Audio: Rabbi Yosef Blau, Mark Meyer Appel, Max Gold and Abraham Kiss speak about convicted child rapist Rabbi Yisroel Weingarten on Zev Brenner's Talkline radio show.
The show was sponsored by Appel's Voices for Justice organization. I must say that Appel's statement implying that "all the Chabad rabbis" and Igud HaRabbonim, and the OU support his work and support calling police or child protective services when child abuse is alleged is, to say the least, overly optimistic.
The first 15 seconds or so of part 3 are missing. The speaker is Rabbi Yosef Blau of Yeshiva University, and he says – as you can hear clearly on the audio – that applying the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, ransoming captives, to convicted child rapists in a democracy like America is a misapplication of the halakha and of the mitzvah.
Please click the gray bars to listen: