to their gutless character as men, and not to any flaw in Bina's methodolgy.

Contrast with the Lanner abuse - the accusers were consistent and credible, and police investigations were conducted, the man was tried, and found guilty.

[maven]

BiF, how can you compare? No one is accusing Bina of sexual assault on anyone. Only cruelty in the name of "Judaism".

[A E ANDERSON]

The criticism of Rosenblatt as anti-Orthodox is rather amusing, as he is reputed to be Orthodox himself!

More Blame the Messenger Syndrome, I think.

The media do not bugger little boys in cheder, as much as it would be convenient for haredi apologists and mouthpieces to say so.

Marvin Schick,put that in your pipe and smoke it!

[Nachum]

Here's what I posted there:

1. Marvin Schick does not seem to realize that most Modern Orthodox view Israeli Roshei Yeshiva as somehow not one of “them.” It’s not as if many of them regard this as an “attack” on one of “theirs.”

2. He writes: “My observation is that when charedim have been attacked by The Jewish Week”

Actually, the Jewish Week can be pretty mild on Charedim.

3. He continues: “too many of an MO orientation have applauded the newspaper.”

Can he cite examples, please?

4. A very obvious question: Why has Marvin Schick been taking out paid ads all these years? He’s been griping and the Jewish Week has been laughing all the way to the bank.

[Jeff]

Jeff, et al. Much like we don't like the charedim invoking the true scotsman argument to define away criminals, we can't redefine Yeshivat HaKotel as charedi because Rav Bina is a poor educator at the very least.

Posted by: maven | February 14, 2012 at 09:34 PM

I'm not saying it is. What I am saying is that if he marginalizes (and encourages others to marginalize) a student for reading a book about it, he has no business identifying with Modern Orthodoxy.

[s]

Shmarya- you are so hypocritical! 9 of every 10 articles you claim that haredim hide crimes within the community, then you complain that they rat out the criminals! Anything for a story against haredim??!!

[Jeff]

Shmarya- you are so hypocritical! 9 of every 10 articles you claim that haredim hide crimes within the community, then you complain that they rat out the criminals! Anything for a story against haredim??!!

Posted by: s | February 15, 2012 at 06:51 AM

It's Shick who's complaining about those who "rat out" the criminals.

[reuven s]

his nephew david schick was in hotelisville for at least 6 years the amount of gezaila was millions not hundreds of thousands..ask any of the victims...if only someone was"moser" prior a lot of people would still have their monies ..please!

[Hp]

In the US, the biggest victim of those who hide or protect Orthodox criminals is Orthodox people themselves.

[BiF]

Shmarya has made the comparison between Bina and Lanner - not me. That's a typical tactic employed by self hating juden.

[ultra haredi lite]

Although Shick still does serve a useful purpose in suing Oorah and separating them from some of their ill-gotten gains.

[Yossel]

Doesn't Schick denigrate Jews every week in his private column in the Jewish Week. Let me get this straight it is okay for him to spew but not okay for others.

[Michael Lipkin]

Well said Shmarya.

Here's a (rejected) comment that I sent to Cross Currents...

The only “obsession” I see here is that of Mr. Schick toward the Jewish Week. Mr. Schick’s assertion that, “There have been very few attacks against the Modern Orthodox. My observation is that when charedim have been attacked by The Jewish Week, too many of an MO orientation have applauded the newspaper. Now that one of their own has been unfairly attacked, there is a huge uproar.”, is dubious.

One of the greatest “attacks” by the Jewish Week was its expose of Baruch Lanner; purely a “modern orthodox” issue. Of course, except for a handful of people blinded by Lanner’s charisma, this was viewed by the MO community as a liberating favor, quite the opposite of an attack. With the help of Rabbi Blau and many others, Gary Rosenblatt had the guts to reveal a case of abuse and cover up by a major modern orthodox institution and the Rabbinic establishment that had been ongoing for 25 years! And while R. Bina’s behavior doesn’t seem to approach the criminal level of Lanner’s, there has also been much support for this expose from those who are not enamored of the subject.

Unfortunately, Rabbi Schick’s reaction is representative of a wider Chareidi attitude toward media criticism which we are seeing with the recent events in Israel. To more objective observers, Chareidi and not, the Israeli media has, by and large, focused on areas of friction between some of the ultraorthodox and the broader Israeli society. Rather than introspect and appreciate the airing of important issues, many Chareidim, and the Chareidi media in particular, have circled the wagons with, often shrill, accusations of “attack” to deflect the issues.

Here, Mr. Schick is attempting to bring modern orthodoxy into that circle of wagons with his ongoing tirade against the Jewish Week. I, for one, am not biting. And that goes for most people I know, including those who hold a favorable view of R. Bina.