Des centaines de rabbins pédophiles et incestueux

12 juin 2019

Cette recension était disponible sur le site « the awereness center », qui était administré par Vicki Polin, une femme juive qui avait été elle-même victime d’abus sexuels dans sa propre famille. Puisque le site a disparu, nous republions ici cette longue liste, enregistrée en 2008.

On comprend un peu mieux pourquoi la psychanalyse est née dans le cerveau d’un Sigmund Freud, qui était issu d’une famille juive hassidique. Mais nous ne nous étendrons pas ici sur ce sujet, que nous avons déjà Traité dans nos livres Psychanalyse du judaïsme (2006, troisième partie), Le Fanatisme juif (2007, troisième partie), Le Miroir du judaïsme (2009, troisième partie), et l’antisémitisme sans complexe ni tabou (2018, troisième partie).

On comprend aussi pourquoi les médiats ne cessent de dénoncer les affaires de curés pédophiles. Cela s’appelle une « inversion accusatoire ». Hervé Ryssen

Cases of Clergy Abuse and Other Trusted Officials

Case of Rabbi Yoram Aberjil (Netivot, Israel) (Accused of cult like practices and sexual harassment of young women and treatening the lives of the survivors and those who support them.) 1
Case of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner (Beit El, Israel) (Two women accused the rabbi of creating emotionally intimate relationships with them. These relationships included his expressions of his love for them during regular late-night phone conversations, extracting details from them of their sexuality and promoting an unhealthy emotional dependence on him). 2
Case of Rabbi Aryeh Blaut (AKA: Louis Blaut, Louis Steven Blaut, Louis A. Blaut, Louis S. Blaut) (Seattle, WA) (Convicted sex offender on federal charges of possession of child pornography. According to the United States Department of Probation, Louis Blaut is not allowed contact with anyone under the age of eighteen on the internet or in person).
Case of Rabbi Jerry Brauner (Boro Park, Brooklyn, NY) (Convicted on the charges of Sexual Abuse-1st Degree and Sexual Abuse-3rd:Subject Another Person to Sex Contact Without Consent. He was sentenced to 11 years probation, with the condition he must participate in a sex offender treatment program. Brauner has been on probation since 2002 for the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy. On December 27, 2006, Jerry Brauner was arrested on charges of stealing a half-million-dollar home from a cancer-stricken woman, using a forged power of attorney to sell it and pocket the profits. Brauner is being held in lieu of $85,000 bail for lying about prior sex-abuse convictions when he applied for his notary’s license.)
Case of Rabbi Lewis Brenner (AKA: Lippa Brenner) (Brooklyn, NY) (Convicted of child molestation. The original charges included 14 counts of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of sodomy in the third degree, a Class E felony, in exchange for a sentence of five years’ probation.)
Case of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Brizel (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of child molestation)
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks (Winnipeg, Canada, New York, NY) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accusations about sexual inappropriate behavior with children started surfacing in the 1980’s. Rabbi Bryks is currently a member of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. The Vaad is a Rabbinical committee that makes important decisions within an orthodox community.)
Case of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accused of several cases of child molestation, and sexual assault of young adult women)
Case Rabbi Perry Ian Cohen – Montreal and Toronto Canada (Accused of sexual abuse of a seventeen year old. Fired for sexual impropriety with congregants)
Case of Rabbi Yitzchak Cohen (Israel) (Accused of sexually harassing students at Bar-Ilan University)
Case of Rabbi Asher Dahan, Be’er Sheva, Israel (Arrested after being accused of raping and sexually abusing two 17-year-old girls after he offered « to redeem them of sin and evil inclinations. »)
Case of Rabbi Anthony Dee (Blackpool England; Portsmouth, England) (Former synagogue minister Reverend Anthony Dee found guilty of sexually abusing two boys and a girl in Blackpool and Portsmouth, England. This is the first set of convictions, there was a second set of convictions in 1997.)
Case of Rabbi Moshe Eisemann (AKA: Moshe Eiseman) – Mashgiach Ruchni Ner Israel Rabbinical College (Baltimore, MD) (There is a Call for Action on this case – Accused of child sexual abuse)
Case of Rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau – Principal, Torah Institute (Baltimore, MD) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accused of physically abusing and sexually assaulting one of his children. There have also been allegations that two families were « run out of Baltimore » because they wanted to go to secular legal authorities to deal with the accusations of child abuse)
Case of Rabbi Arnold Fink – Beth El Hebrew Congregation – Alexandria, VA (Accused of Professional Rabbinic Sexual Misconduct)
Case of Rabbi Benyamin Yaakov Fleischman (AKA Benyamin Fleischman, Ben Fleischman)- Photographer (Baltimore, MD) (Convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.)
Case of Rabbi Gershon Freidlin (Colonia, NJ; Pittsburgh, PA; Washington, PA) (Rabbi Gershon Freidlin pleaded guilty to one count of child endangerment , saying he had touched the youth’s penis and buttocks while applying tanning lotion on the boy on July 10, 1995 Under the terms of a plea agreement, the rabbi will not be jailed for the crime, but faces up to five years probation.)
Case of Yehudah Friedlander – Rabbi ‘s Assistant (Brooklyn, NY) (Accused of molesting a 15 year old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia to LA. Friedlander was the assistant to the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas)
Case of Cantor Stuart Friedman (Halifax,Canada-Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles, Baltimore) (Convicted and sentanced to 15 months in federal prison on one count of distributing child pornography).
Case of Cantor Philip Friedman (Albany, NY, Queens, NY, Long Island, NY) (Temple Israel fired its longtime cantor for « inappropriate behavior » toward a member of the congregation, and the Albany County district attorney’s office confirmed Tuesday that it is investigating the matter.)
Case of Rabbi Jacob Frank (AKA: Yaakov Frank) and the Frankist Movement (Convicted of cultic type practices and sexual offenses.)
Case of Rabbi Lewis Furman of Ohr Somayach, Johannesburg, South Africa (Prominent South African rabbi who was allegedly caught having an affair with a married woman. He is also accused of being « serial philanderer » — was forced to resign his position in South Africa and will not practise as a rabbi in this country again.)
Rabbi Tobias Gabriel (Toronto, Canada) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accused by more then one woman of clergy sexual abuse / professional sexual misconduct).
Case of Rabbi Mordechai Gafni (aka: Marc Gafni, Mordechai Winiarz, Marc Winiarz) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accused sexually abusing teenage girls, attempted sexual assault of a young adult, and also accused of cult like practices).
Case of Rabbi Shimon Gerlick (Nahariya, Israel) (Arrest for allegedly committing indecent sexual acts with a two minors and and adult woman)
Case of Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg (St. Paul, MN) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Resigned as senior rabbi at Temple of Aaron, shortly after reaching an out-of-court settlement with a former congregation member who accused him of sexual misconduct. A criminal investigation into the case also is being closed, with no charges forthcoming).
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Goldberg (Boca Raton, FL) (Pled guilty to one misdemeanor count of exposure of sexual organs in a washroom at a Palm Beach Mall.)
Case of Rabbi/Cantor Sidney Goldenberg (Levittown,NY; Seaford, NY; Bayshore, NY; Petaluma, CA; Coney Island, NY) (Convicted of molesting children. The first complaints came in 1971. He was finally convicted in 1997.)
Case of Cantor Joel Gordon (Buffalo Grove, IL) (Convicted of having keeping a house of prostitution and involvement in a prostitution ring.)
Case of Rabbi Mark A. Golub – Mental Health Counselor (Newport, Virginia) (Had professional counseling license revolked for having sex with a female client, according to a state disciplinary order).
Case of Rabbi Yisrael Menachem Grunwald (AKA: Israel Grunwald) (Borough Park/Brooklyn NY) (In a plea bargin agreement Rabbi Israel Grunwald agreed to 500 hours of community service and counseling after being accused of fondling a 15-year-old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia. The charges against him were then dropped.)
Case of Rabbi Solomon Hafner (Borough Park/Brooklyn, NY) (Accused of sexually abusing a developmentally disabled boy)
Case of Cantor Mark Horowitz, Temple Beth Am in Amherst (Getzville, NY) (Charged with committing lewd acts on an undercover police officer.)
Case of Rabbi (Alan J.) Shneur Horowitz (Hagerstown, MD; Israel; Schenectady, NY; California; Iowa) (Convicted and sentenced to 10 – 20 years in prison for sodomizing a nine-year-old psychiatric patient. Allegedly, he has assaulted a string of children from California to Israel to New York in the past twenty years. Alan J. Horowitz is an Orthodox rabbi, magna cum laude, M.D., Ph.D. A graduate of Duke University, and was a writer for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association).
Case of Rabbi Steven J. Kaplan (Saskatoon, Canada) (Allegations, detailed in court documents, that he lacked proper ordination, sexually harassed female congregants and committed adultery with one of them).
Case of Rabbi David Kaye (Potomac, MD; Rockville, MD; San Antonio, TX) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Featured on « Dateline NBC » for seeking a sexual encounter with an underage boy in a chat room. NBC News conducted a sting in August, (2005) working with a group called « Perverted Justice. » Members of the group, posing as underage boys and girls, entered Internet chat rooms and waited for adults to engage them in conversations)
Case of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum (New York, NY) (Convicted of child pornography on the internet)
Case of Rabbi Robert Kirschner (San Francisco, CA) (Confessed to sexually exploited or harassing three congregants and a synagogue employee)
Case of Rabbi Yisucher Kohn (AKA: Barry Kohn) (New Square, NY) (Convicted of Sexual Abuse 1st: Sexual Contact With Individual Less Than 11Years Old.)
Case of Rabbi Yehuda Kolko (AKA: Joel Kolko, Yudi Kolko) – Yeshiva Torah Temimah (New York, NY) (Arrested in New York City on December 7, 2006 following a long-term police investigation. He was charged with four counts of sexual abuse, including two felony counts, and endangering the welfare of a child. The most recent sexual abuse was allegedly against an 8-year-old boy, who says he was abused while he was in the first grade during the 2002-03 school year.Rabbi Yudi Kolko and Yeshiva Torah Temimah were hit with a $20 million civil lawsuit on May 5, 2006, accusing him of molesting two students more than 25 years ago. One of the alleged victims said Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, 60, sexually assaulted him when he was a seventh-grade student).
Case of Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch (Jerusalem, Israel) (Convicted of molesting students at Rosh Yeshiva, Netiv Meir yeshiva high school)
Case of Rabbi Avraham M. Leizerowitz (AKA: Avraham Mordecai Lazerewitz) – Geres Misivta Bais Yisroel School, (Borough Park Brooklyn) – (A civil suit was filed against Rabbi Avraham Mordecai Leiverowitz of the Gerrer Mesivta High School in Borough Park Brooklyn. The charges include improperly touching a boy during a one-on-one help session in the rabbi’s office in the Borough Park secondary school. Three other older boys have also come forward making similar allegations.)
Case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner (New York, NY) (Convicted – child molestation. Sentancing still pending after 2 years)
Case of Rabbi Jerrold Martin Levy (Boca Raton, FL) (Convicted of two counts of soliciting sex through the Internet and two counts of child pornography. He was sentenced to six years and sex in prison. He was caught in the « Candyman » year-long sting operation by the US government.)
Case of Rabbi Pinchas Lew (Pottville, IA and Chapel Hill, NC) (Accused of exposing himself and touching his genitals repeatedly in front of an unrelated woman in his home)
Case of Rabbi David E. Lipman – Kiruv Rabbi (Prescott, AZ; Cranston, R.I.) (Pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, a Class 2 felony, and three counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, Class 3 felonies. Lipman pleaded guilty to pertain to the computer images of children younger than the age of 15. ).
Case of Rabbi/Psychologist Mordecai Magencey (St. Louis, MO) (Lost his license to practice in the State of Missouri because of his sexual misconduct with his patients.)
Case of Rabbi Richard Marcovitz (Oklahoma City, OK) (Convicted of indecent or lewd acts with a child, and sexual battery)
Case of Rabbi Michael David Mayersohn (Westminster, CA) (Accused of « groping » a female congregant who was undergoing pastoral counseling with the rabbi, due to marital problems. The rabbi is also accused of tring to « convince the congregant to have sex with him » in a second meeting. The female congregant refused).
Case of Rabbi Samuel Mendelowitz – Licensed Marriage Counselor (Teaneck, NJ) (Accused of gross malpractice with four female patients between 1981 and 1992. He allegedly pressured women to remove their blouses and touched them sexually, engaged in masturbation and oral sex with one patient, and disparaged their husbands and urged them to have extramarital sex with what he called « surrogate lovers » male patients in his group sessions.)
Case of Rabbi Yaakov Menken (Baltimore, MD) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Serious allegations have been made against Rabbi Yaakov Menken which include sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and sexual assault. Menken’s alleged modus operandi (M.O.) is of becoming a father figure to vulnerable young women and eventually allegedly sexually assaulting them.)
Case of Rabbi Yona Metzger (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of sexually misconduct with four men)
Case of Rabbi Juda Mintz – AKA: Yehuda Mintz (Montreal, Canada; Williamsburg, NY; Atlanta, GA; Mt. Freedom, NJ; Los Angeles, CA; Venice, CA) (Convicted – internet sting on child pornography)
Case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, M.Sc., Ph.D., L.N.H.A. (Chicago, IL; Brooklyn, NY; Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of two counts of sex abuse with boys at a special education school in New York. He is currently a college professor in Jerusalem, Israel).
Case of Rabbi Shalom Nagar – AKA Shlomo Nagar (Ariel, Israel) (Arrested for allegedly raping a woman who had turned to him for advice. Nagar, married with children, has served for many years as the chief rabbi of this mainly secular town, the largest Jewish settlement in Samaria)
Case of Cantor Howard Nevison (New York, NY) (Nevison pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of indecent assault, terroristic threats, simple assault, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children. Two felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse will be dismissed when Nevison is sentenced. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.)
Case of Rabbi Gabriel Ohayon (Boca Raton, FL) (Alleged rabbinical sexual misconduct. A former employee sued a Boca Raton Judaic studies institute, alleging that Rabbi Gabriel Ohayon groped and sexually harassed her).
Case of Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Oratz (AKA: Yehoda A. Oratz) (LAKEWOOD, NJ; Marietta, GA; Brooklyn, NY) (Convicted of stalking children under the age of thirteen, and then sexually assaulting them. The Victims did NOT know the offender.Please note that there is more then one Rabbi Yehuda Oratz. This convicted offender was born on April 11, 1967).
Case of Rabbi Michael Ozair (Beverly Hills, CA) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Convicted, pleaded no contest to oral copulation with a 14-year-old minor. )
Case of Cantor Alain Oziel (New York, NY; Toronto, Canada) (Convicted on one count of indecent assault, gross indecency and attempted buggery during the period January 1, 1981, to December 31, 1982, of a teenage boy. He was sentenced to five years’ in prison. Oziel’s sentence was reduced due to his deteriorating health).
Case of Rabbi Haim Pardes – Former President of the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court (Israel) (Convicted of sexually blackmailing » and performing « licentious acts » with women who sought his counsel in a synagogue. Pardes was sentanced to six months in prison and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and fined 25,000 shekels ($12,500).
Case of Lou Pearlman – Mentor to the Stars (Queens, NY, Hollywood, CA) (Alleged child molester)
Case of Shimon Rosen (Monsey, NY) (Convicted sex offender)
Case of Cantor Stanley Rosenfeld (Warwick, RI) (Convicted of molesting a 12-year-old boy he was tutoring.)
Case of Rabbi Edward Schlaeger (Shelton, CT; West Haven, CT) ( Arrested on a warrant Saturday and charged with one count of third-degree possession of child pornography.)
Case of Rabbi Arthur Charles Shalman (AKA Charles Friedman, Charlie Frideman, Arthur Friedman, Arthur Shalman) (Buffalo, NY) (The Rabbinical Assembly concluded that Rabbi Shalman violated several principles of rabbinic conduct. Accused of sexual misconduct toward female congregational members. )
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro (Baltimore, MD) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accused of molesting several boys.)
Case of Cantor Robert Shapiro (Detroit, MI) (Pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecent assault and battery on a mentally retarded person. In return, Norfolk County prosecutors dropped seven counts of rape.)
Case of Yisroel Shapiro (Baltimore, MD) (Accused of molesting children)
Case of Cantor Michael Segelstein (Las Vegas, NV) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Originally arraigned on one count each of attempted sexual assault, battery with intent to commit sexual assault and open and gross lewdness. On December 19, 2002, Michael Segelstein pled guilty to the lessor charges of open or gross lewdness, in which he received one year suspended sentence with conditions and court ordered into counseling. According to court documents, Segelstein’s probation was successfully completed. He has since been discharged. A civil suit is currently pending.)
Rabbi Ben Zion Sobel (New York, NY; Jerusalem, Israel) (« Rabbi Ben Zion Sobel is one of the most notorious pedophiles he has known, leaving hundreds of boys he has victimized. At one point Rabbi Shach made a rabbinic decree stating that Rabbi Ben Zion Sobel could NEVER teach again. » « Ben Zion has left survivors in both the United States and Israel. » « His modus operandi was extremely violent and barbaric. » )
Case of Rabbi David Alan Stein (AKA: David Stein, David A. Stein) – Dean of Jewish Life, American Hebrew Academy’s former director of campus (Greensboro, NC) (charged with eight counts of having sex with a student. The alleged sex acts occurred on campus during the 2006-07 school year. The student was a 16-year-old male.)
Case of Robert Sternberg (AKA: Yerachiel Sherberg, Robert Stein) (Monsey, NY) (Convicted sex offender)
Case of Rabbi Ze’ev Sultanovitch (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of sexually molesting a number of adult yeshiva students at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva)
Case of Rabbi Melvin Teitelbaum (Los Angeles, CA) (Charges dismissed at the request of the District Attorney’s Office, which conceded it had insufficient evidence to prosecute.Teitelbaum then a filed a $10-million damage suit in Los Angeles Superior Court. In his suit that the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles and the family that accused him conspired to have him arrested and charged.Later, confronted with evidence that placed Teitelbaum elsewhere at the time of the alleged incident, the siblings changed their story, a move the prosecutor said was « devastating » to their credibility.)
Case of Rabbi Aron Boruch Tendler (Los Angeles, CA; North Hollywood, CA) (Accused of sexually abusing teenage girls. Please Note: There is more then one Rabbi Aron Tendler. This page is about Rabbi Aron Boruch Tendler, who was born on January 15, 1955.)
Case of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler (AKA: Mordechai Tendler) (Monsey, NY) (Accused of innappropriate sexual behavior with women in he counseled that had gone on for years. According to Rabbi Benzion Y. Wosner, head of the Shevet Levi rabbinical court in Monsey, One should never allow their wives or daughters to go to Rabbi Mordecai Tendler at all including [for] counseling… and all his rulings are null and void. » He also stated: « The RCA had every right to oust this rabbi from their organization, and his own congregation has the same obligation. » In conclusion, he wrote, « the rabbi can no longer officiate at divorces, weddings, etc.)
Case of Rabbi Isadore Trachtman (Chicago, IL and Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Hirsch Travis (Monsey, NY) (Charged with the sexual abuse of an unidentified 27-year-old female patient. He was also charged with posing as a Brooklyn doctor specializing in infertility problems, and illegally operating the Fertility Foundation in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.)
Case of Rabbi Eliyahu Tzabari – Former chief rabbi of Ganei Tikva, Israel (Charged with sexually abusing a women with whom he counseled).
Case of Rabbi Ivan Wachmann – Manchester, England (Accused of sexual misconduct with women from his Manchester synagogue)
Case of the Rabbi Tzvi Wainhaus (AKA: The Rabbi at Hillel Torah (Chicago, IL) (Accused of child molestation at a private day school. A public statement was made by the Ad Hoc Bais Din of Chicago regarding this case).
Case of Rabbi Matis Weinberg (Baltimore, MD, Santa Clara, CA and Har Nof, Israel) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Yaakov Weiner (New York, NY and Israel) (Accused of molesting boy at Camp Mogen Avraham, New York)
Case of Rabbi Nachman Weisfeld (Northern, Israel) (Convicted of physically and sexually abusing children under his care in an education institution)
Case of Rabbi Don Well – Principal (Brooklyn, NY) (Accused and charged with Rabbi one count of third-degree sexual abuse).
Case of Cantor Phillip Wittlin (Harrisburg, PA) (Convicted of molesting two girls)
Case of Rabbi Hershel J. Worch (Manchester, England, Mbale, Uganda; Melbourne, Australia; Pawtucket, RI; Chicago, IL; Istanbul, Turkey) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Formerly known as the Case of the Unnamed Rabbi in West Rogers Park). Accused of cult like practice which include BDSM (Bondage, Domination, Sadism, Masochism). The alleged offender originially mmets his victims on line. Allegations include using a mixture of kabbalah, hypno-eroticism and other manipulative techniques to enagage his potential victims prior to sexually assaulting them.
Case of Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov (Los Angeles, CA) (WARNING: Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov, is in violation of sex offender registration requirements in California for past 2 years. If you know his whereabout please notify the California authorities at: (916) 227-4974. Convicted of sexual abuse and committing lewd acts against three boys)
Case of Sabbatai Zevi (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses.)
Case of Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman (New York, NY) (Suspended from the Reform movement’s rabbinic organization because of sexual impropriety was later hired to a top position by a program that sends thousands of young Jews on free trips to Israel.. Sheldon Zimmerman was based in Cincinnati, OH, yet, also had responsibility for the Hebrew Union College’s campuses in New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA and Jerusalem, Israel .)
Case of the Rabbi Max Zucker (Dallas, TX) (Accused by three women of improperly touching)
Case of a List of Abuses at Ner Israel (Toronto, Canada) (High school student, said he was assaulted by two college students)
Case of The Zwi Migdal Society (Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Poland) (According to reports there were rabbis who were members of the society. From the 1860s to the beginning of the Second World War, thousands of naive, impoverished Jewish girls from eastern Europe were sold by Jewish mobsters into sexual slavery. This hugely profitable (annual revenues of $50 million in the 1890s) commerce in flesh was operated by the Zwi Migdal, a criminal association)
Case of The Unnamed Kidnapping Chazen /Cantor (Toronto, Canada) (Accused of kidnapping young boys from Europe and bringing them to Toronto, Canada)
Case of the Unnamed New York Rabbi Who Has An Unhealthy Interest In Teenage Boys
Case of the Unnamed Rabbi – Principal Who Inpregnated A Girl With Learning Disabilities (There is a Call for Action on this case. The Awareness Center is looking for all the information we can find regarding the Rabbi-Prinicipal who inpregnated a girl with learning disabilities at school he was principal at.)
Case of The Unnamed Orthodox Rabbi (Quebec, Canada) (An undercover reporter posed as an employee of an escort service. One of her two clients included a Hasidic rabbi, who masturbated in a motel room while looking at pornography on television and at the reporter in her underwear.) 98
Case of 40-year-old man residing in an ultra-orthodox yeshiva (Several yeshiva students have testified in the case and verified suspicions that a 40-year-old man who resides in the yeshiva sexually assaulted them). 99

(Top)

And Other Trusted Officals (Parents, Teachers, Camp Counselors, etc.)

