This is exactly the argument made by critics and by victims' advocates, and the same argument Agudath Israel of America and other haredi leaders have attacked as antisemitic.
And now uber-Jew and NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind is saying exactly the same thing, as…
…The Jewish Star reports:
…Another therapist, who requested anonymity, said that he had received threats because of his activities concerning child abuse in the Orthodox community. He is Orthodox, lives and works in the Five Towns and treats patients across the spectrum from Charedi to Modern Orthodox. His children were threatened, he said, with not being accepted into yeshivot or for shidduchim, and he was threatened with financial ruin.
“There is this situation where there is this virtue police trying to dampen down reality and say it doesn’t exist,” the man told The Jewish Star.
Reformers in the Orthodox community so far have faced an uphill battle.
“There is a problem in our community in which people who try to address issues that the community has swept under the carpet are intimidated by a sensibility … that anyone who tries to change the status quo is a threat,” said Dr. Asher Lipner, a psychologist who works in the frum community.
The mission of the new taskforce is to collect information concerning suspected child molesters and to make that information available to schools. The taskforce also intended to develop a protocol to deal with sexual abuse in the Orthodox community. In Rabbi Twerski’s words, the mission was to develop a policy “sensitive to secular law [and] to Shulchan Aruch,” that could be presented to the rabbinical leadership.
Hikind said that Rabbi Twerski would be replaced.
According to Hikind, a sexual abuse hotline he set up has been inundated with callers telling stories of abuse inside the Orthodox community –– perpetrated, the callers say, by rabbis, teachers and community members. His office has also met with accused pedophiles, since most victims in the Brooklyn community are afraid to press charges for fear of social stigma.
“If you’re a child molester, the best community to come to is Borough Park, Flatbush, Lakewood or Monroe. Your chances of being arrested are much smaller because people don’t press charges,” Hikind said. “Even if a rabbi gets kicked out of a yeshiva for doing things, he goes to another yeshiva. No one does anything about it.”…
Jewish Star: In wake of Twerski resignation, Dov Hikind will name new leader to task force on abuse
Jewish Week: More Haredi Rabbi-on-Boy Sexual Abuse Surfaces
Shame, not threats, led to resignation.pdf
[Hat Tip: JWB.]