Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, outside his Brooklyn home. (Photo: Christopher Anderson)
The Rabbi Yehuda Kolko child sexual abuse lawsuit has hit the big time, and so has the man most responsible for bringing this creep to justice: Unorthodox Jew. The New York Magazine has a long feature on man-on-boy sex abuse in the haredi community.
Highlights:
1. Rabbi Pinchas Scheinberg, a now senile 'gadol' living in Jerusalem, was brought in during an earlier crisis in the 1980s by Kolko's backers to scare off the accusers and their families. Scheinberg allegedly told the families that, if Rabbi Kolko did not penetrate your son, it is not abuse according to the Torah, and pulicly exposing Rabbi Kolko violates the laws of lashon hara, and you must not do it.
2. Abuse is so widespread that Hella Winston, author of the Unchosen, met dozens of haredi men who were abused or who knew someone who was.
3. Gedolim, including Rabbi Scheinberg, have allegedly been covering up this abuse for years.
4. Both Agudath Yisroel and Torah U'Mesora are alleged to be part of the coverup.
5. The Brooklyn Attorney General defers to local beit dins, and fails to prosecute haredi abusers.
6.The beit dins themselves are corrupt.
7. Chabad advocates for sexual abuse victims have been prevented from making presentations in Chabad yeshivot.
8. A Chabad man-on-boy abuse victim is quoted in the article.
9. The laws of mesira (informing), lashon hara (talebearing) and hillul Hashem (desecration of God's name) are frequently cited by rabbis, including gedolim, to silence accusers and victims.
10. The community does not protect its children from predatory rabbis.
I ask readers in Jerusalem to do the right thing. Go to Rabbi Scheinberg's yeshiva in Mattersdorf and demand an answer. Anything less than a complete apology, spit in the senile bastard's face.
Kol HaKavod to UnOrthodoxJew for risking everything to bring down these creeps. You have saved lives.
Please read the entire article before posting any comments. Thank you.