Case of Isa al-Natcha (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentence to 25 years for robbery, rape and false imprisonment, terrorized the women working at the brothels, raped them and stole money and possessions from them.) 1
Case of Yisrael Abadi – Teacher (Holon, Israel) (Convicted of sexually molesting three children, aged eight to 10, in the synagogue where he teaches) 2
Case of Faiz Suleiman Abukarinat – The Negev Pedophile (Israel) (Convicted of kidnapping and raping three girls from Beersheba and Ashdod)
Case of Eugene Abrams (AKA: Eugene George Harris) (Long Island, NY; Miami, FL) (Convicted on 77 counts of child of rape, incest, sodomy and obscenity involving five young girls, including his own daughter. He spent 10 years in Attica State Prison. He was also convicted of running a nationwide child pornography ring on Long Island, He relocated to Flordia and was charged and convicted ofsexually assaulting a 4 1/2-year-old girl).
Case of Joyce Abrams (North Bellmore, NY) (Convicted of running a nationwide pornography ring with her husband Eugene Abrams, out of their home. One of the victms was her own daughter).
Case of Faiz Suleiman Abukarinat – The Negev Pedophile (Israel) (convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for kidnapping and raping three girls from Beersheba and Ashdod)
Case of Errine Renata Acciaroli (AKA: Shlomit Acciaroli) – Special Education Teacher (Hamilton, Canada) (Found guilty of professional misconduct for kissing a 10th grade student after asking him to make love to her and showering him with gifts, e-mails, phone calls and visits to his home)
Case of Arie Adler and Marisa Rimland (New York, NY) (Arie Adler was accused of molesting his daughter. Marisa Rimland murdered her daughter, and then committed suicide).
Case of Gerald « Ajax » Ackerman – Former Mayor (Port Huron, MI) (Convicted and sentenced to up to 38 years in prison for having sex with children he was supervising as part of a youth program he ran).
Case of Simcha Adler – Ohel Counselor (Borough Park/Brooklyn, NY (Plea-bargained charges of sodomy, sexual abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child down to attempted sodomy.)
Case of Ya’acov Agmon – Director of Habima Theater (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Accused of sexually harassing a secretary who worked for him for two-and-a-half years with words and deeds, and of committing indecent acts against her on three separate occasions. The prosecution closed the file for lack of sufficient evidence).
Case of Tal Alaluf (Arrested and confessed to raping a 13-year-old boy he « groomed » via an Internet chat room, according to police detectives).
Case of Hen Alkobi (Haifa, Israel) (Accused of raping and sexually abusing teenage girls in the Haifa area, ended in a plea bargain arrangement.)
Case of Ben Amotz (Tel Aviv and Jaffa, Israel) (Allegedly lured 12 to 13-year-old girls to his apartment using drugs)
Case of Igor Antapika – Haifa, Israel; Soviet Union (AKA: Street Stairwell Rapist) (sentenced Igor Antapika, known as « the stairwell rapist, » to 31 years in prison. The 25-year-old serial rapist who had terrorized Haifa women in 2004 was convicted on eight of nine counts. He earned his nickname after assaulting his victims in dark stairwells in the city’s Hadar and Carmel neighborhoods)
Case of Herbert Aptheker – (Accused of sexually abusing his daughter)
Case of Eugene Loub Aronin – School Counselor (Joppa, TX and Buffalo Grove, IL (Convicted in 1984 of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy)
Case of David Carl Arndt, M.D. (Boston, MA) (Charged with four counts of statutory child rape and one count each of indecent assault and battery, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, contributing to the delinquency of a child, and possession of the drugs ketamine hydrochloride (« Special K ») and methamphetamine).
Case of Michael Ashbal – Hebrew Academy Teacher (Miami Beach, FL; Barbados) (Arrested for allegedly fondling an 11-year-old male student.)
Case of Stanley Ashman (AKA: Stanley Virgil Ashman, Butch Ashman) (Baltimore, MD) (In 2006, police overheard a telephone conversation between the woman and Ashman in which the former teacher admitted to having sex with her when she was 14, and repeatedly apologized, according to court records)
Case of Samuel S. Aster – Music Teacher/College Professor (Teaneck, NJ) (Gave prosecutors a sworn statement detailing the crimes and his videotaping of them.)
Case of Yehezkel Atar (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl).
Case of Boris Bardichevsky (Petah Tikva, Israel) (Arrested this week by the Israel Police’s Etgar unit on suspicion of trading in women).
Case of Leeore Batshaw – Psychology Student at The University of Winnipeg (Israel) (Convicted – internet sting on child pornography)
Case of Philip Bender, Consultant (Columbia, MD; Baltimore, MD) (Pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse in return for prosecutors’ recommendation for probation before judgment).
Case of Uriel P. Bendavid – AKA: Peter Bendavid, Peter U. Ben, Peter U. Bendavid, Peter U. David, Peter D. King (Passaic, NJ) (Convicted of endagering the welfare of a child The victims were students at the school where Bendavid taught)
Case of Ralph Harrison Benning (Fulton County, GA) (pleaded guilty to molesting and murdering Peter Downing Howell Jr., 8. Benning told police he killed Howell on the site where he was molested as a child).
Case of Shimon Bentov (Jerusalem, Israel) (Charged with alleging he committed sexual assaults on children and child-pornography offences).
Case of Achi Ben Shalom – Music Teacher (San Francisco, CA) (Arrested for alleged « lewd and lascivious acts » with a female student).
Case of Robert Berezin (Brooklyn, NY; Skokie, IL) (Allegations were made that he entered the apartment of one of his tenents in the middle of the night, pushed her against the door, groped and forced his tongue into her mouth. When he was leaving, she said, he suggested she could provide sexual favors in lieu of rent).
Case of Alexander Berg (Czech Republic; Haifa, Israel; Petah Tikva, Israel; Tel Aviv, Israel) (Extradited from the Czech Republic to Israel under suspicion of involvement in women trafficking, as well as a myriad of related offenses including pimping, imprisonment, assault, threats and rape.)
Case of Jonathan (Yochanan) Berkowitz, MSW, CSW, LMSW – Yoga Instructor (Monsey, NY; New York City, NY; Passaic, NJ; Clifton, NJ) (Allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior and of allged date rape)
Case of Harvey N. Berish – School Teacher (Bronx, NY) (Drama teacher in an intermediate school in the Bronx was arrested on charges that he had sexually abused four boy pupils).
Case of Ariel Berlin – Retired Travel Agent (Arrested along with an a father who is an Ex-convict, who offered up his 5-year-old daughter for sex).
Case of David Steven Berman (Ruislip, England) (Convicted and sentenced to prison. Berman admitted to 13 charges of making indecent images of children. Judge Jeremy Connor stated: « The images showed children as young as six, some with elements of sadism. »)
Case of Yoav Biran (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of distributing child pornography over the Internet, also of preforming indecent acts on children. Also see: Case of Rafael Kaplanovsky and Case of Itai Snapier).
Case of Moni Biton (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentence to sentenced to 22 years for purchased a stun gun, tear gas, knives and scissors, and decided in advance which brothels him and his friends would attack).
Case of Yaron Blanc (Ariel, Israel) (Accused of using the internet to lure minors for sexual activity)
Case of Baron Bloom (London, England) (Convicted of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl. The judge ordered Bloom’s name to be placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and sentenced him to one year’s imprisonment).
Case of Harold Bloom – Humanities and English Professor at Yale (New Haven, CT) (Accused of sexually harassing students).
Case of Yossi Boker, Assistant Commander – Police Investigative Department (Jerusalem, Israel) (Arrested on charges of sexual harassment.)
Case of Yitzhak Bohasilovsky (Bnei Brak, Israel) – (confessed to series of indecent acts involving 300 children)
Case of Nachman Borenstein – Teacher’s Aide at Talmud Torah (Jerusalem, Israel) (Convicted of molesting five children)
Case of Peter Braunstein (New York, NY) (Accused of drugging and molesting a woman for 13 hours. He entered her apartment by wearing a firefighter’s uniform, after allegedly setting small hallway blazes to trick his way into her apartment.)
Case of Zerach Brown (AKA: Scott Brown) (Seattle, WA; New York, NY) (Arrested in 1999 in Mountaindale, NY on charges relating to sexually improper conduct in respect to minors.)
Case of Michael Broman (Givatayim, Israel) (Arrested this week by the Israel Police’s Etgar unit on suspicion of trading in women).
Case of Rami Buchnik – Physical Education Teacher (Tiberias, Israel) (Arrested after complaints that he had been molesting youths at several kibbutzim in the region. He was also charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm).
Case of Lieutenant Colonel Eli Buhbut – Israel Defense Forces (Accused of sexually assaulting another officer)
Case of Franklin « Jack » Burr – Piano Teacher (Edison, NJ) (On trial charged with sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. He is facing up to 20 years in prison).
Case of Ralph Capone – School Custodian, Patachogue: Medford School District (Long Island, NY) (Accused of asking two male students in their 20s, working on the High School equivalency diploma, claimed Capone asked them for oral sex).
Case of Chaim Ciment (Williamsburg/Brooklyn, NY) (Accused and charged with first-degree sexual abuse, after allegations were made that he fondled a 17 year old girl in an elevator).
Case of Adiah Cohen, Moshav Shadot, Israel (Accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the washroom of DOME in Tel Aviv)
Case of David Cohen (Jupiter, FL) (Convicted of Lewd, Lascivious Child acts with a minor child)
Case of James A. Cohen – Jewish Youth Group Leader (Davi, FL) (Convicted child molester, sentenced to 9 years for assaulting 4 boys)
Case of Larry Cohen – Soccer Coach (Lake Oswego, OR) (Accused of molesting two individuals.)
Case of Lawrence Cohen – Kindergarten School Teacher (Manalapan, NJ; Brooklyn, NY) (Convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for transmitting child pornography through his home computer).
Case of Lewis K. Cohen (AKA: Keith Cohen, Lewis Cohen) (Milwaukee, WI) (Convicted after being charged with using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime and child enticement-exposing sex organs. Cohen used his work and home computers to engage in sexually explicit conversations with a 14-year-old boy in Internet chat rooms. The complaint also charges that Cohen sent nude photographs of himself and other males to the boy via e-mail).
Case of Phillip « Eli » Cohen (London, England) (Accused of 13 charges of indecently assaulting a boy and four offences of indecently assaulting a girl)
Case of Seth David Cohen, MD (Southfield, Michigan) (Convicted- Pled no contest to Accosting a Minor for Immoral Purposes)
Case of Stephen Colmer (Brooklyn, NY; Passaic, NJ; Jerusalem, Israel) (Indicted on charges of child sexual abuse. He attempted to escape facing charges by moving to Israel)
Case of Victor Wayne Cooper (CA) (Convicted of four counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child. He is serving four consecutive terms of fifteen years to life due to two prior rape convictions).
Case of Stuart Cooperman, MD – Pediatrican (Merrick, New York) (Accused of molesting six female patience).
Case of Corrido (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Suspected of sexually abusing several minors claims to have witnessed the murder of 10-year-old Alexandra Brandt in 1994)
Case of Jon Andrew Cottriel (Holdenville, OK) (Convicted of Forcible Sodomy and Rape in the 1st Degree).
Case of Gil Dahan (Convicted of a gang rape and sodomy of a 20-year-old mentally disabled woman, and of confining her).
Case of Oren Danan (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Confessed to child abduction, sexual assault, and attempted murder of a neighborhood girl)
Case of Sliman Dawiri (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentence to 28 years for robbery, rape and false imprisonment, terrorized the women working at the brothels, raped them and stole money and possessions from them).
Case of Lior Dekel (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Arrested after the girl told her school counselor of the rape. In the past, a court acquitted Dekel of rape charges against a 16-year-old girl due to lack of evidence.)
Case of Gary Dolovich, former Executive Director of Manitoba Kosher, Winnipeg, Canada (Arrested and charged with 17 counts of distributing child pornography).
Case of Eric Dorfner, BBYO Group Leader (Evesham/Cherry Hill, NJ) (Plead guilty and was sentenced to five years in state prison for sexually abusing two teenage boys once in his care.
Case of Gary Edelman (Skokie, IL) (Convicted sex offender)
Case of Mordechai Ehrman (AKA: Morton Ehrman) – Simcha’s Play Group (Brooklyn, NY) Accused of molesting dozens of students).
Case of Ariel Elimelech, Jerusalem, Israel (Convicted of rape and indecent assault under aggravated circumstances, of two minors aged 14 and 17)
Case of Victor Einhorn – Owner of Two Brooklyn-Based Bus Companies (Brooklyn, NY) (Pleaded guilty to two of 12 counts of unlawfully transporting minors to a New Jersey hotel for sex)
Case of Benjamin Elisha (Miami, FL) (Convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old in a Swap Shop restroom).
Case of Jeffrey Epstein (New York, NY; Virgin Islands) (Allegedly solicited sex with a minor at least three times between August 1 – October 31, 2005. He has been charged with four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and of lewd and lascivious molestation).
Case of Werner Erhard (AKA: John Paul Rosenberg) Founder EST (now called Landmark Forum) (Accused of incest, which were later recanted. Also accused of cult like practices)
Earl R. Everett – Teacher South County Jewish Community Day School (Boca Raton, FL) (Arrested and charged with sexual battery on a child under the age of 12 (the girl was 7). His victim was not one of his students.)
Case of Shmuel Faber – KACH Rescue Squad Volunteer, Israel (Accused of sexually pressuring two women into sexual acts, so that they could obtain better treatment).
Case of Ed Fagan, Attorney (Short Hills, NJ) (Accused of paying to have sex with a minor)
Case of Naftali Feig (Chicago, IL; Beachwood OH; Cleveland, OH; Far Rockaway, NY; St. Louis, MO) (Convicted after communicating online for months with an investigor posing as 12-year-old girls.)
Case of Robert Feivish – security guard (Brooklyn, NY) (Convictedof sexually abusing a teenage boy over the course of a year, at times in a synagogue).
Case of Irina Fishman (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted of delivering women to work as prostitutes)
Case of Zora Flagashvili (Convicted of a gang rape and sodomy of a 20-year-old mentally disabled woman, and of confining her).
Case of Hbrandon Lee Flagner (Akron, OH) (Convicted of the kidnapping and aggravated murder of Tiffany Jennifer Papesh a 8-year-old girl. Flagner also claimed to have molested hundreds of girls during his life. While in prison, Flagner convert to Judaism by an Chasidic rabbi.)
Case of Rabbi G. George Fox (Galveston, TX)
Case of Kenneth A. Frank, MD (AKA: Yonatan Efrat) (Bakersfield, CA; Ra’anana, Israel, Tel Aviv, Israel) (Frank was convicted on Dec. 20, 1989, in Kern County (California) of drugging and raping two woman in separate incidents in 1985 and 1986)
Case of Arnold and Jesse Friedman « Capturing the Friedmans » (Great Neck, NY) (Convicted sex offenders). Also see: Case of Ross Goldstein
Case of Steven Frucht – Housekeeping Supervisor – Yeshiva University (New York, NY) (Accused of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment of at least four female employees)
Case of Dennis E. Fulbright (Boley, Oklahoma) (Convicted of Lewd or indecent acts with a child under 16, Rape in the first degree, Burglary, nad Larceny of Merch from Retaile.)
Case of Ramon Gantz – Gym Boss (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentanced after slipped two tablets of the dance drug into the victim’s orange juice after she rebuffed his romantic advances on a Monarch flight from Tel Aviv to Gatwick).
Case of Ellen Garfield – Music teacher (Boston, MA) (Acquitted of charges she raped a 14-year-old boy.)
Case of Avraham Ger (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Accused of sexually assaulting several girls and boys)
Case of Daniel Gersh – Former FA-Registered Coach (Bloomingburg, New York; Ilford, Essex, England) (Arrested after admitting to 60 counts of assault and related charges, including molesting nine boys, aged seven to 11, and filming several of them. Daniel Gersh stated in court: « My life is over. I have been trying to hide this since I was 13 years old. »)
Case of Ovadia Gershon – Director of Group home for Mentally Challenged minors (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted raping a mentally challenged resident in a group home in Tel Aviv, Israel)
Case of Barry Gerstein – Attorney at Law (Beverly, MA) (Convicted and sentenced to serve seven to fifteen years at MCI-Walpole and ordered to serve a concurrent ten- to eighteen-year sentence for the cases in Norfolk County)
Case of Ofer Glazer (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted of two incidents of committing obscene acts and of sexual harassment).
Case of Richard « Steve » Goldberg (Long Beach, CA) (Allegedly engaging in sex acts with several girls under 10 in California. He is on the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives list)
Case of Shaul Golan – Chief Financial Officer, Shalem Center (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of sexual harassment, is facing a criminal investigation for embezzlement. Shaul Golan was a former senior official at a prominent Jerusalem think tank).
Case of Eugene Gold, the former Brooklyn District Attorney (New York, NY; Israel) (Confessed that he had fondled the 10-year-old daughter of an Alabama prosecutor and agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment to avoid prosecution.) 100
Case of Jeremy D. Goldberg (Highland Park, IL) (Convicted on charges of possessing child pornography). 101
Case of Aron Goldberger (Baltimore, MD, Israel) (self-described religious scholar convicted of molesting his children)
Case of Hanan Goldblatt (AKA: Hannan Goldblatt) – Children’s Televison Actor (Beit Nehamia, Israel) (Pled Guilty to having sexual intercourse with two of the minors he is suspected of raping, but said both cases were consensual.)
Case of Arieh (Arik) Goldman (Ramle, Israel) (Arrested after being accused of molesting 43 children)
Case of Robert Goldman – Sportscaster – CLTV (Aurora, IL) (Convicted of indecent solicitation of a child).
Case of Neil Goldschmidt (Former Governor of Oregon / Former Cabinet Member to President Jimmy Carter) (Confessed to having a sexual relationship with a teenager girl while he was mayor of Portland).
Case of Alvin « Al » Goldstein – Executive Editor, Milky Way Productions (New York, NY) « Allegations of sexual harassment made against Goldstein over the years. Named in an indictment along with Milky Way Productions after Eugene Abrams a advertised for girl models between the ages of 4 and 14 years of age in issues of Screen magazine which is published by Milky Way Productions.)
Case Andrew B. Goldstein (Pinellas, FL) (Convicted of possession of child pornography and unlawful sexual activity with certain minors.)
Case of Craig Goldstein (Mastic Beach, NY) (Convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree and sodomy in the second degree with an eleven-year-old boy.)
Case of Gary Goldstein (Alphaetta, GA; Atlanta GA) (Convicted on charges of child molestation and aggravated sexual battery charges.)
Case of Jeremy Goldstein – Former Ohio State University Student (Cleveland, Ohio) (Plead guilty to a charge of criminal sexual imposition. Sentenced to two-years probation and is now attending New York University. Several women came forward making allegations of sexual assault)
Case of Ross Goldstein (Great Neck, NY) (Convicting of sodomy in the first degree (three counts) and use of a child in a sexual performance. He was Sentenced to four concurrent indeterminated terms of 2 to 6 years imprisonment. Also see: Case of Arnold and Jesse Friedman)
Case of Israel Goluboff (AKA: Lester Mor, Lester Goluboff) – Caricaturist (Whiting, NJ; Manchester, NJ) (Convicted in Essex County (NJ) in 1985 of aggravated sexual assault on a girl under the age of 13. He has served his time and is considered a Tier 2, or moderate-risk, sex offender by the state of New Jersey. According to his listing on the State Police sex offender Web site, he had victimized children who worked with him in his caricature sketching business).
Case of Lawrence Gordon (Brooklyn, NY) (Convicted of murdering eight-year-old boy in 1982. In 1973 Gordon had been convicted of sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child)
Case of David Graetz (Kiryat Ata, Israel) (Accused of attempted sexual assault of a neighbor. The alleged victim stated that she beat her alleged assailent to death in self-defense).
Case of Marc Evan Greenberg – Webe Web Corp (Fort Lauderdale, FL) (Alabama federal grand jury indicted Marc Greenberg and Jeffrey Libman for operating a child modeling Web site that gained national attention for posting provocative photos of underage girls. Both were charged with 80 counts of conspiring to use minors for sexual photos and interstate transportation of such photos.)
Case of Leslie Griesdorf, DDS – Dentist (Toronto, Canada) (Received an 18-month conditional sentence after pleading guilty to accessing and possessing child pornography. Griesdorf was originially charged with making, importing, accessing and possessing pornography, plus obtaining the sexual services of someone under 18 years of age. This case involved the largest collection of child pornography in Canadian history.)
Case of Moshe Grots (Convicted of assisting in the rape and the confinement of a 20 year-old mentally disabled woman).
Case of Ilan Hacham – Maternity Ward Nurse (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Arrested and charged with allegedly molesting two women in maternity ward of Assaf Harofeh Hospital).
Case of Ya’akov Ha’elyon – Tel Aviv Arts School (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Highly regarded educator at an « enlightened » secular liberal arts school accused of abusing children).
Case of Yoel Hagirm (Kfar Kasam, Israel) (Accused of sexually assaulting co-workers at hospital in Israel)
Case of Uzi Hakhmon – Coach of a Boys’ Soccer Team (Tiberias, Israel) (Arrested on suspicion of raping and sexually assaulting several members of the team – all of them minors).
Case of Brad Hames (Baltimore, MD; Columbia, MD; Far Rockaway, NY) (Accused of showing a porographic movie to an orthodox minor as part of the grooming process. Hames is also accused of child sexual abuse).
Case of Judge Robert I. H. Hammerman (Baltimore, MD) (Accused of having sexually inappropriate converstations with a 16 year-old boy).
Case of Micha Hanan, Principal Beit Rotenberg (Haifa, Israel) (Accused of sodomizing several youths between the ages of 14 and 18. Allegations date back to 1994).
Case of David B. Harrington – School Principal / Big Brother (Rockville, MD) (Convicted sex offender. Cases from the 1960’s – 1980’s.)
Case of Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans (Monsey, NY) (Convicted.)
Case of Eric Hindin – Jewish Big Brother Volunteer (Newton, MA) (Convicted of 35 counts of child rape. He was sentenced to 20-22 years in prison).
Case of Yoni Hovra – High School Teacher (Petah Tikva, Israel) (Arrested and charged with raping and sexually abusing 14 of his pupils. According to the charge sheet, Hovra slipped prescription sleeping tablets into the drinks of some male students who visited him at home, so that they would not be aware of the assault).
Case of Ronny Hubara – School Teacher (Petach Tikva, Israel) (After being accused of molesting children, police confiscate child pornographyfrom the home of the school teacher).
Case of Martin Frankel – Former Financier (Confessed to having desires to having sex with children)
Case of Lord Greville Janner – Former British Labour MP (London, England) (Accused of molesting a boyt in a group home for over two years).
Case of Jay Jarvis (AKA: Elber John Jarvis) – Beth El Hebrew Congregation Brotherhood’s – 2005 Man of the Year (Arlingon, VA) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Pled guilty to sexual contact with a young child).
