Accused voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel allegedly encouraged sexually active single Orthodox Jewish women from the Washington, DC-Baltimore area to use the mikva (ritual bath) he controlled – the mikvah in which Freundel allegedly had a hidden video camera positioned in the showers.
Above: Rabbi Barry Freundel
Alleged Voyeur Rabbi Encouraged Single Jewish Women To Use His Mikva, Source Says
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Accused voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel encouraged single Orthodox Jewish women from the Washington, DC-Baltimore area to use the mikva (ritual bath) he controlled, a former area source told FailedMessiah.com.
Single Jewish women would not normally use a mikvah.
Jewish women must under halakha (Orthodox Jewish law) ritually purify themselves in a mikvah after their menses and before having sexual relations. Halakha as it is now understood prohibits premarital sex, and rabbis (and Orthodox and haredi mikvahs) around the world generally bar single women for that reason.
But under halakha, the souls of both the woman who has not immersed and her male sexual partner are cut off from the Jewish people for all eternity, and after 12 months of intense suffering in gehinnom (purgatory; hell) after death, those souls are completely destroyed and exist no more. In contrast, the souls of Jews who do not transgress this very severe law live eternally.
Ostensibly for those reasons, Freundel allegedly encouraged sexually active single Jewish women to ritually purify themselves after their menses and before having sexual relations, just as married Jewish women are required to do under halakha. The mikvah located next to Kesher Israel, Freundel’s synagogue in the Georgetown area of Washington, allegedly became the go-to destination for young sexually active single Jewish women in the region as a result.
Freundel was arrested two weeks ago after police found a small videocamera and data storage device hidden in a clock radio in the shower room of that mikvah. The device contained video of six naked women preparing to immerse in the mikvah.
Police subsequently found more miniature hidden recording devices and data storage devices at Freundel’s home and at his office at Towson University near Baltimore, where he taught.
Freundel also encouraged female Towson students to immerse in his mikvah when they took his guided tours of the adjoining synagogue.
Freundel was for many years the Rabbinical Council of America's point man of coversion to Judaism and headed the committee that wrote the organizations converion standards and practices.
But several women who converted to Judaism under Freundel have spoken publicly about Freundel’s frequent remarks about their youth and their beauty, and man say that Freundel encouraged them to take practice dunks in the mikvah, so that when the time came for their conversion to be finalized, they would know how to immerse properly as part of the conversion ceremony.
It is thought that Freundel secretly video recorded more than 100 naked women showering and preparing to immerse.
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