In essence, the haredi rabbis supporting convicted child rapist Rabbi Israel Weingarten – who raped and sodomized his own daughter – claim the judge was influenced by politics, the trial was "fixed," Wengarten's accusers are no longer haredi or Orthodox (or as one Weingarten family member put it, are not even human) and therefore should not be believed, and that the rabbis who say Weingarten is innocent are "bigger" than the rabbis who say he's guilty.
Tonight's Talkline show with Zev Brenner was paid for by a group of Monsey-area haredi rabbis who are supporting convcited child rapist Rabbi Israel Weingarten.
As you listen to the audio, remember that Rabbi "William" Handler is really Rabbi Hillel Handler of Borough Park. Handler often functions as a Neturei Karta anti-Zionist spokesperson at demonstrations against Israel.
Handler is an extremist who has no firsthand knowledge of the case and who did not reach out to the victim or to any other Weingarten family members who say the sexual abuse took place.
Also keep in mind that the Monsey rabbis did not reach out to the victim or to any other Weingarten family members who say the sexual abuse took place.
That the rabbis were too cowardly to appear on air themselves, and instead sent this obnoxious hack to represent them, says much about them – as does their failure to speak to the victim and to others in the family who were sexually abused by Israel Weingarten (plese see below).
Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss (of Jerusalem riots infamy) features prominently in this story. Weiss supports Weingarten because Weiss holds that a minor's testimony is invalid and that a woman's testimony is invalid. Therefore the girl's testimony about the rapes was not accepted by him on these procedural grounds. (This also means that the vast majority of sexual abuse cases brought before him are decided in favor of the rapist.)
In the second part part of the audio you'll hear various family members call and support or attack Weingarten. One, Weingarten's younger brother Leo, talks about being molested by Israel Weingarten as a child. A Weingarten niece also called in and said she walked in on Weingarten and his daughter naked in bed in 1998.
In both of these cases, Handler attacks the caller.
Handler says he was a student of Rabbi Avigdor Miller, a sick little man with a very loud obnoxious mouth who, among many other horrible things, blamed the Holocaust on non-Orthodox Jews – as Handler himself admits on air. Just after John Lennon was shot, Miller was asked about the shooting. He responded, "The bullet came too late."
Noted haredi nut-job Rabbi Yehuda Levin is also a student of Miller.
That said, decide what you believe based on the evidence.
Click on the gray bars below to listen.
Here is a link to the Stauber letter mentioned in the audio. You'll note Stauber says clearly that the abused daughter did not come to him to tell her story. He, as the principal of her school, initiated the questions based on what he had heard about the abuse from a community member and the evidence of physical abuse he saw, and that Stauber's description of the girl's behavior is consistent with the behavior of many victims of child sexual abuse.