Case of Yosef Jibli – Jewish Agency’s Head of Administration (Jerusalem, Israel) (Charged in a Jerusalem Magistrates Court with « exploiting his authority » to sodomize a 17-year-old female high school pupil).
Case of Andrew Josephs – Hebrew Teacher (Parklands Court, Edgware, UK) (Charged with five counts of indecent assault, possession of indecent photographs of children, three of sexual assault of a child and two of abuse of trust between December 8, 2003, and August 4, 2004. Josephs, denies all the allegations and claims the boy’s have concocted their stories)
Case of Daniel Joubert (South Africa; Tel Aviv, Israel; Petach Tikva, Israel ) (Convicted and sentanced to 25 years on two counts of violent rape and one count of grave sexual abuse.The first assult involved an attack on a 75-year-old woman.)
Case of Albert Junatanov (Los Angeles, CA) (Accused of physically abuse and sexually assaulting his children).
Case of Samuel (Shmuel) Juravel Savannah, GA (formerly of Baltimore, MD) (Arrested by Agents from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI (Feb. 21, 2005) at a Birmingham hotel after he arranged to have sex with a minor).
Case of Rafael Kaplanovsky (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of distributing child pornography over the Internet. Also see Case of Yoav Biran and Case of Itai Snapier).
Case of Ryan Karben – Assemblyman (Rockland County, NY) (Allegations of childhood sexual abuse).
Case of Ariel Katsav (Jerusalem, Israel) – Son of Israeli President (Accused of sexual harassment. Israel Railways said that the younger Katsav, Ariel is senior member of the Israel Railways PR staff. He was accused of verbally harassing a coworker. He is the son of Israeli President Moshe Katsav.)
Case of Moshe Katsav – President of Israel (Jerusalem, Israel) (Allegations of professional sexual misconduct).
Case of Martin Kaufman (Baltimore, MD) (Listed on the National Sex Offenders Registry under the category of « Sexually Violent Offenders)
Case of David Kay (Chicago, IL) (Accused of sexually abusing children at the Rogers Park JCC Day-Care Center).
Case of Judge Ronald Kline (Turtle Rock, CA) (Molestation charges against former Judge Ronald Kline, were dismissed after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on the prosecution of old sex crimes. The original charges stated that Kline molested a 14-year-old boy in 1979).
Case of Sofia Kochik (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentenced to four years in jail for trafficking in women, running a brothel, false imprisonment and solicitation).
Case of Lee Kolker (Creve Coeur, MO, Fairview Heights, MO) (Convicted of two felony and two misdemeanor counts of sexual abuse. Kolker was acquitted of one felony count of sexual abuse; that charge related to an allegation that he had fondled a third girl.)
Case of Aaron Kosminski (Jack the Ripper) – London, England (Allegedly murdered at least five prostitutes in the 1880s. Aaron Kosminski, a hairdresser living in Whitechapel, East London, who was eventually committed to a lunatic asylum, where he died.)
Case of John Joseph Kosky (aka Jonathan Kaye) , School Teacher (Melbourne/Perth, Australia) (Convicted of Organising Child Sex Tour in Thailand: Sentenced in 2003 to 6years jail/ 3years non parole).
Case of Michael Koval (Rockland County, NY) (Convicted, served six months for first-degree sexual abuse involving two girls under the age of 11. He was convicted in 1996).
Case of Joseph Krim – Teacher (Aztec, NM) (Convicted – pleaded guilty to child pornography charges has been sentenced to six years in prison.)
Case of Stanislav Kuperman (Arrested as part of an operation launched by Tel Aviv detectives, in which an officer was sent undercover to purchase women over the telephone)
Case of Sergei Kuperman – Dentist (Rishon Letzion, Israel) (Suspected of sexually assaulting a woman and aslo trafficking in women).
Case of Seymour Kushner – Retired Music Teacher (Hartsdale, NY) (Convicted after pleading guilty to a federal grand jury charge of attempting to entice a minor to engage in sex).
Case of Moti Lahav (Migdal Ha’emek, Israel) (Confessed to sodomizing and sexually abusing two male youths and one female youth he met via the Internet).
Case of Levy Lalik (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Arrested for allegedly sexually abusing and murdering his two-month-old daughter)
Case of Sidney Landau (AKA: Sid Landau, Sid Landall) (Santa Ana, CA; Queens, NY) (Multiple convictions of child sex abuse)
Case of Itai Leibovich – Kindergarten Security Guard at a Kindergarten – (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted on two counts of rape and other counts of sodomy, attempted rape and indecent assault of four girls aged six to eleven).
Case of Vitaly Levshin – Pianist (Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Moldova, US) (Charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Toronto boy and making thousands of child-pornography images that he distributed around the world).
Case of Leo Lewie (Beverly Hills, CA) (Convicted of murdering his wifeand his stepdaughter. Prior to the murders, there were allegations of two counts of child molestation and two counts of statutory rape).
Case of Marc Lewis – Tennis Coach (AKA Mark Lewish) (Edgware, England) (Convicted of sexual assault of a fifteen-year-old girl with two of his friends. Lewis is an award-winning Wimbledon tennis coach. Police were unable to charge the other men because they only discovered their identities 12 months after the alleged offences. In England, unlawful sexual intercourse cases the suspect has to be charged within a year of the offence. Lewis refused to name either man during police interview).
Case of Howard Lichtenstein, Dentist (Skokie, Illinois) (Convicted of indecent solicitation of a child.)
Case of Brad J. Liebermam – AKA « the Plumber Rapist » (Skokie, IL) (Serial rapist. Convicted on over a dozen counts of criminal sexual assaults in the 1970’s and 80’s. AKA: the « Plumber Rapist ». Pose as a plumber, when women let him into their apartments, he would sexually assault them)
Case of Anton Nikolayevich Lipin (Baltimore, MD) (Listed on the National Sex Offenders Registry under the category of Child Sexual Offenders)
Case of Sidney Landau (Anaheim, CA; Placentia, California; Santa Ana, CA; San Francisco, CA; Queens, NY) ( In 1982, Landau was convicted of molesting a 10-year-old boy and served two years in prison. After a 1988 conviction for molesting an 8-year-old Anaheim boy, he served eight more years)
Case of Jeffrey Robert Libman – Webe Web Corp (Fort Lauderdale, FL) (Alabama federal grand jury indicted Marc Greenberg and Jeffrey Libman for operating a child modeling Web site that gained national attention for posting provocative photos of underage girls. Both were charged with 80 counts of conspiring to use minors for sexual photos and interstate transportation of such photos)
Case of Simon Livshitz (Haifa, Israel) (Suspected in the trafficking of women. Charged with money laundering leading to property and funds confiscate by police).
Case of Matthew A. Lowe – Baby sitter, Camp Counselor Temp Dor Dorim (Weston, FL) (Pleaded no contest in circuit court to three counts: two misdemeanor charges of exposure of sexual organs and one felony charge of aggravated battery)
Case of Michael Lytton (Ilford, England) (Convicted of sexually assaulting a woman after posing as a clinical psychologist).
Case of Meir Maman, Tiberias, Israel (Indicte on charges of sodomizing and sexually molesting 10 young boys, including a three-year-old, over the past few years).
Case of Perry March – Attorney at Lawyer (Nashville, TN) (Allegations made of sexual harrassment, with an out of court settlement. Arrested and chared with murder of his wife)
Case of Rochelle Marcus (Accused of sexually abusing children at the Rogers Park JCC Day-Care Center).
Case of Sergei Mayatski (Eilat, Israel) (Charged with of sexually abusing 13 year old teenager from Minsk, Belarus over the past three years. Mayatski admitted that he had sex with the teen, but said it was consensual and that it was partly done for educational purposes).
Case of Roger Mason Levin, MD (Palo Alto, CA; Menlo Park, CA) (Allegations of child sexual abuse and professional sexual misconduct span for over 20 years. There were also allegations of possessing child pornography)
Case of Yosef Meystel (AKA: Joseph Meystel) – Yeshiva Administrator, Rabbi Naftoli Riff Yeshiva (South Bend, IN; Chicago, IL. (Accused of child molestation)
Case of Meyer Miller (AKA: Unnamed Kosher Butcher) (Chicago, IL) (Accused of molesting children for over 30 years)
Case of Morris Ray Millman (Chicago, IL) (Convicted of aggravated kidnapin, aggravated criminal sexual abuse with bodily harm)
Case of Avi Mizrahi (Convicted of a gang rape and sodomy of a 20-year-old mentally disabled woman, and of confining her).
Case of David Mizrahi (Convicted of a gang rape and sodomy of a 20-year-old mentally disabled woman, and of confining her).
Case of Mordechai Mizrahi (Convicted of a gang rape and sodomy of a 20-year-old mentally disabled woman, and of confining her).
Case of Yosaf Mizrahi (Brooklyn, NY) (Arrested for promoting prostitution — an indication he was involved in the operation of the brothel, and not merely a customer).
Case of Yitzhak Mordechai – Israeli Public Official (Jerusalem, Israel) (Convicted of sexual assault)
Case of Bernard Mutterperl (Brooklyn, NY) (Charged attempted kidnapping (upgraded from first- and second-degree unlawful imprisonment), third-degree burglary and endangering the welfare of a child.)
Case of Laizer Nabochov (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Arrested this week by the Israel Police’s Etgar unit on suspicion of trading in women).
Case of Dan Nadger – Cook at Gan City Wedding Hall (Rehovot, Israel) (Tel Aviv District Court Judge Noga Ohad on Wednesday released a rape suspect to house arrest, saying that he and the victim of the alleged attack were « jointly responsible for what occurred. »)
Case of Lawrence Nevison (New York, NY) (Convicted of molesting his nephew. He is the brother of Cantor Howard Nevison)
Case of Stuart Nevison (AKA: Stewart Nevison ) (New York, NY) (Convicted of molesting his cousin. He is the brother of Cantor Howard Nevison)
The Case of the Students of Ner Israel Yeshiva in the 1950’s (Baltimore, MD) (Students accused of sexually molesting a younger student)
Case of David Newman (Los Angeles, CA) (Pleaded no contest to a felony lewd act against a 15-year-old).
Case of the New York Society for the Deaf’s Home (New York, NY) (Accused of treating disabled patients « like animals,’’ beaten, drugged and robbed of their government checks).
Case of Arkadi Nissanov (Jerusalem, Israel) (Arrested this week by the Israel Police’s Etgar unit on suspicion of trading in women).
Case of Yosef Sagiv Ofri – Israeli Vice Consul, Security Officer (Atlanta, GA; Tel Aviv, Israel) (Accused of using the internet and email in order to persuade a child to carry out illegal acts such as sodomy and severe sexual abuse. The Jerusalem Post reports that Ofri is a security officer with the consulate and carries an Israeli diplomatic passport. The Israeli Embassy in Washington confirmed that Ofri had been charged but refused to release more information on the case.)
Case of Steven Howard Oken (Baltimore, MD) (Convicted of a series of sexual assaults and murders. Received the death penalty)
Case of Ephraim Ohana (AKA: Efraim Ohana) (Baltimore, MD) (There is a Call for Action on this case. A letter from the Vaad HaRabbonim of Greater Baltimore has been issued regarding Efraim Ohana which states that he should be refused entry into all synagogues and homes in the Baltimore community.)
Case of Raymond M. Pietrowski (Chicago, IL and Jerusalem, Israel) (Convicted in the attempted rape of an 11-year-old boy will serve no prison time but instead will spend 10 years on probation in Israel)
Case of Mark Pikovsky (Convicted and sentanced to five years for trafficking women for prostitution).
Case of Arthur S Pomerantz – School Psychologist, (Silver Spring, MD) (Convicted, on charges of child sexual abuse)
Case of Roman Polanski (AKA: Raimund Liebling) Filmmaker- (Los Angeles, CA; Paris France) (Convicted sex offender who fled the United States following his arrest for drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl back in the 1980’s)
Case of Haim Ramon – Defense Minister (Jerusalem, Israel) (Stands trial for indecent assault on charges of having forcibly kissed a female soldier in an Israeli government office).
Case of the Rogers Park JCC, (Chicago, Illinois) (This was the first case of alleged mass molestation recorded in Illinois to involve accusations of sexual abuse by a group of adults, consists of 246 allegations that staff members abused children enrolled at the center, according to the Illinois Department of children and Family Services).
Case of Harold S. (Ontario, Canada) (Confessed to having sexual relations with a boy)
Case of Gadi Saban, Israeli soap opera star (Arrested and charged with the rape, attempted rape and indecent assault on a woman in the bathroom of a Tel Aviv night club).
Case of Guy Joseph Raz (AKA: Guy Raz) – Hebrew School Teacher (Pasadena, CA) (Convicted, plead guilty on federal charges that he used the Internet to solicit sex from a 13-year-old former student)
Case of Avi Rodef Shalom (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prision for sexually assaulting a six-and-a-half year old girl)
Case of Tuvya Rokach – Monsey, NY; Brooklyn, NY; Toronto, Canada (Rokach with second-degree criminal sexual act, a felony, and misdemeanor counts of third-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.Rokach also is being investigated by police in Toronto, apparently where he had lived before coming to Monsey, police said).
Case of Darryl Rosen, Police Officer (Sacramento, CA)
Case of Sam Rosenbloom – Operates an On-Line Succah business at http://www.succah.com (Accused of Domestic Violence and refusing to give his wife a Get <Jewish divorce>).
Case of Jonathan Rosenthal – Community Police Liason (London, England) (Acquitted of sexually assaulting a few children, after a jury used ancient common law right, deciding evidence wasn’t strong enough.)
Case of Rabbi Joel Roth (Alegedly making a sexually explicit statement to a student at the seminary)
Case of Marni Nasia-Rubin (Toledo, OH) (Convicted, pleaded no contest to one count of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor).
Case of Adam Theodore Rubin – Teacher, Coach and Girl Scout Coordinator (Arnold, MD) (Convicted of using a computer to solicit sex with a minor, possession of a controlled dangerous substance and possession of drug paraphernalia).
Case of Tuvya Sa’ar – Director-General of the Israel Journalists’ Union (Tel Aviv) (Arrested on suspicion of having intercourse with a minor and coercing her for sexual favors.)
Case of Drew Sanders (New Springville, NY; Staten Island, NY) (Pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible touching)
Case of Aryeh Scher – Israeli vice-consul (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) (Accused of possession of child pornography. Charges dropped when Scher fled the country).
Case of George Schteinberg – Teacher (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) (Accused of possession of child pornography. Charges dropped when Schteinberg fled the country).
Case of Pinchas Schneider – restaurateur (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Accused and ndicted on rape and assault charges).
Case of Yaakov Shneiderman (Be’er Sheva, Israel) (Arrested this week by the Israel Police’s Etgar unit on suspicion of trading in women).
Case of Adrian Schwartz (Rishon Lezion) (Convicted, sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping a 10 year-old-girl and a 23-year-old woman).
Case of David Schwartz – Camp Counselor (Culver City, CA) (Convicted and sentenced to one year in residential treatment and five years’ probation for molesting a 4-year-old boy in his care at summer camp. A six-year prison sentence was suspended).
Case of Jerrold Schwartz – Scoutmaster (New York, NY) (Convicted and sentanced to 8 years in prison for multiple counts of sodomizing his former scout ).
Case of Dana R. Schwartzenfeld (Buffalo Grove, IL; West Bloomfield, MI) (Convicted on charges relating to grabbing and massaged a students genitals through his slacks.)
Case of Benny Sela (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Escaped from prison – Benny Sela known as the « Tel Aviv serial rapist » was convicted in October, 2000 on 13 counts of rape. Sela tortured, beat and raped dozens of little girls and women, terrorizing an entire city for months.
Case of Gal Shamir (Holon, Israel) (Convicted to 17 years imprisonment for sexually assaulting six children.
Case of Yitzhak Sha’ari and the House hostel – International Youth Hostel (Jerusalem, Israel) (The local building and planning committee cited allegations of sexual harassment against Sha’ari published in the popular U.S. student travel guide Let’s Go.)
Case of Boris Shimshishvilli (Arrested as part of an operation launched by Tel Aviv detectives, in which an officer was sent undercover to purchase women over the telephone).
Case of Grig Sholkin (Israel) (Convicted of human trafficking, assault and other charges, by his own admission. He has not yet been sentenced).
Case of Jackie Shoshan (Be’er Sheva, Israel) (Convicted of 14 indecent acts against a 13 year old boy)
Case of Robert A. Singer – CEO, National Children’s Museum (Arrested on child pornography charges, accused of using his work computer to send explicit images to others — including an undercover New York City detective)
Case of Blake Sinrod – Teacher and Camp Counselor (West Boca Raton, FL) (Arrested and charged with molesting two students in his elementary classroom. It has been reported that there might be eight other victims as well. Sinrod faces five felony counts on charges. It appears that Sinrod targeted children of non-English-speaking parents so they would have a hard time reporting it.)
Case of Irwin Silverman – Chief Counsel to U.S. secretary of interior 1933-53 (Accused of molesting his daughter Sue William Silverman).
Case of Paul Slifer – Teacher (Livingston, NJ) (Accused of sexually assaulting a several students, and impersonating a doctor).
Case of Itai Snapier (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of distributing child pornography over the Internet. Also see: Case of Yoav Biran and Case of Rafael Kaplanovsky )
Case of Ari Sorkin – Synagogue Youth Worker (Elkins Park, PA) (Convicted of molesting a 16 yr. old girl)
Case of Martin H. Stein, MD – Psychiatrist (Arlington, VA) (Stripped of his medical licenses in Virginia and the District for negligence, inappropriate and excessive prescribing of drugs for patients as young as 4 and sexually intimate behavior with a patient.)
Case of Robert Sternberg (Monsey, NY) (Convicted sex offender)
Case of Uri Suissa, Senior Justice Ministry official, Israel (Accused of sexually harassed a female worker and that pressure was put on her to deny the charge).
Case of Robert Taylor – Former Board Member Temple Beth Emet (Los Angeles, CA) (Convicted of molesting a boy, served a sex month jail sentance).
Cases of Vladislav Vaksler (Czech Republic; Haifa, Israel; Petah Tikva, Israel; Tel Aviv, Israel) (Extradited from the Czech Republic to Israel under suspicion of involvement in women trafficking, as well as a myriad of related offenses including pimping, imprisonment, assault, threats and rape.)
Case of Alan Edwin Waldman (Pikesville, MD) (Listed on the National Sex Offenders Registry under the category of Child Sexual Offenders. Charged with 2nd Degree Sex Offense).
Case of Mark Anthony Wares (Hutchinson, Kansas) (Convicted of aggravated sexual battery and making a terrorist threat.(2) While on parole from these charges, he was convicted of kidnaping and aggravated battery. He is presently serving a sentence of twenty to forty-five years.)
Case of Jonathan Warrents (Newcastle, England) (Convicted on charges of gross indecency with an 11-year-old boy. Warrents had a previous sex offence conviction dating back 25 years. In January, 2006 Warrents was barred from saying Kaddish for his mother at Newcastle’s United Hebrew Congregation.).
Case of Sanford Wasserman (Tamarac, FL)
Case of Howard Marc Watzman, MD – Pediatrician (Chicago, IL; Peoria, IL; Rockford,IL; Wichita, KS; Philadelphia, PA and in Maryland) (Pleaded guilty to charges that he spent thousands of dollars collecting hundreds of computer images of child pornography including photos of victims as young as 4 years old engaging in sex with adults).
Case of David Douglas Webber – Mashgiach « Kashrut Supervisor » – (Calgory, Canada) (Convicted and sentenced to six years for possessing child pornography and molesting seven boys over the past eight years).
Case of David Weinberg – former Bar-Ilan University spokesperson (Israel) – (Convicted of sexual harassment and indecent assault).
Case of Joshua Adam Weinstein (Toronto, Canada) (Arrested and charged with two counts of sexual assault, four counts of sexual interference, and one count each of invitation to sexual touching and luring a child under 14 years of age (by Internet))
Case of Yeedle Werdyger – Chassidic Singer (Jerusalem, Israel) (There is a Call for Action on this case. Arrested for drugging teenage girls some of whom were below the age of 16, video tayping and then having sexual relations with them. Charges were dropped due to lack of evidence after Werdyger tried to swallow the memory disc of his computer, breaking the chip as he chewed it.).
Case of Adam Wexler – Musician (Bat Ayin, Israel) (Arrested for rape and « maasim megunim » (tranlation: bad things)of a girl when she was seven (she is now 16 or 17) He is a resident of Bat Ayin)
Case of Michael Scott Wheeler -Teacher at Tucson Hebrew Academy (Tucson, AZ) (Convicted on two counts of child abuse.)
Case of Omer Yaish (Mea Shearim), Jerusalem, Israel (Suspected of sexually molesting at least seven haredi children, aged nine to 15, in the neighborhood over the last three and a half years.)
Case of Peter Yarrow – Singer (Pleaded guilty to taking « immoral and improper liberties » with a 14-year-old girl back in 1970, was pardoned by Carter in 1981).
Case of Jacki Yazdi (Jerusalem, Israel) (Charged with raping two of his employees at Tropicana, a brothel that flourished in Jerusalem, prior to being shut down by authorities in 2003).
Case of Michael Yeikovsky (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted of delivering women to work as prostitutes)
Case of Uriel Yitzhaki – Former Israeli Consul in Holland (Accused of sexually assaulting a female subordinate 10 years ago, during an earlier stint in the embassy in Holland. According to the complainant, she went to a casino one night with several other embassy employees, including Yitzhaki, and at some point, she went out to their car to fetch something. Yitzhaki then fell upon her, tore her clothes and tried to rape her, but she managed to push him off and escape.)
Wayne Stephen Young – Fish Store Owner (Baltimore, MD) (Convicted of the murder of Esther Lebowitz. Sentenced him to life in prison)
Case of Moshe Meshi Zahav (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of molesting adolescent girls who were runaways or in boarding schools. Allegedely the Zahav gave his alleged victims thousands of Shekels and expensive gifts, and then pressured them to have sexual intercourse with him).
Case of Dr. Yosef Zaider – Psychologist and T.V. Show Host (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted on three counts of sexual assault)
Case of Colonel Atef Zaher, IDF (Israel) (Convicted of indecent sexual acts and illegal intercourse, and was acquitted of the crime of rape.)
Case of Arnold Zar-Kessler – Headmaster, Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston (The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination reached a decision June 28, 2004 to dismiss the complaint of sexual harassment against the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston and its headmaster, finding that there was a lack of probable cause).
Case of Yitzhak Zarif, 26 (Ra’anana, Israel) (Accused of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl. He was found not-fit to stand trail andwas committed to a mental hospital by the Tel Aviv District Court).
Case of Michael Leon Zeve – AKA: Michael Silver (Detroit, MI; Irvine, CA; Tel Aviv, Israel) (Accused of molesting a neighborhood child and members of a youth roller hockey team he coached between 1996 and 2000).
Case of David Zimmer (Brooklyn, NY) (Convicted of Sexual Abuse-1st Degree of a ten year old female child). 262
Case of Avi Zohar – Or Yehuda Toy Store Employee (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Arrested on suspicion of trying to induce boys aged 12 to 14 to perform sexual acts). 263

