'Elon had sex with male students'
Rabbinical forum: Rabbi Moti Elon admitted to allegation made by more than one person.
BY BEN HARTMAN • Jerusalem PostRabbi Mordechai Elon had sexual relations with male students in the past, a rabbinical forum that works to prevent sexual abuse in the national-religious sector said in a statement on Wednesday
The Takana forum held an emergency meeting Tuesday night to discuss the allegations facing Elon, following an announcement they posted Monday demanding Elon step down from all rabbinical, teaching and community responsibilities, warning he is a threat to the public.
Elon admitted to the acts during the emergency meeting, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a member of Takana told Army Radio Wednesday, adding that the rabbi's confession is documented in the forum's protocol.The statement released by Takana on Wednesday addresses their decision to post the announcement, and says the incidents in question “can only be described as acts of the most severe kind“.
The statement says that after it was founded by a group of leading national religious rabbis and community leaders in 2003, one of the first complaints Takana received was against Rabbi Elon, dealing with allegations of “sexual exploitation by a religious authority.”
After the first complaints were received, Elon was called in for a meeting with Takana and “swore that he had overcome his problems and that the allegations were in the past and there were no additional incidents,” the statement reads.
After a year passed Takana received another complaint, this one reportedly of a more severe nature than the first one, according to the statement.
Takana said that when they looked into the new complaint, it dealt with incidents “of a deliberate sexual nature carried out over an extended period of time” that allegedly took place while the group was holding discussions on the original allegations. The group said that because they then “lost all belief in the words of the rabbi – who concealed these actions while the committee was discussing the original complaint” they came to the conclusion that it was no longer fitting for him to work as a religious teacher or counselor.
According to the statement, the rabbi was then asked to leave his post as head of the Kotel Yeshiva and cancel a number of public appearances and community roles.
The statement says that Elon “has not fulfilled his obligations he agreed to” – in particular the requirement that he stay away from intimate, personal and private meetings with people seeking his advice or religious counsel. The statement says Takana made the decision to go public with the allegations “because they saw no other way to protect the public from possible harm in the future.”
Elon has publicly denied all of the allegations against him and said they derived from one “seriously disturbed” student, adding that the charges constituted “a blood libel, but I am happy that the truth is beginning to emerge."
Takana Chairman Yehudit Shilat told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that claims made that the allegations against Elon were solely the result of a single disgruntled student or someone with a personal vendetta against the rabbi were “absolutely false.”
Shilat, who said she hadn’t slept over the past 55 hours, would not comment on the number of complaints received against Elon nor the severity of them, saying the organization still needed more time to determine how many of them have any basis.
According to a statement posted by Takana Wednesday, the group was reluctant to publicize the matter in order to “protect the complainants.”
Shilat said this was in order to protect the privacy of the families of the complainants, a desire that was later outweighed by the public security concerns that prompted the posting of Monday’s announcement.
Shilat said that the publication of the allegations has been met by “sadness and anger” in the national religious community, but the organization’s principal concerns were for the torah and the community.
Here is the Ha'aretz report:
Rabbi Elon accused of 'long-term' sexual relationship with student
By Yair Ettinger • Ha'aretzTakana, the group that published allegations against Rabbi Mordechai Elon of sexually exploiting his students, said it did so because of "a long-term relationship that was clearly of a sexual nature."
Elon yesterday began to form a defense team to deal with the allegations and the possibility of criminal proceedings resulting from them.
Meanwhile, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, a leading figure in religious Zionist circles, and a member of Takana, a group that seeks to root out sexual exploitation by authority figures in the Orthodox community, said a relative of Elon's had threatened his life.
Lichtenstein told his students at Har Etzion Yeshiva in the Gush Etzion town of Alon Shvut, that the person "said he would hurt me in every way he could."
Takana yesterday released a position paper with more information in the form of questions and answers, following queries to its members about their conduct in the matter.
"The affair was made public now because we had become increasingly concerned that we had no other way to protect the public from the possibility of more harm," the document states. The rabbis said they had to go public because "Rabbi Elon did not follow the restrictions imposed on him, particularly in the area of personal relationships."
The group said that when the first claims of sexual exploitation by the rabbi came to light, they included "the most serious acts that cannot be interpreted any other way." However, the forum's decision to force Elon to retire from public and educational life and impose restrictions on him came after the members realized, a year later, there was "another complaint more severe than the first." The committee dealing with the matter said it was shocked to discover the second complaint was made while it was deliberating the first one.
The committee also presented details of the restrictions imposed on Elon: Immediately after receiving the first complaint, Elon was asked not to be alone with a man. However, "the committee lost faith in statements by the rabbi, who concealed his acts during deliberation on the first complaint," and further restrictions were therefore imposed "that would distance him from the possibility of hurting anyone else in the future." He was forced to step down as head of Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem and from other public positions. The forum said his move to the north was not "on its initiative."
In contrast to Takana's statement, Elon says he refused the committee's demand that he sign a document. He told Haaretz through an associate that he had only given the committee a letter in which he explained that he was stepping down from his posts because he had been "compelled" to do so.
Yesterday, the day after Elon said he accepted "the torments with love," his associates limited their public statements after an attorney was hired following Elon's consultations with relatives, including his two brothers, former MK Binyamin Elon and Judge Yosef Elon.
Rabbi Lichtenstein now says the death threat was only a threat to take legal action against him. But people who heard his talk seemed to have understood the threat to be physical.