Unnamed Cases

Case of Several Unnamed Child Sex Offenders in Har Nof (Jerusalem, Israel) (Outlines several cases of alleged child sex offenders in the charedi town of Har Nof) 1
Case of Two Unnamed Adolescent Males in Rehovot (Jerusalem, Israel) (Two adolescent males were arrested after accusations were made that they beat and sexually assaulted a seventeen year old female for over a sex month period). 2
Case of Two Unnamed 14-year-old Sex Offenders (Convicted of indecent acts against a five- year-old girl)
Case of Three Unnamed Babysitting Youths (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted and sentenced to two years’ probation and public service)
Case of the Unnamed Babysitting Sex Offender (Kibbutz Misgav Am, Israel) (Convicted and sentanced to 28 months after sexually assauling a five-year-old. The criminal was a relative of the girl for whom he was a babysitter).
Case of the Unnamed Be’er Sheva Sex Offender (Be’er Sheva, Israel) (Convicted of sexually molesting a four-year-old girl and of raping a middle-aged woman).
Case of the Unnamed B’Nai Torah Congegation – Hillel Community Day School janitor (Boca Raton, FL) (Accused of child molestation).
Case of the Unnamed Haredi Friend of an Orthodox Singer (Jerusalem, Israel) (Two haredi men, YeedleWerdyger and an unnamed friend, were arrested for enticing girls, some of whom were below the age of 16, to take dangerous drugs and then to have sexual relations with them).
Case of the Unnamed Cook at Camp Kee Tov, Troy, MO (near St. Louis) (Camp Kee Tov was accused of covering up sexual abuse by an employee).
Case of the Unnamed Cop (Tel Aviv Israel) (Convicted of sexually assaulting his younger brother)
Case of the Unnamed Elementary School Principal (Haifa, Israel) (Convicted of sexually abusing students, aged eight to eleven).
Case of the Unnamed Father committing Incest (Eilat, Israel) (Convicted of sexually assaulting his eleven children. Serving a 10-year term).
Case of Unnamed Father committing Incest in Karmiel, Israel (Allegations that a father had raped his daughter for the last eight years).
Case of Unnamed Father committing Incest at Kibbutz Evron – Nahariya, Israel (Allegations that a father had sexual relations with his 12-year-old daughter).
Case of the Unnamed Fifty-Five-Year-Old Father (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Charged with molesting a nine-year-old girl several times)
Case of Unnamed Fifty-One-Year-Old Father Committing Incest (Central Israel) (Charged a 51-year-old man from the center of the country with raping and sodomizing his nine-year-old daughter. The man had been pardoned five years previously after being convicted of sodomizing and abusing another man.)
Case of the Unnamed Internet Pedophile (Kfar Sava, Israel) (Arrested on suspicions he molested at least six children between the ages of 8 and 15 after luring them via the Internet.)
Case of the Unnamed Kemp Hills Juvenile Sex Offenders (Silver Springs, MD) (Allegations have been made that children from the same family have been molesting other children in the neighborhood. It has been suggested that the chldren who are offending are »sexually reactive ». Allegations have also been a made against the parents of the alleged juvenile offenders).
Case of the Unnamed Father committing Incest at Kibbutz Evron – Nahariya, Israel (Allegations that a father had sexual relations with his 12-year-old daughter).
Case of Unnamed Father committing incest on his two daughters (Zevulun, Israel) (Arrested on suspicion of having sexual relations with his four-and five-year-old daughters).
Case of the Unnamed Father committing Incest from Delaware (New Castle, DE) (Father accused of alleged child molestation)
Case of the Unnamed Father committing Incest in a Mazda 323 (Be’er Sheva and Negev, Israel) (Accused of being a serial child rapist)
Case of the Unnamed Father committing Incest who is Fiftyone-years-old (Central Israel) (Charged a 51-year-old man from Central Israel, with raping and sodomizing his nine-year-old daughter. The man had been pardoned five years previously after being convicted of sodomizing and abusing another man).
Case of the Unnamed Soviet Father committing Incest (Rishon Letzion, Israel) (Accused of sexually and physically assaulting his 17 year old daughter).
Case of the Unnamed Father who Sold his Mentally-Handicapped Daughter (Central Israel) (Convicted & sentenced to 14 years’ for selling his 11- year-old mentally-handicapped daughter to a friend to rape in exchange for NIS 50 ($12.00).
Case of Unnamed Father/Grandfather Vs. State of Israel Vs.(Jerusalem, Israel) (Convicted – 68 year old Israeli religious man pled guilty to repeated molestation of his granddaughter, was sentenced to 19 years in jail.
Case of the Unnamed Father/Grandfather (Ashkelon, Israel) (Accused of molesting his daughter and granddaughter)
Case of the Unnamed Grandfather (Tel Aviv) (Charged with raping and sodomizing two of his grandchildren).
Case of the Unnamed Female (Three) Teenagers who Beat and Sexually Assault Younger Girl (Rishon Letzion, Israel) (Accused of molesting at least 2 younger girls in the neighborhood).
Case of the Unnamed Fifty-eight-year-old man from Petah Tikva, Israel (Charged in Tel Aviv District Court with repeatedly raping the 10- year-old daughter of his girlfriend over a three-year period).
Case of the Unnamed Fiftyfive-year-old Man (Tel Aviv) (Charged with molesting a nine-year-old girl several times). .
Case of Unnamed Florida pedophile who works with Jewish youth (FL) (Accused of molesting children in his care)
Case of the Unnamed Forth Individual (Jerusalem, Israel) (Accused of distributing child pornography over the Internet, a gag order has been placed on the name).
Case of the Unnamed Fortysix-year-old Man (Herzliya, Israel) (Charged with molested a 10-year-old neighborhood girl several times from 1989 through 1991 in his car. Also allegedly took the girl to a public park, waiting until other children left to abuse her).
Case of Four Unnamed Israeli soldiers (Israel) (Suspected of raping a female soldier while on vacation in the southern town of Eilat. Another soldier is suspected of witnessing the rape without trying to prevent it.)
Case of the Unnamed Four Suspected Web Pedophiles (Jerusalem, Israel) (Arrested in connection with an international child pornography ring. Also see:Case of Yoav Biran and Case of Rafael Kaplanovsky)
Case of the Unnamed Fourteen-year-old boy (Haifa, Israel) (Accused of the rape of a five-year-old girl and a six-year-old girl).
Case of the Unnamed Fourteen-year-old Rapist (Convicted and sentenced a 14-year-old boy to 15 years in prison and three years of probation for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl).
Case of Two Unnamed 14-year-old Sex Offenders (Jerusalem, Israel) (Convicted of indecent acts against a five- year-old girl).
Case of the Unnamed Gang Rapes (Rishon Letzion and Ashdod, Israel) (gang rapes in two different towns)
Case of the Unnamed Hadera Train Station Sex Offender (Haifa, Israel) (Accused of raping a pregnant woman)
Case of the Unnamed Haredi Israeli Soldier (Jerusalem, Israel) (An Israeli soldier serving in a predominantly haredi combat unit was under arrest for allegedly having sexual relations with several 16 year male teens in his room in the Soldier’s House soldiers’ quarters in Jerusalem.)
Case of an Unnamed Israeli Public Figure (Accused of committing indecent acts, including sodomy, on his stepson).
Case of the Unnamed Jaffa Teenage Serial Sex Offender (Arrested and confessed to molesting 20 children aged eight to 12 over the past half year).
Case of the Unnamed Jewish Youth Group Leader/Rabbinical Student (Queens, NY) (Accused of molesting an 11 year old boy in the basement of a synagogue).
Case of Unnamed Jewish Quarter child molester (Jerusalem, Israel) (suspicions in the quarter that the 16-year-old arrested by the police in 1988 had « taken the rap » for his older brothers, who are still on the loose. The youth was eventually institutionalized. This case involves a 5 year old male victim).
Case of the Unnamed Lakewood Rapist (Lakewood, NJ) (The attacker dragged his 19-year-old victim into his green Jeep Cherokee and used restraints to keep her there. He returned her to the gym about 5 a.m. Monday.)
Case of the Lower East Side Ex-Convict Unnamed Father (Arrested after admitting that he had sex with his 5-year-old daughter and later offered her up to another man (Ariel Berlin), who was a sexual partner of his).
Case of Unnamed Maccabi Haifa player, Israel (Accused of sexual abuse and assault)
Case of the Unnamed Maintenance Worker at Congregation Netzah Yisrael (Ashkelon, Israel) (Arrested and accused of sexually abusing a four-year-old girl at a city pre-school complex. The suspect has also been accused in another case – he was also questioned following similar allegations in Eilat. No indictment has emerged from the Eilat case).
Case of the Unnamed Man Wanted by the FBI Found in Israel (Los Angeles, CA; Eilat Israel) (The 47-year-old man, who is a US citizen was withheld by the police at the FBI’s request, is suspected of serious sex crimes against several relatives, including his granddaughter)
Case of the Unnamed Man who Paid to have sex with a Mentally-Handicaped Girl (Central Israel) (Convicted of sexual assault, and was sentenced to 16 years in jail after paying the girls father to have sex with her).
Case of the Unnamed Man who Molested his Wifes Younger Siblings (Netanya, Israel) (Arrested after being accused of molesting wife’s four siblings, three girls aged 5, 8 and 12 and a 3-year-old boy).
Case of the Unnamed Man from Ramle, Israel (A man was arrested after stabbing a 13 year old girl, over an argument over payment for her services).
Case of Unnamed Principal’s Husband at the Tel Aviv Arts School (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Case of Unnamed Principal in a Brooklyn yeshiva (Brooklyn, NY) (Accused of molesting students)
Case of the Unnamed Repeat Sex Offender (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted unnamed Sex offender sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl. After choking her until she lost consciousness, the assailant rolled her up in a carpet and left her for dead outside).
Case of the Unnamed Rishon Letzion Rapist (A 13-year-old girl filed a complaint at a Rishon Letzion police station stating she had been sexually assaulted by two men).
Case of the Unnamed Safad Rapist (Safad, Israel) (Allegations were made that a man wearing hassidic garb sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl).
Case of the Unnamed Senior Driver Licensing Inspector And A Driving Instructor (Negev, Israel) (Arrested a senior driver licensing inspector and a driving instructor on suspicion of having offered to grant a young woman a license if she agreed to have sexual relations with both of them.)
Case of the Unnamed Serial Pedophile (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Man arrested this weekend on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl who was found rolled up in a carpet.)
Case of the Unnamed 17-year old Rapist (Central Israel) (Accused of sexually assaulting a girl from his school for over two years).
Case of the Unnamed Seventy-eight-year old man from Jaffa, Israel (Charged with raping his friend’s five- year-old daughter.)
Case of Unnamed Teacher in Eda Haredit School, Israel (Sexually molested at least two of the pupils in a school belonging to the hassidic sect)
Case of Unnamed Teacher at Michael Sobell Sinai School (England)
Case of the Unnamed Three Students from Bat Yam Yeshiva (Ayalon Region, Israel) (Three students aged 13-14 were arrested and confessed to the allegations of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old schoolmate)
Case of the Unnamed Two Sharon Region Absorption Center Rapist (Two Alleged rapists (aged 17 and 18) were arrested).
Case of the Unnamed Sibiling Incest (Zevulun, Israel) (Arrested after allegedly forcing his seven-year-old sister to have sexual relations with him several times).
Case of the Unnamed Six Male Teenagers (Kibbutz Shomrat, Israel) (Accused and Convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, over a period of several days on the kibbutz)
Case of the Unnamed Sixteen-year-old repeat sex offender (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Convicted of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy and confessed to sexually assaulting another child, who was his 10 year-old neighbor).
Case of Unnamed Sixty-year-old Man (Herzliya, Israel) (Charged with sexually abusing a neighborhood boy, 11, after inviting him to try his exercise bicycle in the basement).
Case of the Unnamed Sixty-four-year-old Neighbor (Tel Aviv, Israel) (Charged in Tel Aviv District Court with systematically raping and sexually assaulting a 20-year-old man over an 11-year-period).
Case of the Unnamed Synagogue Rapist (Jerusalem Israel) (Accused and arrested. 20 year old Jerusalem man was under arrest for sexually assaulting at least ten children in a city synagogue).
Case of the Three Unnamed Students from Bat Yam Yeshiva (Three students aged 13-14 were arrested and confessed to the allegations of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old schoolmate)
Case of Three Unnamed Female Teenagers who Beat and Sexually Assault Younger Girl (Rishon Letzion, Israel) (Accused of molesting at least 2 younger girls in the neighborhood).
Case of the Unnamed Two Sharon Region Absorption Center Rapist (Two Alleged rapists (aged 17 and 18) were arrested).
Case of Two Unnamed men from the West Bank village of Yata (Two men from the West Bank village of Yata have been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a teenage girl and enticing her to use drugs).
Case of Two Unnamed Students who attempted to Film Female Classmates (Holon, Israel) (Arrested after allegations were made that two high school students, both aged 16, attempted to film female classmates in the school’s bathrooms).
Case of Unnamed Teacher Molesting Students (1853) (Accused of molesting students back in 1800’s that were under the age of 13).
Case of Unnamed Thirty-five-year-old man from Bnei Brak, Israel (Arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting his neighbor and performing indecent acts on him).
Case of the Unnamed Thirty-three-year-old Man (Petah Tikva) (Accused of raping a colleague).
Case of the Unnamed Twenty-one-year-old Man (Beersheba, Israel) (Charged with raping a five-year-old girl whose mother had asked him to bring her home to a Beersheba absorption center from kindergarten).
Case of the Unnamed Yachting Instructor (Herzliya, Israel) (Arrested on suspicion of abusing four 11-year-olds)
Case of the Unnamed Youth Basketball Coach (Jerusalem, Israel) (Arrested after six youths complained to police). 84

Related Cases

Case of The Dentist Couple (Kfar Sava, Israel) (Charged with Severely Abusing Daughters) 1
Case of Rabbi Bernard Freilich (Borough Park/Brooklyn, NY) (Acquitted of death threats to an alleged victim) 2
Case of Kenneth Gribetz, District Attorney (Rockland County, NY) (Plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of defrauding the government in a deal he worked out with the U.S. Attorney. Although married, a father and grandfather, Gribetz was partly done in by his former mistress, who went to the media with information about him.)
Case of Jewish School in Manchester, England (School was under investigation by social services over allegations that pupils have been mentally abused).
Case of Rabbi Steven Jacobs (Los Angeles, CA) (Accused of Rabbinical Sexual Misconduct by congregants after learning Rabbi Jacobs was having an alleged affair with Anina Green, who was later murdered by her husband according to Michele Samit’s book, « No Sanctuary: The True Story of a Rabbi’s Deadly Affair » )
Modesty Patrol (Jerusalem, Israel) 6

Psy violeurs

An echo of this has long been a problem in the psychotherapy and psychiatry worlds: the sexual exploitation of vulnerable patients by predatory therapists. Such fields, as evidenced earlier, are enormously overpopulated with Jewish men. [« That vast apparative of putative concern, psychiatry, is largely a Jewish monopoly. » — Kahn, Roger. The Passionate People, William Morris, Inc., 1968, p. 53 / « All over the world, Jews are drawn to the profession of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy. The 1990 roster of the International Psychoanalytical Association reads like the membership list of a synagogue. » — Earl Hopper, Psychotherapy and the ‘Jewish Experience.’ European Judaism, Spring 1996, p. 17-25] Rapes and other similar incidents are only sometimes reported by patients who have the courage to complain to authorities. A 1994 Boston Globe article noted the great scope of the problem, mentioning the cases against therapists Martin Teicher, Arthur Reider, Lionel Schwartz, Joel Feigon, Jacob Goldberg, Leonard Friedman, and others, including, in 1992, « several accused multiple offenders — Sheldon D. Zigelbaum, Edward M. Daniels, and Stanley S. Kanter [who] either lost or gave up their licenses [to practice therapy] under pressure … Though polls have shown that about 8 to 10 percent of psychiatrists admit to having sex with patients, many experts believe the actual frequency is higher, up to 25 percent. Many psychiatrists, they say, are not about to admit to such a clear violation [of therapists’ ethical codes], even anonymously. » [LEHR, 10-4-94] Worse, as the Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights noted:

« Although only ten percent of psychiatrists admit to sexually abusing patients, interestingly, 65 percent say new patients tell them of being abused sexually by their former psychiatrist. In other words, the 10 percent figure can be
considered very, very low. In fact, in an article from the March 12, 1990 edition of U.S. News and World Report, experts put the figure at more like 25 percent, or one out of every four psychiatrists. And a 1973 study in California puts the figure at an astronomical 51 percent! » [CITIZENS’ COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, 2001]

This organization estimates that there are 150,000 women « sexually abused by psychiatrists in the USA. » 21,000 try to kill themselves, 1,500 DO kill themselves, and 16,000 end up hospitalized because of the harm caused to them. » [CITIZENS’ COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, 2001]

In 1993, another Jewish sexual predator, this one especially prominent, Dr. Jules Masserman, began making the news. Masserman has been called « the most prominent psychiatrist in the world. » He had a resume of 432 articles and 16 books of his authorship. He was the past president of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychoanalysts. He was also a vicious sexual predator, one who « admitted that he, over his 50-year career, drugged and sexually molested female patients in his office. » [ROZNAFSZKY, p. 10F] Four women eventually accepted out-of-court settlements of claims against him. Eventually, a dozen women came forward to note similar sexual predations against them by Masserman. Former patient Barbara Noel even authored an entire volume about her experiences with the therapist, underscoring his control over her and the difficulties in getting anyone to initially believe her stories against such a powerful man.

By the 1970s, for example, the psychoanalytic practice of John N. Rosen began making the news. Rosen was not obscure; articles about his therapy theories had appeared in various scholarly realms by himself and others. In 1983, he gave up his medical license rather than face trial on 67 counts of violations of the Pennsylvania Medical Practices Act. As part of « therapy, » for example, patient Sally Zinman faced the following outrages:

« Without a word of explanation, [Rosen] and his main aide, an ex- Marine, tore off all of her clothes except her underpants and began beating her on the face and breasts (the aide held her down while Rosen beat her). She was then tied to her bed, still with no clothes on, and kept her that way for 24 hours under close guard … [Therapy also included Rosen] suggesting various ‘delusions’ to her and fondling her breasts when they were alone (often the sessions were in groups), and once even her vagina. » [MASSON, p. 136-137]

In the case of another patient, Janet Katkow, Rosen « took off his pants and boxer shorts down over his penis and commanded the plaintiff to suck on his penis. » [MASSON, p. 138] This Katkow was required to do « hundreds of times » over a seven year period. « This is what it is all about, this is when a baby is at peace, » he told her. [MASSON, p. 141] This patient was also forced to lick his anus « and orally take in as much of his feces as she could, which she did. » Katkow was also directed to have cunnilingus with another woman and have sex with an impotent judge. [MASSON, p. 144] Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson noted in 1988:

Rosen also had « numerous sexual relations » with patient Julia Blythe. Three other women eventually came forward with similar stories of abuse. [MASSON, p. 145]

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, a former psychoanalyst, became profoundly disillusioned with the field and notes, in his volume entitled Against Therapy, the disturbing undercurrent of such stories, that such abuses are part of a perversely authoritarian doctor-patient relationship that is the foundation of the psychoanalytic world itself:

« Is Rosen an exception or is there something about psychotherapy, something in the very nature of psychotherapy, that tends toward abuses? A prison warden, a slaveholder, and a psychotherapist have in common the desire to control another person. » [MASSON, p. 147].

In late 2000, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles noted with concern a number of newsworthy cases of sexual abuse by rabbis:
« For those who look up to the American Jewish clergy, it has not been a good year. Last week, one of the Reform movement’s most prominent rabbis was suspended from the rabbinical movement for past sexual misconduct …Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, widely respected as a Jewish thinker and teacher, resigned as president of the movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion … The wave of incidents is refocusing on an issue that has come into public view only in recent years. In the past, rabbinical misconduct – particularly sexual misconduct — was rarely discussed publicly. Many advocates for victims complained that rabbinical associations were more interested in protecting their members than the people they hurt. » [WIESNER, J., 12-15-200]

Also noted in the article is the sexual harrassment « by the late charismatic Orthodox leader, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, » a Reform rabbi in New Jersey who « allegedly hired people to murder his wife, » a « Conservative Cantor in the Chicago area [who] was arrested … for alleged involvement in a prostitution ring, » and a « New York rabbi working for [the Orthodox Union’s] national youth group [who allegedly] sexually harassed and molested teens. » [WIESNER, J., 12-15-00]

In 1996, a Los Angeles Jewish showpiece, the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum (a $65 million cultural center created by Israeli architect Moshe Safdie and founded by Israeli-born president and CEO Uri Herscher), named Robert Kirschner as its Program Director despite his past as the former rabbi of one of northern California’s pre-eminent synagogues, Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco. Kirschner resigned his rabbinical post there in 1992 after four women (eventually a total of twelve) came forward with complaints of the rabbi’s sexual misconduct, « involving, » he publicly apologized, « sexual relations outside my marriage. » At least three of the women reportedly « reached settlements with the temple’s insurance policy. » [LA TIMES, 11-2-96, p. B4]

In 2000, the Miami-Dade Public Schools district paid a million dollar settlement to five women, four of them teachers, who charged that Michael Exelbart, the principal of a school for the handicapped, had sexually harassed them. Two had been « coerced » into sex, including at the site of « a conservative Jewish temple in Kendall where Exelbart was an officer. » Exelbart wasn’t fired, and continued to make $80,000 a year at another position. [KISSELL, T., 4-20-2000]

In April 2001, Jerrold M. Levy, a rabbi at Temple Beth El in Florida, was arrested for « online solicitation of a juvenile » over the Internet. The synagogue had hired him as an associate rabbi in 1992, even though it was known by those hiring him that he had been arrested on a past sex-related charge:

Two weeks later, in the Boston area, also in April 2001, Eric Hindin was charged with « two counts of rape of a child, two counts of indecent assault and battery, and two counts of statutory rape. » Hindin had sexually assaulted and videotaped the crimes with two boys, one of whom « he was matched with through a Jewish Big Brother organization. » [ELLEMONT/TWAROG, 4-12-00]

In 1981, the four-term (1968-81) Brooklyn District Attorney, Eugene Gold, « announced he would not seek re-election and planned to devote himself to Jewish charitable causes. » In 1983, he was charged with « unlawful sexual conduct » in a hotel with a 10-year old girl. In return for probation, Gold pleaded guilty and would seek « psychiatric treatment in Israel, where he had a home. » [NY TIMES, 10-21-83] In 1992, Sol Wachtler, « chief judge of New York state’s Court of Appeals, one of the most prestigious courts in the United States, resigned … [He was] the central figure in a scandal involving sex, blackmail and kidnapping threats … Before his arrest, he was frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for the governor of New York state. » The object of Wachtler’s sexual attentions and threats was Joy Silverman (a former lover), whose personal friend at the FBI put 80 agents on the case to nab him. [CHISHOLM, P., 1992, p. 56]

In 1995, Frederick Werbell, a rabbi who co-wrote « a best-selling Holocaust book » (Lost Hero: The Mystery of Raul Wallenberg), pleaded guilty to « second-degree sexual abuse » of his cleaning lady. « He sprang naked from the bathroom of his Eastside apartment, grabbed his 39-year old housekeeper and fondled her. » He had earlier been sentenced to 17 months in jail for grabbing a woman he was interviewing in his apartment for a job as a receptionist. » [BREEN, 7-18-95]

In 2001, Rabbi Pinchas Lew, a Chasidic Lubavitcher (ultra-Orthodox), « was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges … after a woman accused him of repeatedly touching his genitals in front of her. The woman, a housekeeper in Lew’s home, reportedly said Lew had bolted all the doors and that she feared he planned to assault her. She managed to escape through a back door … Lew, married with five children, led religious study and frequently held services in his home for college students … Members of the community had had just learned of Lew’s conviction for his part in an Iowa armed robbery 10 years ago … After the local community learned about [this] incident,
more than 100 members of the local Jewish community attended a meeting to hear Lew talk about his criminal past. Coincidentally, that meeting occurred on the same day he allegedly assaulted the woman in his home. » [FLEISHMAN, D., 7-3-01]

Lew is a member of a prominent Chabad family — « his father was second in command of Chabad in London, a key post in worldwide Lubavitch. » [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 265] The national Chabad community stunned the judge in providing the required $200,000 bond for the arrested and jailed man. This, notes, Stephen Bloom, was based on the Jewish tradition that « observant Jews are compelled to post bail that will allow a fellow Jew ‘imprisoned unjustly’ to be released. Called in Hebrew pidyon shevuyim, the ‘ranson of captives’ is a particular obligation of the Hasidic community. » [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 253]
Lew’s criminal accomplice was fellow Chabad member Philip Stillman who robbed a smalltown popcorn vendor and shot a grandmother at point-blank range after taking her money. Stillman reportedly accepted an offer from two rabbis to accept a bribe to accept full blame for the crimes. Lev, despite an original sentencing of ten years in prison, was merely put on probation. The judge told a journalist that he was influenced and « impressed by many of the Jews who came [to the Lew trial]. The courtroom had a significant number of rabbis. They were very intellectual individuals. « If the crime had stunned the locals [of Iowa], » says Stephen Bloom, « the double standard of punishment for Stillman and Lev took their breath away. » [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 255-256] Marion Bakken, the woman who was shot, survived and was awarded $1.6 million as settlement for her injuries. She has never been paid. [BLOOM, S., 2001,p. 274]

Secular Jewish journalist Stephen Bloom believes that ultra-Orthodox disdain for Gentiles contributed to the robberies and attempted murder: « The attitude shared by many Postville Hasidim toward the locals nourished
a destructive environment of contempt and scorn providing a setting for Stillman and Lew. While the Hasids would not encourage unprovoked violence against gentiles, their everyday us-against-them mentality helped set the stage for two cocky fellowers to fantasy into reality. For more than a year, the Hasidic Jews’ imperious attitude toward the Postville locals had stuck in my craw. As a Jew, I was embarrassed by their take-it-or-leave-it mentality. » [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 273]

In 1995, a rabbi’s assistant, Yehuda Friedlander, pleaded guilty to the charge of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl sitting beside him, alone, on an international plane flight. He had also had an earlier arrest for a sexual crime in 1991. A rabbi with him, Israel Grunwald, the leader of New York’s Pupa ultra-Orthodox community, was also accused of sexually harassing the girl. He remained under investigation as Friedlander accepted blame. According to the affidavit filed against both men, substantiated by another passenger who witnessed the incident, Grunwald first fondled the girl’s breast, then exchanged seats with Friedlander, who violated her further as she protested and resisted under a blanket, trying to sleep. The two men were returning from Australia where Grunwald had lectured about the Talmud. Later, « about 15 supporters from New York and Los Angeles, » noted the Los Angeles Times, « attended the court hearings chanting from prayer books as they waited for the proceedings to begin. » [BOXALL/KENNEDY, p. B1; and LOS ANGELES TIMES, 11-1-95, p. B4]

In 1999, Ze’ev Kopolovitch, a rabbi and the principal of Netiv Meir, an all-male yeshiva high school in Israel, was accused of sexually abusing 19 students from 1991-1997. The most disturbing part of the case, noted the Jerusalem Post, was that « investigators say Kopolovitch’s alleged behavior was known within the school for several years and tolerated by the governing hierarchy of the religious Zionist movement. » [GROSS, N., 1999, p. 28] In 2001, a « part-time synagogue sexton » in Jerusalem was convicted « for sexually assaulting children who went to synagogue to pray with him … At least three children were involved, with one, the 13-year-old, being the son of another synagogue official. That boy was so disturbed by the sexual abuse that he took up drugs, and the sexton then exploited that knowledge to blackmail the youth into more sexual intercourse. The other two children were subject to his fondling, often on the back porch of the synagogue dduring prayers, in exchange for sweets. » [REINFELD, M., 6-22-01]

In 2001, Chabad rabbi Mordechai Yomtov, a teacher at Cheder Menachem grade school in Los Angeles, was jailed on $500,000 bail for « ten felony counts of committing lews acts with children … Yomtov was keeping [three boys] alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess. » [FAX, J., 12-14-01]

In 2000, John Douglas Wynn was arrested for molesting a 12-year old boy in the spa at California’s Palo Alto Jewish Community Center. [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 5-18-2000, p. A18]

In 2000 an unnamed young Jewish woman came forward to press criminal charges against Rabbi Baruch Lanner, the religious director of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), an Orthodox youth group. She claimed she was molested by Lanner on a daily basis for eight months beginning in 1995. [ROSENBLATT, G., 7-10-2000, p. 9] Lanner, noted the Jewish Week,

« is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant, dynamic and charismatic educators in Jewish life today … Reports have continued to circulate that he has harassed, if not abused, many scores of teens sexually, physically and/or emotionally, from the early 1970s to the present … Those who have elected to tell their stories say they are motivated by anger and frustration over the refusal of the OU, the national central body of Orthodox synagogues, to act decisively on repeated complaints about Rabbi Lanner’s behavior. » [ROSENBLATT, G., 6-23-2000]

In 2000, the head of the Defense Ministry’s publishing unit, Amnon Tzabari, was charged with sexual harassment for « performing lewd acts on four female workers in his office. » This followed disciplinary actions against « long-time ministry spokesman » Dan Weinrich and, in a separate case, the head of the Defense Ministry’s media section, Shachar Halevi. « The situation became so bad, » noted the Jerusalem Post, « that ministry Director-General Arno Yam gathered all senior officials and warned he was going to uproot the phenomenon. » [O’SULLIVAN, A., 9-8-2000] In 2001, a parliamentary aide to Israeli MK (member of Knessset/Parliament) Ayoub Kara publicly accused him or raping her. Ayoub is Prime Minister Sharon’s « liason to Israeli Arabs. » [JERUSALEM POST, 2-28-01] In 2000, Israel’s Transport Minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, « who deputizes for [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Barak in his absence, suspended himself pending an investigation into accustions that he sexually assaulted a female civil servant. » [REEVES, P., 3-8-00] In 2001, the director general of the Israel Journalists’ Union, Tuvya Sa’ar, was « arrested on suspicion of having intercourse with a minor and coercing her for sexual favors … In one instance … he is suspected of promising the girl an appearance on the TV channel for children because of his connections there. » Sa’ar is the former director of Israel TV. [ARBELI, A., 8-15-01]

In 1999 Rabbi Bernard Freilich, « who holds a $76,000–a-year political patronage in the [New York governor] Pataki administration » was charged with « witness tampering in a case of an alleged incest victim, raped by her (unnamed) father. George Messner, Mates Fisher, Richard Finkel, Sam Lustigan and Baruch Weiss were also indicted for attempting to keep the victim from testifying. » [LIFF, 7-15-99]

Federal Prosecutors Try to Keep Boca Rabbi Jailed, Calling Him a Menace. Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, July 20, 2001. « Responding to a jailed rabbi’s appeal that he be allowed to await trial in a psychological program, federal prosecutors this week argued that Jerrold Levy remains a threat to the community and a flight risk … Prosecutors said they have developed additional evidence that Levy distributed child pornography to other people, received child pornography from a minor contacted in an Internet chat room, and pursued other minors … In their response to Levy’s appeal, prosecutors said there is ‘overwhelming’ evidence against Levy to support their existing nine charges of child pornography and using the Internet to entice a juvenile. Last week, Levy, a former associate rabbi at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, filed an emergency motion for release from prison as he waits to hear about an appeal. »

Marvin Hersh, a Florida Atlantic University professor, was charged with alien smuggling and passport fraud for going to Honduras and bringing a teen-age boy back to Boca Raton, Florida for sex. Affidavits described Hersh as a longtime pedophile who traveled to Central America and Asia to find victims. He passed the boy off as his son. Hersh’s friend, Nelson Jay Buler, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida was charged with travelling for the purpose of illegal sexual contact with a minor, and aggravated sexual abuse of a child in Honduras. According to Title 18, Section 2423, a federal statute in the US, it is a crime for any American citizen to travel abroad with the intent to sexually abuse children. Sentences can be up to 10 years of imprisonment plus fines of US$ 250,000 (« Bond set for man accused of Honduras juvenile-sex trips, » Associated Press) …

Richard Blau, a Manhattan businessman, has been charged with abusing an immigrant Burmese woman whom he kept chained in his bedroom for nearly two weeks after offering her work as a cleaning woman. (UPI, 20 August 1997)

http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/jewish_pedophilia.html
Yeshiva Teacher Accused of Molesting Students. Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2000
« Police three weeks ago launched an investigation into alleged sexual abuse by a teacher at Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav yeshiva 14 years ago … In mid-December, police were alerted to accusations by three men – now in their late 20s – who studied at the yeshiva in their teenage years and said they were sexually molested by the man. Police then began investigations into other men who reportedly were also sexually abused, but did not come forward … The head of the yeshiva, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira, was alerted to the complaints several months ago in an anonymous letter and soon after in an anonymous phone call … Senior National Religious Party figures, meanwhile, reacted to reports that Shapira attempted to silence those who made the allegations of sexual misconduct … This is not the first time that Shapira has been suspected of trying to prevent a police inquiry into the improprieties of yeshiva teachers. Last year, he received a warning letter from Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein after he was said to have tried to cover up the illegal sexual behavior of Ze’ev Kopolevitch, formerly head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir Yeshiva, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. »

« A former employee of Calgary Jewish Community Council has been charged with possession of child pornography, sexual assault and sexual interference with a child under 14 years of age. David Webber, 35, was arrested on February 22. On that date, police executed a search warrant on his apartment. In the search, they seized a large number of Polaroid photographs of nude boys aged 10 to 14 and written materials. Several children have already been interviewed and are alleged to be victims of sexual assault … Before moving to Calgary, Webber was youth director of the Beth Israel Synagogue in Edmonton. In 1990, he was charged with sexual assault in Edmonton, but the charges were subsequently dismissed. »

Synagogue Sexton Guilty of Pedophilia. Haaretz [Israel], June 22, 2001
« A garbage truck driver with a part-time job as a synagogue sexton in a town in the center of the country was convicted yesterday by a Jerusalem District Court for sexually assaulting children who went to synagogue to pray with him … At least three children were involved, with one, the 13-year-old, being the son of another synagogue official. That boy was so disturbed by the sexual abuse that he took up drugs, and the sexton then exploited that knowledge to blackmail the youth into more sexual intercourse. The other two children were subject to his fondling, often on the back porch of the synagogue during prayers, in exchange for sweets. »

Rabbi Jailed. Instructor at Cheder Menachem Grade School Accused of Molesting Boys, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, December 14, 2001
« A rabbi accused of molesting three boys at a Chabad elementary school was arrested Dec. 3 and remained at the L.A. Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail as The Journal went to press. Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov’s arrest on 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with children came following an investigation by the LAPD after three boys, ages 8 to 10, reported last month that Yomtov was keeping each of them alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess. Yomtov, 36, an Australian-born rabbi with a wife and four children, pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court is set for Dec. 17. Yomtov has taught 8- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a school with 220 boys, kindergarten through eighth grade, on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Boulevard-La Brea Avenue neighborhood. The school issued a written statement following the arrest: ‘Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment.’ The statement went on, ‘We request that our privacy be respected. The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities.’ »

Scout ‘Perv’ Might Go Free, New York Post, December 19, 2001
« The accused pedophile scoutmaster of the Upper East Side’s Boy Scout Troop 666 will seek a no-jail deal today – and the young sodomy victim’s anguished family is furious. ‘He is a wolf of the worst kind under that sheep’s clothing,’ the victim’s mother said of the since-fired scoutmaster – married Upper East Sider Jerrold Schwartz, 42. ‘Anything less than the maximum sentence would be unfair to my son,’ the mother – whose name is being kept confidential – said in a Dec. 13 letter to the judge, who will consider a possible plea deal today in Manhattan Supreme Court. Prosecutors say a total of five credible victims have accused Schwartz – who also ran a Colorado-based youth travel company – of turning Troop 666 into Boy Scout hell through a pattern of winning kids’ trust, tempting them with overnight ski and camping trips – and then molesting them. ‘I say 10 minutes in a room with me – that’s a fair sentence,’ one of these alleged victims, a now 30-year-old Queens man, angrily responded when informed of the negotiations yesterday. But Schwartz is only charged with sodomizing one boy – a total of 36 times – because the statute of limitations has run out on the other cases. That boy is now 20 years old. He’s in in-house rehab for cocaine addiction and alcoholism, his parents wrote the judge. He bathes compulsively ‘because he feels so dirty,’ they said. He also has nightly nightmares, and self-mutilates. »

Synagogue Cantor Arrested on Sexual Abuse Charges, Newsday, February 20, 2002. « The longtime cantor at one of the nation’s largest and most prominent Reform synagogues was arrested in New York on Wednesday on charges that he sexually abused a nephew, a prosecutor said. Howard Nevison, 61, of Congregation Emanu-El, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, was arrested at his apartment, said Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. Police in Lower Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia, charged Nevison with sexually assaulting the boy on three occasions between 1993 and 1997 while the boy was 3 to 7 years old. ‘Like anyone else, we in law enforcement tend to believe that religious figures are beyond reproach. You want to make very sure before you go accusing one,’ Castor said. Police have known about the allegations since about 1998 but did not pursue charges until the victim, who was undergoing therapy, was ready to confront the uncle, Castor said. ‘He had terrorized the child to the point that, in the judgment of his parents, his therapists and our investigators, he was too traumatized to go forward,’ Castor said. »
In 2 Communities, Concern Over the Arrest of a Cantor, New York Times, February 22, 2002. « The proper, prosperous residents of the Upper East Side of Manhattan and of the Main Line Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion Township stood united yesterday in sheer disbelief over the same sordid tale — a synagogue cantor accused of molesting his prepubescent nephew. The lawyers, investment bankers, politicians and other prominent members of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan struggled to square their image of the cantor, Howard Nevison, the golden-voiced tenor who led them in prayer for 23 years, with the Lower Merion police’s description of him as a violent sexual abuser of a child. The imposing temple at Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, said to be the largest synagogue in the world, is home to one of the nation’s most prominent reform congregations. It counts among its members the new mayor of New York, the Manhattan district attorney and familiar names from the media and the arts. »
Song of Sorrow, New York, April 15, 2002. « Joel’s parents were as baffled as they were horrified. Almost a year would pass before they’d come to understand the source of his demons, a year in which their curly-haired boy was frequently suicidal and obviously terrified. In therapy over the subsequent months, he slowly started revealing the torments he’d endured at the hands of his own family. He’d been sexually abused by his uncle Larry (his father’s older brother, who confessed in 1999 and is currently in prison), and also by Larry’s adult son Stewart, who pleaded guilty and served a year before being released on parole. Finally, the boy charged, he was sexually abused by his uncle Howie (his father’s oldest brother, fourteen years Henry’s senior). Uncle Howie is better known to New Yorkers as Cantor Howard Nevison, part of the rabbinical hierarchy at Congregation Emanu-El, the city’s most prominent Reform Jewish synagogue, for 23 years.
In the early-morning hours of February 20, police arrested him in his Upper West Side home. On April 17, a preliminary hearing will determine whether there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial. He is contesting the charges. ‘Howard Nevison is innocent, and we are confident he will be exonerated,’ says his attorney, Ralph Jacobs. These accusations are very different from the suddenly ubiquitous stories of priests molesting parishioners. This is strictly a family affair … .
But for Nevison, the blow had been coming for years; the cantor first learned he was a suspect not long after Joel’s parents initially approached the police in 1998. Linda Fairstein, former longtime chief of the New York district attorney’s sex-crimes-prosecution unit, says she’s « stunned » that it took so long to file charges against the cantor. « I’ve never heard of that, » she says. « It’s quite extraordinary that people who already gained the trust of a child for the prosecution of relatives couldn’t then also elicit his consent in prosecuting another one at the time. »
Why the delay? Joel, according to the Pennsylvania district attorney bringing the charges, was too afraid to testify against the cantor, allegedly the most terrifying of the three men accused of molesting him. In the affidavit of probable cause that resulted in Howard Nevison’s arrest, the boy describes him as ‘a big man with a mean, powerful voice and frightening glare,’ who threatened to kill him if he spoke up … Some parents were outraged to learn that the temple leadership had known since 1998 about an investigation of the Nevison family yet continued allowing the cantor to meet with boys and girls preparing for their bar mitzvahs. »

A Cry for Help that Went Unheeded. philly.com, April 6, 2000. « Prosecutors say the Kensington man repeatedly raped and sodomized two girls whom his wife was baby-sitting at their rowhouse. He allegedly employed a plastic baseball bat on one occasion. But the ugliness of the details is not all that makes the case stand out. Philadelphia police were called in four years ago, when the attacks allegedly began. One of the girls, then 8, described the assaults in graphic detail. But the sex-crimes unit closed the case after a cursory investigation. Investigators did not interview the man, Samuel Cohen, or inform child-welfare authorities of the allegations against him, The Inquirer has learned. Cohen continued assaulting one of the girls, then 7, for five more months, police now say. One of the assaults was so brutal that the child was taken to a hospital with vaginal injuries, records show. »

Man Sentenced to at Least 45 Years in Child Sex Cases. Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 4, 2000. « A 41-year-old man with a prior felony conviction for child molestation was sentenced Monday to a minimum of 45 years in prison. In March, Russell D. Cohen pleaded guilty to one count each of sexual assault with a minor under 14, sexual assault with a minor under 16, and use of a minor in producing pornography. Incidents involving about 10 victims were combined into the three charges. Cohen was arrested in August and accused of forcing two boys into sex acts. Authorities said Cohen met young boys by employing them to distribute fliers throughout the Las Vegas Valley and then took them to his home, where they were sexually abused. Shortly after news of Cohen’s arrest was circulated in the Las Vegas media, police received a videotape in the mail that showed a man engaging in sex acts with several male juveniles. In October, additional charges were filed against Cohen in connection with the videotape. »

Lanner Indicted on Sex Abuse Charges. Jewish Week, March 16, 2000. « Nine months after The Jewish Week reported on allegations that Rabbi Baruch Lanner had abused teenagers in his charge for three decades, a Monmouth County, N.J., grand jury indicted him Wednesday on six criminal charges. The rabbi faces two counts each of aggravated criminal sexual conduct, criminal sexual conduct and endangering the welfare of a child. The crimes are second-, third- and fourth-degree offenses. A second-degree offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison … The first woman, now 19, alleged that Rabbi Lanner sexually abused her almost daily in his office at the yeshiva when she was a 14-year-old ninth-grader there in 1995 and 1996. »

Father charged with abusing, raping his children and wife, by David Ratner, Haaretz (Israel), February 19, 2003. « A 62-year-old Haifa man was charged yesterday with physically and mentally abusing his children and wife for many years. He is also suspected of raping two of his daughters … In 1984, the indictment says, he married a woman who had two daughters, aged 12 and 8. He is accused of raping his elder stepdaughter for the first time when she was 17 and then throwing her out of the house naked. He continued raping her until she turned 21, threatening to tell that she was sleeping with him if she resisted. He stopped raping and abusing her only when she married, at the age of 23. He started raping his younger stepdaughter when she was 15, in addition to beating her and screaming at her. He is alleged to have raped her several times more between 1991 and 1993. When she joined the army, he humiliated her and threw her out. She never returned to the family home. The man is also charged with beating his wife in 2000 so badly that she required medical treatment. In addition, he abused his wife for years with humiliating acts and insults at every opportunity. The couple had three more daughters, born in 1986, 1987 and 1990. The man is also charged with abusing the young girls. He used to scream at the older one and insult her until she started getting anxiety attacks. He insisted on watching her dress against her will and stroke her behind against her explicit wishes. He used to masturbate in front of the second daughter and abuse her in similar ways, and is also suspected of brutally beating the youngest child. »

Bnei Brak resident gets nine years for sexual abuse, Ha’aretz (Israel), January 22, 2003. « Tel Aviv District Court on Wednesday sentenced a 29-year-old Bnei Brak resident to nine years in prison and two years’ probation for sexually harassing and assaulting six ultra-Orthodox youths between the ages of 14 and 16 over a period of years. Avraham Asher was also accused of ‘offering’ one of the youths to two of his friends, who also abused him. The two, Yossi Mozas and Yosef Garus, both 29, from Bnei Brak, were given much lighter sentences … The court heard that Asher and his friends harassed the youths in bus shelters and at ritual baths in Bnei Brak. Asher also assaulted the youths in showers and once visited a yeshiva in Jerusalem, where one of the teenagers studied. »

Prosecutor faces child sex charges, Palm Beach Post, January 22, 2003. « With his Mickey Mouse lapel pin replete with an American flag, prosecutor Ira Karmelin cut a squeaky-clean image in the Palm Beach County Courthouse. But on Tuesday the image was of the top assistant state attorney handcuffed outside the courthouse and carted off to jail to face child sex charges. Karmelin, 38, is accused of soliciting a woman, whom he believed was a 13-year-old girl, on the Internet and performing lewd acts in front of her via a camera attached to his computer. The prosecutor — who also is a former sheriff’s deputy — is charged with two third-degree felonies, each punishable by up to five years in prison. He is the first prosecutor under Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer arrested on a felony charge. He was suspended without pay indefinitely and could lose his law license … Karmelin talked openly about his wish to become a judge. Many of his colleagues, as well as defense attorneys, described Karmelin as Krischer’s favorite bulldog prosecutor. Just last week, Krischer recommended Karmelin to be an assistant attorney general … Orange County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tom Harrison, who came to West Palm Beach to make the arrest, discovered Karmelin was a prosecutor when making background checks on the screen name. ‘When I learned that he was in fact an assistant state attorney, after picking my chin off the floor and restarting my heart… I knew he was not above anybody else,’ Harrison said. »

Critics Charge Rabbinic Court Covered Up Lanner Abuse, [Jewish] Forward, January 31, 2003. « Nineteen critics of convicted sex offender and former Orthodox Union youth leader Rabbi Baruch Lanner have signed a letter excoriating a respected rabbi, saying that he withheld for more than a decade a 1989 rabbinical court ruling that found Lanner guilty of abuse. The January 24 letter accuses Rabbi Mordechai Willig, a highly regarded spiritual leader at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary, of sharing the rabbinical court’s findings against Lanner only with select individuals who apparently ‘did nothing to remove him from children.’ It also accuses Willig of pressuring one of Lanner’s accusers, Elie Hiller, to write a letter of apology. According to the letter, Willig, who in 1989 led the New Jersey-based rabbinical court, or beit din, fed the public perception that Lanner was innocent while Lanner continued to have contact with children. Signed mostly by alleged Lanner victims and their families, the letter comes after a meeting earlier this month in which attendees say Willig stated, for perhaps the first time in so public a forum, that Lanner was found guilty of some of the charges brought against him in 1989. ‘Rabbi Willig prioritized the reputation of a rabbinic colleague a colleague who he knew was abusing kids ahead of the safety of children,’ says the letter …
And in a separate development, famed Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz has been serving as a consultant to Lanner’s defense team, according to Dershowitz’s brother Nathan. Nathan Dershowitz is one of Lanner’s full-time attorneys. Lanner is appealing his July conviction that he sexually abused two teenage girls while he was their principal during the 1990s at Hillel Yeshiva high school in Ocean Township, N.J. …
A report prepared in 2000 by a special commission appointed to investigate the O.U.’s role in the Lanner affair stated that Lanner sexually abused women and teenage girls and physically abused boys and girls while he was a leader for decades at the O.U.’s National Conference of Synagogue Youth. The report also cited the failure of members of the O.U. and NCSY leadership to take effective action, allowing Lanner’s conduct to ‘continue unchecked for many years.’ »

Rabbi’s Odyssey Reflects Struggle on Sexual Abuse. Jews Begin to Confront Silence That Hid Clergy’s Misdeeds, by Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, February 2, 2003; Page A17. « During his 30-year career, Sidney I. Goldenberg taught math in the New York schools, served as cantor at two synagogues on Long Island and became the rabbi of a Jewish congregation in California. He was a respected teacher, a man of learning — and a child molester. Before he was convicted and sent to prison in 1997 for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl during bat mitzvah lessons, there had been numerous complaints against him. But each time allegations arose, he moved to a new community, leaving a trail of whispers and shattered lives. Prosecutors, alleged victims and their families say Goldenberg was able to move from job to job because of a wall of silence and shame around sexual abuse in the Jewish community — a wall that some believe is finally coming down, thanks to the scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. ‘In the past it was covered up, just like in the Catholic Church,’ said Vicki Polin, an art therapist in Baltimore who is forming an association of Jewish survivors of childhood sexual abuse. ‘Survivors’ stories were discounted. They were told they were lying. Their parents would go to the proper authorities within the Jewish community and nothing was done’ …’I don’t think pedophilia has a religion,’ said Na’ama Yehuda, a speech pathologist in New York who is co-founder, with Polin, of the Awareness Center, an organization for Jewish survivors of childhood trauma. The center’s Web site (http://www.theawarenesscenter.org) lists more than 30 Jewish officials who have been accused of child sexual abuse. They include the late Shlomo Carlebach, a renowned Hasidic rabbi; Baruch Lanner, an Orthodox rabbi who was convicted last year of molesting two teenage girls; and Jerrold Levy, a Reform rabbi imprisoned for sex crimes involving teenage boys … ‘In the Catholic Church, the issue was the cover-up by the church hierarchy. Here, it’s the community, not the hierarchy. It’s the whole community not wanting to admit trouble in our midst,’ said Yosef Blau, an Orthodox rabbi at New York’s Yeshiva University who counsels victims of sexual abuse. »

Child Molester Sent to Treatment Center, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, February 7, 2003. « David Schwartz, a counselor for preschool boys at an Orthodox music and arts camp, was sentenced to one year in residential treatment and five years’ probation for molesting a 4-year-old boy in his care at summer camp. A six-year prison sentence was suspended. The Jan. 21 sentencing at the Airport Courthouse came after Schwartz, the 36-year-old father of young children, accepted a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to one felony count of committing lewd acts with a child. (A plea of no contest in a criminal court is the equivalent of guilty, but if victims decide to sue Schwartz, they cannot use the criminal plea against him, according to the district attorney’s office.) Schwartz will have to register as a sex offender for life, undergo at least two years of sex offender therapy and is prohibited from being alone with minor children, including his own, for the period of probation … While all the boys in the group told stories that indicated they had been molested and tormented, only two were able to tell their stories coherently and consistently enough to be considered admissible in court. Three parents spoke with The Jewish Journal, telling of the long-lasting pain Schwartz has inflicted on their families. Parents said their children spoke of being touched and hurt, and watching Schwartz make ‘white pee-pee.’ Testimony and physical evidence on at least one boy indicated that he was sodomized. Schwartz is alleged to have brought a bird into class and cut off its head in front of the children, telling them that if they told anyone about what happened, he would do the same to them and their parents… When Schwartz was first arrested, many in the Orthodox community — those who knew him and those who didn’t — asserted the innocence of Schwartz, who was a counselor at Camp Ruach for two years and taught middle school social studies at Yeshivat Yavneh in Hancock Park. Several rabbis who knew him privately expressed disbelief that he could have perpetrated such acts. At a hearing soon after his arrest, at which his bail was reduced from $1 million to $300,000, Schwartz’s supporters heckled the parents of the victims, accusing them of harming another Jew. But as details of the boys’ stories came out, support waned. »

L.A. program offers help after arrest of rabbi for pedophilia, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (from Jewish Week), February 26, 2003. « In the wake of the arrest last week of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum in a police Internet sex sting operation, the director of a Los Angeles-based residential treatment program for Jews with addictive and behavioral disorders believes a similar program is needed here and has offered to assist. ‘If we can share what we have learned in our 16 years of existence, we would be glad to help,’ said Harriet Rossetto, director of Beit T’Shuvah, believed to be the country’s only residential program for Jewish adults. Rossetto said three of the 110 Jews in her program are rabbis there for sexual addiction. She is convinced that their cases, as well as the arrests in recent years of rabbis accused of sex crimes, are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ … The call for a treatment program for rabbis comes after a string of much-publicized cases involving Jewish clergy charged with sexual abuse of minors. They include Rabbi Baruch Lanner, who last June was sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing two girls when he was principal of a New Jersey yeshiva in the 1990s. Rabbi Lanner is free pending an appeal. Also, Cantor Howard Nevison of Temple Emanu-el in Manhattan was charged last spring with sexually abusing his young nephew. That trial has not begun. Rabbi Kestenbaum’s arrest is not the first involving a rabbi accused of using the Internet to lure minors. In December 2001, Rabbi Jerald Levy, 58, of Boca Raton, Fla., was sentenced to six years in federal prison for downloading child pornography and luring teenage boys to meet him for sex … In the aftermath of two highly publicized child abuse cases involving a rabbi teaching at a day school and a kosher butcher, the Chicago Rabbinical Council a number of years ago established a special bet din, or rabbinical court, to address allegations of sexual abuse of children. »

Runaway teen was sex slave for three years, Haaretz (Israel), March 31, 2003. « A 34-year-old Eilat resident was charged today in a Be’er Sheva court of sexually abusing an underage teenager from Belarus over the past three years. According to the indictment, Sergei Mayatski ‘imported’ the youth from Minsk, in Belarus, after he met him in a public park during a visit to the city in September 1999. Following a number of meetings with the youngster, who was 13 at the time, Mayatski met his parents and convinced them to allow him to bring their son to Israel. It is unclear whether the parents were aware of Mayatski’s intentions.
Two weeks later, the teenager was sent to Israel, where a friend of Mayatski received him at the airport as his own departure was delayed for two weeks because of a problem with his entry visa into Israel. The friend took the teen to his home in Ashdod, and according to the youth’s testimony, also sexually abused him. Upon his arrival to Israel, in November 1999, Mayatski collected the youth from Ashdod, took him to Eilat, and presented him as his son. However, during these years, Mayatski systematically sodomized him. The sexual abuse was revealed nine days ago following a complaint filed by Mayatski at the police that the youth had disappeared. When the teenager was located, he was questioned and said that he left home because he was tired of serving as Mayatski’s sex slave. »

[Sexual assault statistics from the Jewish homeland: « The Light unto the World. »]. Aid centers: Most sexual assault victims in 2002 were minors; one-third were under 12, by Ruth Sinai, Haaretz (Israel), April 8, 2003. « More than 2,300 girls and boys under the age of 12 were victims of sexual assault in the past year, constituting 30 percent of the new cases reported to the sexual assault aid centers. Almost 26 percent of the victims were 13 to 18 years old … Forty percent of the sexual assaults were carried out in the victim’s home. ‘The home, of all places, which should be a safe, protective and supporting place, is where many of the horrors take place,’ states the report. About half of the victims refrained from going to the police. The most prevalent attack – 26 percent of the new calls – was rape, including gang rape. About 16 percent of the callers complained about incest by fathers (6.5 percent), brothers (2.6 percent) or other relatives. Some 14 percent complained of indecent acts. About 30 percent of the 110 gang rape victims who called the Tel Aviv aid center were men. Out of 519 calls reporting non-gang rape to this center, 25 percent were men. Some 20 percent of the victims of indecent acts reported in Tel Aviv were men. ‘The sexual assault of boys, male youths and men is a hushed-up crime, which is almost completely absent from discourse in Israeli society,’ the report states. ‘It does not occur to the victims that anyone would listen to their ordeal.’ The centers operate a hotline and support groups, and accompany the victims during the criminal procedures … According to the report, the largest group of victims – constituting 19 percent – were attacked by family relatives, 4.2 percent were attacked by a spouse, and 14 percent by a friend or acquaintance. Only 12 percent of the assaults were perpetrated by a complete stranger. »

Jewish pedophilia sur NFTWest

http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/jewish_pedophilia.html

Yeshiva Teacher Accused of Molesting Students. Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2000

« Police three weeks ago launched an investigation into alleged sexual abuse by a teacher at Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav yeshiva 14 years ago … In mid-December, police were alerted to accusations by three men – now in their late 20s – who studied at the yeshiva in their teenage years and said they were sexually molested by the man. Police then began investigations into other men who reportedly were also sexually abused, but did not come forward … The head of the yeshiva, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira, was alerted to the complaints several months ago in an anonymous letter and soon after in an anonymous phone call … Senior National Religious Party figures, meanwhile, reacted to reports that Shapira attempted to silence those who made the allegations of sexual misconduct … This is not the first time that Shapira has been suspected of trying to prevent a police inquiry into the improprieties of yeshiva teachers. Last year, he received a warning letter from Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein after he was said to have tried to cover up the illegal sexual behavior of Ze’ev Kopolevitch, formerly head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir Yeshiva, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. »

Arrest of Ex-Employee Sparks Concern. compcocity.com [originally from Edmonton Jewish Life], [Undated, 1990s]

« A former employee of Calgary Jewish Community Council has been charged with possession of child pornography, sexual assault and sexual interference with a child under 14 years of age. David Webber, 35, was arrested on February 22. On that date, police executed a search warrant on his apartment. In the search, they seized a large number of Polaroid photographs of nude boys aged 10 to 14 and written materials. Several children have already been interviewed and are alleged to be victims of sexual assault … Before moving to Calgary, Webber was youth director of the Beth Israel Synagogue in Edmonton. In 1990, he was charged with sexual assault in Edmonton, but the charges were subsequently dismissed. »

Synagogue Sexton Guilty of Pedophilia. Haaretz [Israel], June 22, 2001

« A garbage truck driver with a part-time job as a synagogue sexton in a town in the center of the country was convicted yesterday by a Jerusalem District Court for sexually assaulting children who went to synagogue to pray with him … At least three children were involved, with one, the 13-year-old, being the son of another synagogue official. That boy was so disturbed by the sexual abuse that he took up drugs, and the sexton then exploited that knowledge to blackmail the youth into more sexual intercourse. The other two children were subject to his fondling, often on the back porch of the synagogue during prayers, in exchange for sweets. »

Rabbi Jailed. Instructor at Cheder Menachem Grade School Accused of Molesting Boys, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, December 14, 2001

« A rabbi accused of molesting three boys at a Chabad elementary school was arrested Dec. 3 and remained at the L.A. Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail as The Journal went to press. Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov’s arrest on 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with children came following an investigation by the LAPD after three boys, ages 8 to 10, reported last month that Yomtov was keeping each of them alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess. Yomtov, 36, an Australian-born rabbi with a wife and four children, pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court is set for Dec. 17. Yomtov has taught 8- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a school with 220 boys, kindergarten through eighth grade, on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Boulevard-La Brea Avenue neighborhood. The school issued a written statement following the arrest: ‘Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment.’ The statement went on, ‘We request that our privacy be respected. The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities.’ »

Scout ‘Perv’ Might Go Free, New York Post, December 19, 2001

« The accused pedophile scoutmaster of the Upper East Side’s Boy Scout Troop 666 will seek a no-jail deal today – and the young sodomy victim’s anguished family is furious. ‘He is a wolf of the worst kind under that sheep’s clothing,’ the victim’s mother said of the since-fired scoutmaster – married Upper East Sider Jerrold Schwartz, 42. ‘Anything less than the maximum sentence would be unfair to my son,’ the mother – whose name is being kept confidential – said in a Dec. 13 letter to the judge, who will consider a possible plea deal today in Manhattan Supreme Court. Prosecutors say a total of five credible victims have accused Schwartz – who also ran a Colorado-based youth travel company – of turning Troop 666 into Boy Scout hell through a pattern of winning kids’ trust, tempting them with overnight ski and camping trips – and then molesting them. ‘I say 10 minutes in a room with me – that’s a fair sentence,’ one of these alleged victims, a now 30-year-old Queens man, angrily responded when informed of the negotiations yesterday. But Schwartz is only charged with sodomizing one boy – a total of 36 times – because the statute of limitations has run out on the other cases. That boy is now 20 years old. He’s in in-house rehab for cocaine addiction and alcoholism, his parents wrote the judge. He bathes compulsively ‘because he feels so dirty,’ they said. He also has nightly nightmares, and self-mutilates. »

Synagogue Cantor Arrested on Sexual Abuse Charges, Newsday, February 20, 2002

« The longtime cantor at one of the nation’s largest and most prominent Reform synagogues was arrested in New York on Wednesday on charges that he sexually abused a nephew, a prosecutor said. Howard Nevison, 61, of Congregation Emanu-El, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, was arrested at his apartment, said Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. Police in Lower Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia, charged Nevison with sexually assaulting the boy on three occasions between 1993 and 1997 while the boy was 3 to 7 years old. ‘Like anyone else, we in law enforcement tend to believe that religious figures are beyond reproach. You want to make very sure before you go accusing one,’ Castor said. Police have known about the allegations since about 1998 but did not pursue charges until the victim, who was undergoing therapy, was ready to confront the uncle, Castor said. ‘He had terrorized the child to the point that, in the judgment of his parents, his therapists and our investigators, he was too traumatized to go forward,’ Castor said. »

In 2 Communities, Concern Over the Arrest of a Cantor, New York Times, February 22, 2002

« The proper, prosperous residents of the Upper East Side of Manhattan and of the Main Line Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion Township stood united yesterday in sheer disbelief over the same sordid tale – a synagogue cantor accused of molesting his prepubescent nephew. The lawyers, investment bankers, politicians and other prominent members of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan struggled to square their image of the cantor, Howard Nevison, the golden-voiced tenor who led them in prayer for 23 years, with the Lower Merion police’s description of him as a violent sexual abuser of a child. The imposing temple at Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, said to be the largest synagogue in the world, is home to one of the nation’s most prominent reform congregations. It counts among its members the new mayor of New York, the Manhattan district attorney and familiar names from the media and the arts. »

Song of Sorrow, New York, April 15, 2002

« Joel’s parents were as baffled as they were horrified. Almost a year would pass before they’d come to understand the source of his demons, a year in which their curly-haired boy was frequently suicidal and obviously terrified. In therapy over the subsequent months, he slowly started revealing the torments he’d endured at the hands of his own family. He’d been sexually abused by his uncle Larry (his father’s older brother, who confessed in 1999 and is currently in prison), and also by Larry’s adult son Stewart, who pleaded guilty and served a year before being released on parole. Finally, the boy charged, he was sexually abused by his uncle Howie (his father’s oldest brother, fourteen years Henry’s senior). Uncle Howie is better known to New Yorkers as Cantor Howard Nevison, part of the rabbinical hierarchy at Congregation Emanu-El, the city’s most prominent Reform Jewish synagogue, for 23 years.

In the early-morning hours of February 20, police arrested him in his Upper West Side home. On April 17, a preliminary hearing will determine whether there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial. He is contesting the charges. ‘Howard Nevison is innocent, and we are confident he will be exonerated,’ says his attorney, Ralph Jacobs. These accusations are very different from the suddenly ubiquitous stories of priests molesting parishioners. This is strictly a family affair … .

But for Nevison, the blow had been coming for years; the cantor first learned he was a suspect not long after Joel’s parents initially approached the police in 1998. Linda Fairstein, former longtime chief of the New York district attorney’s sex-crimes-prosecution unit, says she’s « stunned » that it took so long to file charges against the cantor. « I’ve never heard of that, » she says. « It’s quite extraordinary that people who already gained the trust of a child for the prosecution of relatives couldn’t then also elicit his consent in prosecuting another one at the time. »

Why the delay? Joel, according to the Pennsylvania district attorney bringing the charges, was too afraid to testify against the cantor, allegedly the most terrifying of the three men accused of molesting him. In the affidavit of probable cause that resulted in Howard Nevison’s arrest, the boy describes him as ‘a big man with a mean, powerful voice and frightening glare,’ who threatened to kill him if he spoke up … Some parents were outraged to learn that the temple leadership had known since 1998 about an investigation of the Nevison family yet continued allowing the cantor to meet with boys and girls preparing for their bar mitzvahs. »

A Cry for Help that Went Unheeded. philly.com, April 6, 2000

« Prosecutors say the Kensington man repeatedly raped and sodomized two girls whom his wife was baby-sitting at their rowhouse. He allegedly employed a plastic baseball bat on one occasion. But the ugliness of the details is not all that makes the case stand out. Philadelphia police were called in four years ago, when the attacks allegedly began. One of the girls, then 8, described the assaults in graphic detail. But the sex-crimes unit closed the case after a cursory investigation. Investigators did not interview the man, Samuel Cohen, or inform child-welfare authorities of the allegations against him, The Inquirer has learned. Cohen continued assaulting one of the girls, then 7, for five more months, police now say. One of the assaults was so brutal that the child was taken to a hospital with vaginal injuries, records show. »

Man Sentenced to at Least 45 Years in Child Sex Cases. Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 4, 2000

« A 41-year-old man with a prior felony conviction for child molestation was sentenced Monday to a minimum of 45 years in prison. In March, Russell D. Cohen pleaded guilty to one count each of sexual assault with a minor under 14, sexual assault with a minor under 16, and use of a minor in producing pornography. Incidents involving about 10 victims were combined into the three charges. Cohen was arrested in August and accused of forcing two boys into sex acts. Authorities said Cohen met young boys by employing them to distribute fliers throughout the Las Vegas Valley and then took them to his home, where they were sexually abused. Shortly after news of Cohen’s arrest was circulated in the Las Vegas media, police received a videotape in the mail that showed a man engaging in sex acts with several male juveniles. In October, additional charges were filed against Cohen in connection with the videotape. »

Lanner Indicted on Sex Abuse Charges. Jewish Week, March 16, 2000

« Nine months after The Jewish Week reported on allegations that Rabbi Baruch Lanner had abused teenagers in his charge for three decades, a Monmouth County, N.J., grand jury indicted him Wednesday on six criminal charges. The rabbi faces two counts each of aggravated criminal sexual conduct, criminal sexual conduct and endangering the welfare of a child. The crimes are second-, third- and fourth-degree offenses. A second-degree offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison … The first woman, now 19, alleged that Rabbi Lanner sexually abused her almost daily in his office at the yeshiva when she was a 14-year-old ninth-grader there in 1995 and 1996. »

The Awareness Center, [List of over 30 rabbi and other Jewish clergy child molesters, etc.]
« Mass Molestation Cases Not Including Clergy Case of Ohel Counselor – Simcha Adler, NY Case of School Counselor – Eugene Loub Aronin, TX Case of School Teacher – Lawrence Cohen, NJ Case of School Principal – David B. Harrington, Rockville, MD Case of Jewish Big Brother Volunteer – Eric Hindin, Newton, MA Case of Judge Ronald Kline, CA Case of the Kosher Butcher in Chicago Case of the New York Society for the Deaf’s Home Case of the Rogers Park JCC, Chicago Illinois Case of Teacher/Track Coach – Adam Theodore Rubin, MD Case of Cantor Michael Segelstein, Las Vegas, NV Case of Teacher – Georges Schteinberg, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Israeli vice-consul Aryeh Scher – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Case of Camp Counselor – David Schwartz, Culver City, CA Case of Scoutmaster – Jerrold Schwartz, NY Case of Tel Aviv Arts School, Tel Aviv, Israel Case of Mashgiach (Kashrut Supervisor) David Douglas Webber, Canada Clergy Abuse Case of Rabbi Lewis Brenner Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks Case of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Case of Rabbi Sidney Goldenberg Case of Cantor Joel Gordon Case of Rabbi Israel Grunwald Case of The State of Israel Vs.Sex Offender Case of Rabbi Tzvi Flaum Case of Yehudah Friedlander Case of the Rabbi at Hillel Torah, Chicago, IL Case of Rabbi Steven Jacobs Case of Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement Case of Rabbi Steven Kaplan Case of Rabbi Robert Kirschner Case of Rabbi/Rosh Yeshiva Ze’ev Kopolevitch Case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner Case of Rabbi Jerrold M. Levy Case of Rabbi Pinchas Lew Case of Rabbi Richard Marcovitz Case of Rabbi Juda Mintz Case of Rabbi/Psychologist – Avrohom Mondrowitz Case of Cantor Howard Nevison Case of Rabbi Fred Neulander Case of Rabbi Michael Ozair Case of Rabbi Charles Shalman Case of Rabbi/Yeshiva Teacher Ze’ev Sultanovitch Case of Rabbi David Weinberger Case of Rabbi Yaakov Weiner Case of Rabbi Mordechai Willig (Accused of cover-up in the case of Baruch Lanner) Case of Cantor Phillip Wittlin Case of Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov Case of Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman Case of Rabbi Max Zucker »

Father charged with abusing, raping his children and wife, by David Ratner, Haaretz (Israel), February 19, 2003

« A 62-year-old Haifa man was charged yesterday with physically and mentally abusing his children and wife for many years. He is also suspected of raping two of his daughters … In 1984, the indictment says, he married a woman who had two daughters, aged 12 and 8. He is accused of raping his elder stepdaughter for the first time when she was 17 and then throwing her out of the house naked. He continued raping her until she turned 21, threatening to tell that she was sleeping with him if she resisted. He stopped raping and abusing her only when she married, at the age of 23. He started raping his younger stepdaughter when she was 15, in addition to beating her and screaming at her. He is alleged to have raped her several times more between 1991 and 1993. When she joined the army, he humiliated her and threw her out. She never returned to the family home. The man is also charged with beating his wife in 2000 so badly that she required medical treatment. In addition, he abused his wife for years with humiliating acts and insults at every opportunity. The couple had three more daughters, born in 1986, 1987 and 1990. The man is also charged with abusing the young girls. He used to scream at the older one and insult her until she started getting anxiety attacks. He insisted on watching her dress against her will and stroke her behind against her explicit wishes. He used to masturbate in front of the second daughter and abuse her in similar ways, and is also suspected of brutally beating the youngest child. »

Bnei Brak resident gets nine years for sexual abuse, Ha’aretz (Israel), January 22, 2003

« Tel Aviv District Court on Wednesday sentenced a 29-year-old Bnei Brak resident to nine years in prison and two years’ probation for sexually harassing and assaulting six ultra-Orthodox youths between the ages of 14 and 16 over a period of years. Avraham Asher was also accused of ‘offering’ one of the youths to two of his friends, who also abused him. The two, Yossi Mozas and Yosef Garus, both 29, from Bnei Brak, were given much lighter sentences … The court heard that Asher and his friends harassed the youths in bus shelters and at ritual baths in Bnei Brak. Asher also assaulted the youths in showers and once visited a yeshiva in Jerusalem, where one of the teenagers studied. »

Prosecutor faces child sex charges, Palm Beach Post, January 22, 2003

« With his Mickey Mouse lapel pin replete with an American flag, prosecutor Ira Karmelin cut a squeaky-clean image in the Palm Beach County Courthouse. But on Tuesday the image was of the top assistant state attorney handcuffed outside the courthouse and carted off to jail to face child sex charges. Karmelin, 38, is accused of soliciting a woman, whom he believed was a 13-year-old girl, on the Internet and performing lewd acts in front of her via a camera attached to his computer. The prosecutor — who also is a former sheriff’s deputy — is charged with two third-degree felonies, each punishable by up to five years in prison. He is the first prosecutor under Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer arrested on a felony charge. He was suspended without pay indefinitely and could lose his law license … Karmelin talked openly about his wish to become a judge. Many of his colleagues, as well as defense attorneys, described Karmelin as Krischer’s favorite bulldog prosecutor. Just last week, Krischer recommended Karmelin to be an assistant attorney general … Orange County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tom Harrison, who came to West Palm Beach to make the arrest, discovered Karmelin was a prosecutor when making background checks on the screen name. ‘When I learned that he was in fact an assistant state attorney, after picking my chin off the floor and restarting my heart… I knew he was not above anybody else,’ Harrison said. »

Critics Charge Rabbinic Court Covered Up Lanner Abuse, [Jewish] Forward, January 31, 2003

« Nineteen critics of convicted sex offender and former Orthodox Union youth leader Rabbi Baruch Lanner have signed a letter excoriating a respected rabbi, saying that he withheld for more than a decade a 1989 rabbinical court ruling that found Lanner guilty of abuse. The January 24 letter accuses Rabbi Mordechai Willig, a highly regarded spiritual leader at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary, of sharing the rabbinical court’s findings against Lanner only with select individuals who apparently ‘did nothing to remove him from children.’ It also accuses Willig of pressuring one of Lanner’s accusers, Elie Hiller, to write a letter of apology. According to the letter, Willig, who in 1989 led the New Jersey-based rabbinical court, or beit din, fed the public perception that Lanner was innocent while Lanner continued to have contact with children. Signed mostly by alleged Lanner victims and their families, the letter comes after a meeting earlier this month in which attendees say Willig stated, for perhaps the first time in so public a forum, that Lanner was found guilty of some of the charges brought against him in 1989. ‘Rabbi Willig prioritized the reputation of a rabbinic colleague a colleague who he knew was abusing kids ahead of the safety of children,’ says the letter …

And in a separate development, famed Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz has been serving as a consultant to Lanner’s defense team, according to Dershowitz’s brother Nathan. Nathan Dershowitz is one of Lanner’s full-time attorneys. Lanner is appealing his July conviction that he sexually abused two teenage girls while he was their principal during the 1990s at Hillel Yeshiva high school in Ocean Township, N.J. …

A report prepared in 2000 by a special commission appointed to investigate the O.U.’s role in the Lanner affair stated that Lanner sexually abused women and teenage girls and physically abused boys and girls while he was a leader for decades at the O.U.’s National Conference of Synagogue Youth. The report also cited the failure of members of the O.U. and NCSY leadership to take effective action, allowing Lanner’s conduct to ‘continue unchecked for many years.’ »

Rabbi’s Odyssey Reflects Struggle on Sexual Abuse. Jews Begin to Confront Silence That Hid Clergy’s Misdeeds,
by Alan Cooperman, Washington Post, February 2, 2003; Page A17
« During his 30-year career, Sidney I. Goldenberg taught math in the New York schools, served as cantor at two synagogues on Long Island and became the rabbi of a Jewish congregation in California. He was a respected teacher, a man of learning — and a child molester. Before he was convicted and sent to prison in 1997 for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl during bat mitzvah lessons, there had been numerous complaints against him. But each time allegations arose, he moved to a new community, leaving a trail of whispers and shattered lives. Prosecutors, alleged victims and their families say Goldenberg was able to move from job to job because of a wall of silence and shame around sexual abuse in the Jewish community — a wall that some believe is finally coming down, thanks to the scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. ‘In the past it was covered up, just like in the Catholic Church,’ said Vicki Polin, an art therapist in Baltimore who is forming an association of Jewish survivors of childhood sexual abuse. ‘Survivors’ stories were discounted. They were told they were lying. Their parents would go to the proper authorities within the Jewish community and nothing was done’ …’I don’t think pedophilia has a religion,’ said Na’ama Yehuda, a speech pathologist in New York who is co-founder, with Polin, of the Awareness Center, an organization for Jewish survivors of childhood trauma. The center’s Web site (www.theawarenesscenter.org) lists more than 30 Jewish officials who have been accused of child sexual abuse. They include the late Shlomo Carlebach, a renowned Hasidic rabbi; Baruch Lanner, an Orthodox rabbi who was convicted last year of molesting two teenage girls; and Jerrold Levy, a Reform rabbi imprisoned for sex crimes involving teenage boys … ‘In the Catholic Church, the issue was the cover-up by the church hierarchy. Here, it’s the community, not the hierarchy. It’s the whole community not wanting to admit trouble in our midst,’ said Yosef Blau, an Orthodox rabbi at New York’s Yeshiva University who counsels victims of sexual abuse. »

Child Molester Sent to Treatment Center,
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, February 7, 2003
« David Schwartz, a counselor for preschool boys at an Orthodox music and arts camp, was sentenced to one year in residential treatment and five years’ probation for molesting a 4-year-old boy in his care at summer camp. A six-year prison sentence was suspended. The Jan. 21 sentencing at the Airport Courthouse came after Schwartz, the 36-year-old father of young children, accepted a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to one felony count of committing lewd acts with a child. (A plea of no contest in a criminal court is the equivalent of guilty, but if victims decide to sue Schwartz, they cannot use the criminal plea against him, according to the district attorney’s office.) Schwartz will have to register as a sex offender for life, undergo at least two years of sex offender therapy and is prohibited from being alone with minor children, including his own, for the period of probation … While all the boys in the group told stories that indicated they had been molested and tormented, only two were able to tell their stories coherently and consistently enough to be considered admissible in court. Three parents spoke with The Jewish Journal, telling of the long-lasting pain Schwartz has inflicted on their families. Parents said their children spoke of being touched and hurt, and watching Schwartz make ‘white pee-pee.’ Testimony and physical evidence on at least one boy indicated that he was sodomized. Schwartz is alleged to have brought a bird into class and cut off its head in front of the children, telling them that if they told anyone about what happened, he would do the same to them and their parents… When Schwartz was first arrested, many in the Orthodox community – those who knew him and those who didn’t – asserted the innocence of Schwartz, who was a counselor at Camp Ruach for two years and taught middle school social studies at Yeshivat Yavneh in Hancock Park. Several rabbis who knew him privately expressed disbelief that he could have perpetrated such acts. At a hearing soon after his arrest, at which his bail was reduced from $1 million to $300,000, Schwartz’s supporters heckled the parents of the victims, accusing them of harming another Jew. But as details of the boys’ stories came out, support waned. »

L.A. program offers help after arrest of rabbi for pedophilia, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (from Jewish Week), February 26, 2003

« In the wake of the arrest last week of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum in a police Internet sex sting operation, the director of a Los Angeles-based residential treatment program for Jews with addictive and behavioral disorders believes a similar program is needed here and has offered to assist. ‘If we can share what we have learned in our 16 years of existence, we would be glad to help,’ said Harriet Rossetto, director of Beit T’Shuvah, believed to be the country’s only residential program for Jewish adults. Rossetto said three of the 110 Jews in her program are rabbis there for sexual addiction. She is convinced that their cases, as well as the arrests in recent years of rabbis accused of sex crimes, are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ … The call for a treatment program for rabbis comes after a string of much-publicized cases involving Jewish clergy charged with sexual abuse of minors. They include Rabbi Baruch Lanner, who last June was sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing two girls when he was principal of a New Jersey yeshiva in the 1990s. Rabbi Lanner is free pending an appeal. Also, Cantor Howard Nevison of Temple Emanu-el in Manhattan was charged last spring with sexually abusing his young nephew. That trial has not begun. Rabbi Kestenbaum’s arrest is not the first involving a rabbi accused of using the Internet to lure minors. In December 2001, Rabbi Jerald Levy, 58, of Boca Raton, Fla., was sentenced to six years in federal prison for downloading child pornography and luring teenage boys to meet him for sex … In the aftermath of two highly publicized child abuse cases involving a rabbi teaching at a day school and a kosher butcher, the Chicago Rabbinical Council a number of years ago established a special bet din, or rabbinical court, to address allegations of sexual abuse of children. »

Runaway teen was sex slave for three years, Haaretz (Israel), March 31, 2003

« A 34-year-old Eilat resident was charged today in a Be’er Sheva court of sexually abusing an underage teenager from Belarus over the past three years. According to the indictment, Sergei Mayatski ‘imported’ the youth from Minsk, in Belarus, after he met him in a public park during a visit to the city in September 1999. Following a number of meetings with the youngster, who was 13 at the time, Mayatski met his parents and convinced them to allow him to bring their son to Israel. It is unclear whether the parents were aware of Mayatski’s intentions.

Two weeks later, the teenager was sent to Israel, where a friend of Mayatski received him at the airport as his own departure was delayed for two weeks because of a problem with his entry visa into Israel. The friend took the teen to his home in Ashdod, and according to the youth’s testimony, also sexually abused him.

Upon his arrival to Israel, in November 1999, Mayatski collected the youth from Ashdod, took him to Eilat, and presented him as his son. However, during these years, Mayatski systematically sodomized him. The sexual abuse was revealed nine days ago following a complaint filed by Mayatski at the police that the youth had disappeared. When the teenager was located, he was questioned and said that he left home because he was tired of serving as Mayatski’s sex slave. »

[Sexual assault statistics from the Jewish homeland: « The Light unto the World. »]
Aid centers: Most sexual assault victims in 2002 were minors; one-third were under 12,
by Ruth Sinai, Haaretz (Israel), April 8, 2003

« More than 2,300 girls and boys under the age of 12 were victims of sexual assault in the past year, constituting 30 percent of the new cases reported to the sexual assault aid centers. Almost 26 percent of the victims were 13 to 18 years old … Forty percent of the sexual assaults were carried out in the victim’s home. ‘The home, of all places, which should be a safe, protective and supporting place, is where many of the horrors take place,’ states the report. About half of the victims refrained from going to the police. The most prevalent attack – 26 percent of the new calls – was rape, including gang rape. About 16 percent of the callers complained about incest by fathers (6.5 percent), brothers (2.6 percent) or other relatives. Some 14 percent complained of indecent acts. About 30 percent of the 110 gang rape victims who called the Tel Aviv aid center were men. Out of 519 calls reporting non-gang rape to this center, 25 percent were men. Some 20 percent of the victims of indecent acts reported in Tel Aviv were men. ‘The sexual assault of boys, male youths and men is a hushed-up crime, which is almost completely absent from discourse in Israeli society,’ the report states. ‘It does not occur to the victims that anyone would listen to their ordeal.’ The centers operate a hotline and support groups, and accompany the victims during the criminal procedures … According to the report, the largest group of victims – constituting 19 percent – were attacked by family relatives, 4.2 percent were attacked by a spouse, and 14 percent by a friend or acquaintance. Only 12 percent of the assaults were perpetrated by a complete stranger. »

RABBINS PEDOCRIM

Abraham Mondrowitz

02.11.08Court okays extradition of haredi suspected of pedophilia

Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn home during the 80s

Associated Press

An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the US of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago, the Justice Ministry said.

Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.

Israeli Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order, but Mondrowitz has the right to appeal. Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite Mondrowitz, who could appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court against Sunday’s ruling.

Last September, the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled Brooklyn for Israel.

The renewed US request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor’s office. Before the change that took effect a year ago, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.

December 3, 1984 — Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman’s office said Mondrowitz was named in an arrest warrant charging him with two counts of sex abuse« . At the time, Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz worked in special education school for boys in Brooklyn, that had connections with Ohel Children and Family Services in Brooklyn, New York. He was responsible for about 20-25 young children who already had either emotional problems and/or learning disabilities.

October 11, 2007 — Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes finally signed papers requesting the U.S. Justice Department extradite Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz back to the United States. Fled to Israel months after charges were first brought up against him twenty-three years ago.

November 16, 2007 — Israeli police arrested Avrohom Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid who was suspected of sexually abusing children in the United States was arrested pending extradition orders to the U.S.

Avrohom Mondrowitz is originally from Chicago, the son of a highly respected rabbi.

Mondrowitz, who was born in Poland in 1947, relocated as a child to Tel Aviv and later moved with his family to Chicago. He is the son of a prominent rabbi. In the late 1970’s Mondrowitz moved to Brooklyn, NY in the late 1970s and presented himself to Orthodox educational institutions as a rabbi and clinical psychologist.

While in New York Modrwoitz provided psychological treatment to children from the mixed Jewish-Italian Borough Park neighborhood where he lived. He also opened a yeshiva for children with behavioral problems.

Four children, all from Italian families and all neighbors of Mondrowitz, complained of sexual abuse perpetrated by Mondrowitz. Jewish victims also eventually testified against him, but only after the statute of limitations had expired.

In 1985, a New York State court charged Mondrowitz with eight counts of child abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child and five counts of sodomy in the first degree.

Mondrowitz and his family fled to Jerusalem after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

At the time of the indictment, sodomy of boys was not an extraditable crime, since it was not defined as rape under Israeli law. In 1988, the Knesset changed that law, apparently opening the way for Mondrowitz’s extradition.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

Lilith Magazine Volume 23, No. 1/Spring 1998 By Sarah Blustain

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach était un rabbin moderne, proche du Renouveau juif, et le premier rabbin à ordonner des femmes. Il était proche des préoccupations de la jeunesse. Il exerçait depuis quarante ans. Il est mort en 1994, une foule assista à ses obsèques, dans un quartier chic de Manhattan. Il était un chef spirituel, une véritable idole. Dans le Colorado, pour le premier anniversaire de sa mort, 800 personnes s’étaient réunis pour honorer sa mémoire avec des chansons.

Des murmures s’étaient néanmoins fait entendre. Rachel avait raconté son histoire : dans les années 60, disait-elle, elle avait fait un camp de jeunesse, durant un été. Rabbi Carlebach était un excellent chanteur et les chants avaient une grande place dans sa communauté. Un jour, il lui demanda de venir le rejoindre. « C’était un grand honneur d’être seule avec ce grand homme », disait-elle. Il marchèrent un peu, en parlant de philosophie et d’Israël, des étoiles et de poésie. Il demanda à la serrer dans ses bras un moment, mais ilne la lâcha pas. Elle se débattit alors. Le lendemain, il ne la reconnaissait plus ! Trente-cinq ans plus tard, elle se rendait compte que son expérience était loin d’être un cas isolé.

Robin Goldberg avait 12 ans quand le rabbin Carlebach rendit une visite à la communauté orthodoxe Harrisburg, en Pennsylvanie, pour donner un concert de chant et de danse. C’est durant la danse qu’il avait commencé à la toucher. Sa mère lui avait dit qu’elle avait dû se tromper sur ses intentions. Pourtant, le rabbin recommenca des années plus tard, alors qu’elle était au collège. Goldie Milgram, 43 ans aujourd’hui, avait 14 ans quand rabbi Carlebach fut invité à la Convention des jeunes de la Synagogue unifié, dans le New Jersey. Ses parents l’avait invité à rester à la maison. Tard dans la nuit, il l’avait attiré contre lui et l’avait pelotté sous ses vêtements. Il l’appelait “Mammele”. Elle avait caché cet incident à ses parents pendant trois ans, jusqu’à son voyage en Israël. Carlebach y donnait un concert. Elle lui demanda des explication, en criant.

Pendant 15 ans, marcia Cohn Speigel, de Los Angeles, avait étudié la violence sexuelle dans la communauté juive, en parlant à de nombreuses associations de femmes juives.

Elle témoignait pour de nombreuses femmes, qui avaient maintenant la quarantaine, et que le rabbin avait caressées. Quand il étudiat avec elle. D’autres avaient vingt ou trente ans quand c’était arrivé. Le rabbin les appelait tard dans la nuit. Une se souvenait qu’il haletait au téléphone. Dans toutes les comunautés qu’il avait visité à travers le territoire, mais aussi au Canada et en Israël, il y avait laissé ces souvenirs, sans que personne ne soulève l’affaire. Né en Allemagne, fils d’un rabbin, Shlomo Carlebach était arrivé en 1938 et commença à enseigner dans les institutions loubavitch du New Jersey, où la ferveur religieuse et manbifestée par des chants et des danses. Mais il rejeta la séparation des hommes et des femmes. Dans les années soixante, il avait rejoint la culture hippie, à San Francisco. « Il embrassait tout le monde sur la bouche ! » Il avait la réputation d’un prédateur. Le mur du silence se fissurait. « Il a blessé si profondément tellement de femmes », disait Nan Fink

Petaluma rabbi pleads no contest to charges of sexual misconduct

Jewish Bulletin of Northern California/February 21, 1997
By Ronnie Caplane

The Petaluma rabbi accused of sexually molesting a bat mitzvah student has pleaded no contest to the charge and faces up to eight years in prison.

Rabbi Sidney Goldenberg, formerly of Petaluma’s Congregation B’nai Israel, entered his plea at Santa Rosa Municipal Court Tuesday to a felony charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor under the age of 14.

The sexual misconduct allegedly took place over several months late last year while Goldenberg was tutoring the victim, a 12-year-old girl, for her bat mitzvah.

Police said Goldenberg, 58, took the girl into his office, made lewd remarks, touched her breasts and asked that she put her hands into his pockets.

According to Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Gary Medvigy, a plea of no contest is the legal equivalent of a guilty plea.

The rabbi pleaded no contest « just to make himself feel better, » Medvigy reported.

The rabbi’s attorney, Stephen Gallenson, did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Two misdemeanor counts of annoying a child will be dropped as part of Goldenberg’s plea bargain, Medvigy said.

Goldenberg, who originally had pleaded not guilty, will return to the court Tuesday, Feb. 25, when a psychiatrist or psychologist will be appointed to evaluate him and a date will be set for sentencing. He could receive a minimum of probation, a maximum of an eight-year prison term.

Medvigy said the actual sentencing will not take place for another four to six weeks.

During that time, the Sonoma County court’s probation department will review the psychologist’s report, talk to the victim and her family, and investigate the case before recommending a sentence to the judge.

One factor that will be considered is whether the defendant has a history of sexual abuse involving minors, Medvigy said.

Several women from New York have contacted the Santa Rosa district attorney’s office claiming to have been molested by Goldenberg while they were teenagers, Medvigy said. Their calls came amid national media attention to the case.

Goldenberg taught high school in Levittown, Long Island, and was a lay educator and cantor at several synagogues on Long Island.

Medvigy said his office has reports about 10 women, six of whom either made statements to his office or spoke to him. The other reports came from family members who refused to disclose the whereabouts of the alleged victims.

« The first victim we know of is from 27 years ago when [Goldenberg] was a high school teacher, » Medvigy said.

Such cases can’t be prosecuted in New York now because the statute of limitations has expired.

« Some [prior incidents] are more egregious than what we have here, » Medvigy added. « The process began with dirty talking. There are allegations of serious sex acts. [With] those who didn’t complain, [Goldenberg] seemed to go as far as he could. »

According to Medvigy, complaints were made at the time, but no disciplinary action was taken. Goldenberg was either moved into a job where he was not working with adolescent girls or he was allowed to resign and subsequent employers were not told of the past misconduct.

« I think things are changing in the world, » said Medvigy. « If we had the mentality back then [that] we have now, [Goldenberg] would have been stopped. »

Although Goldenberg hasn’t taught in the Levittown schools since the early ‘70s, he still holds New York teaching credentials. However, Peter Sherman of the New York State Teachers Certification Office expects action will be taken against Goldenberg’s credentials in light of the Petaluma case.

Goldenberg, however, cannot be stripped of his rabbinic ordination.

« One cannot lift an ordination, » said Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the national organization of Conservative rabbis. « It’s like a degree. »

Goldenberg was ordained four years ago by Tifereth Yisrael Rabbinical Yeshiva of Long Island, an independent seminary. For several years before that, he ran a small computer company. Medvigy said there are no indications of any complaints against Goldenberg during that time.

Last summer, Goldenberg was hired by B’nai Israel, a small, Conservative congregation of about 100 families. It was his first employment in California.

Meyers said the Rabbinical Assembly takes misconduct of its members seriously, but Goldenberg is not a member. The organization, thererefore, lacks jurisdiction to take disciplinary action.

« Congregations that employ rabbis who are not under the jurisdiction of a rabbinical organization run certain risks, » Meyers said.

B’nai Israel is not a member of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the organization of Conservative synagogues, said Rabbi Jerome Epstein of United Synagogues, which helps its member synagogues check out rabbis.

B’nai Israel « isn’t a member of any association, so they had no one to help them check this through, » he said. « The congregation hired someone who is a freelancer. »

Goldenberg resigned from B’nai Israel Jan. 11 after being put on paid leave in the wake of his Dec. 16 arrest.

Medvigy praised B’nai Israel for its handling of the situation.

« It’s a testament to the community, » Medvigy said. « They are really rallying and pulling together. »

Friday November 1, 1996

Last in a Series: `Conspiracy of silence’ fuels rabbis’ sexual misdeeds

DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK — When women charge sexual exploitation by a rabbi, a conspiracy of silence often ensues.

The secrecy protects the perpetrators, leaving victims alienated.

Victims who speak out often find themselves ostracized by their religious communities. And they say that when they turn to the rabbi’s professional association or their movement’s congregational organization, they feel unwelcome.

Many congregants are unable to imagine that their spiritual leader, who has overseen so many significant moments in their lives, is capable of sexual misconduct.

« By and large, the people who are exploitative are charismatic and well-loved, not sleazy people on the street who we’re all going to be afraid of, » said Debra Warwick-Sabino, an expert in clergy sexual abuse.

« When you say to someone that their rabbi is capable of this, for them to suspend their disbelief would cause such a spiritual crisis in their own lives that it’s easier for them to say `Boys will be boys’ than face that faith crisis, » said Warwick-Sabino, who directs the California Center for Pastoral Counseling, a Sacramento-based agency that handles clergy sexual misconduct.

At the congregational meetings that follow allegations of rabbinic sexual misconduct, synagogue members often ostracize accusers. Some accusers have been called « liars, » « whores » and worse, she said.

« Even in situations where the perpetrator admits all the things the women allege, congregations sometimes will line up behind the rabbi, » said Marie Fortune, another expert on clergy sexual abuse. « It blows my mind. »

Fortune, a United Church of Christ minister and the founding director of the Seattle-based Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence, has handled more than 3,500 clergy sexual misconduct cases in dozens of faiths and denominations.

She has run a seminar on the topic at a regional meeting of Reform rabbis as well as one for students at Los Angeles‘ Reform rabbinical seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Women who have experienced rabbinic exploitation usually feel a deep and degrading sense of shame and guilt, experts say.

They often feel they have a lot to lose: their place in their synagogue communities, respect and success in their careers and even, in some cases, their marriages.

At Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, some congregants allegedly tried to discredit the women who came forward to charge their rabbi, Robert Kirschner, with sexual exploitation.

At a congregational meeting soon after Kirschner resigned, the women were accused of wanting to ruin the well-liked rabbi’s career. They were called « harlots » and « jezebels, » some of the women reported.

Two of the women overheard a congregant saying « `Boys will be boys. I don’t see what the big deal is,’ » said Warwick-Sabino, one of the women who claimed Kirschner sexually harassed her. Then a student at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, she has since become a professional in the field of clergy sexual abuse.

In a letter to the dean of the Reform movement’s Los Angeles rabbinical seminary, she wrote that she heard another congregant saying: « If [Kirschner] made a pass at me, I’d be flattered. I wouldn’t object. »

The Emanu-El congregants’ responses were typical, experts say.

In one highly publicized case, Michele Samit — who does not claim to be a victim of rabbinic sexual misconduct — says her community vilified her after she wrote a book about the relationship between Anita Green and Green’s rabbi, Steven Jacobs.

Green was the president of Shir Chadash/The New Reform Congregation in Los Angeles when she was murdered in 1990.

Her husband, Mel Green, was convicted of ordering the killing, and is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Although the Greens were separated at the time of the murder, Anita’s affair with Jacobs began while she was still living with her husband, according to Samit’s book, « No Sanctuary: The True Story of a Rabbi’s Deadly Affair. »

Mel Green was an angry, jealous and violent man who had long threatened Anita, even in public, Samit wrote.

Several people who were Jacobs’ congregants at the time said in telephone interviews that at Green’s funeral, Jacobs — who had first denied but later reluctantly admitted the relationship — eulogized the dead woman not as a rabbi talking about his temple president but as a lover.

Samit wrote of the eulogy: « The rabbi recalled `admiring or just staring at her beautiful nails and her gentle hands; those hands, her skin so very soft, so reassuring, those beautiful hands.’

« No one [in the congregation] said anything » about it, Samit said in a recent interview, referring to what she believed was Jacobs’ inappropriate language.

« The reaction of the congregation was nothing. Not even discussion. »

That’s what convinced Samit she had to leave the congregation and the rabbi who had been her lifelong spiritual guide, she said. She said she was the target of a smear campaign.

« People called me from the congregation and harangued me. They said, `You egomaniacal whore, you think you’re better than us. How could you destroy such a wonderful man?’

« This was the most painful thing. Rabbi Jacobs was my hero. I had him on such a pedestal. He bat mitzvahed me » and presided at her wedding. « I baby-sat his kids. We were so close. »

Jacobs denied that his relationship with Green was an illicit affair.

« She was a dear friend, my temple president, and after the fact that she was going through a divorce and I had already been divorced, there was a romantic relationship, » he said in a recent telephone interview.

He described Samit’s book as « full of lies, » and said some have accused him of adultery because « people are angry when you achieve a lot in rabbinic life.

« I would not be in the position and stay in the position if people didn’t know who I am. »

Samit said she believes she and every other member of Jacobs’ congregation bear some responsibility for Anita Green’s murder.

« There were signs to all of us that Anita was in danger, and we ignored them because we wouldn’t dare cross our beloved rabbi, » she said.

Another congregant, Michael Hirsh, outraged by his rabbi’s behavior and his community’s response, wrote to the head of the Reform rabbinical association’s ethics committee in April 1993, charging Jacobs with violating the group’s ethics code and demanding that it assess Jacobs’ behavior.

Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman, then the head of the committee, wrote back to Hirsh that Jacobs had agreed « to uphold all provisions of our Code of Ethics, » which requires rabbis « to adhere to an exemplary moral code » and « to avoid even the appearance of sexual misconduct. »

Hirsh responded to Stiffman with a letter saying that the action amounted to nothing more than « a rabbinic consent decree » for Jacobs to do it all over again.

« If there is a shanda [shame] here, it is not only in Jacobs’ immoral conduct but in your organization’s complicity in covering it up, » wrote Hirsh, a former investigative journalist and current television producer.

Jacobs remains the rabbi of Temple Kol Tikvah, the name adopted after Shir Chadash merged with another synagogue.

Experts in clergy sexual abuse say congregants’ denial is dangerous because a rabbi can harass and exploit numerous victims for decades on end without any of the individuals knowing the others exist, forcing each to suffer alone.

If a rabbi has sexually exploited one congregant, he almost always has exploited several, Fortune said, without referring specifically to any of the above-mentioned cases.

In the end, while rabbinic perpetrators often take a new job within their movements or even stay in their pulpits after a slap on the wrist from their rabbinical organizations, it seems the victims often go away.

They often break all ties to the Jewish community and, in some cases, convert to another religion.

According to Fortune, denial of the problem is so pervasive because « none of us wants this to be happening. »

There is « long-term damage being done here that we’re going to be living with for years, » she said.

« It doesn’t have to be that bad if we respond better. »

Friday October 18, 1996

Rabbi Robert Kirschner apologizes

DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN
and NATALIE WEINSTEIN

Nearly five years after Rabbi Robert Kirschner left the pulpit of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El, he has for the first time publicly apologized for sexual improprieties that led to his resignation.

« I hereby acknowledge, with sorrow and profound regret, that I engaged in sexual relations outside of my marriage, » Kirschner said in a recent statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The statement included quotes from a letter he wrote in October 1995 to the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ executive board. However, releasing the information to the JTA marked the first time his apology has been made public.

Kirschner referred in that letter to his conduct as « morally and ethically indefensible, » adding that « I ask the forgiveness of anyone who was hurt by my actions, and of my rabbinic colleagues, whose standards I breached. »

But according to several of the women who accused Kirschner of sexual misconduct, some of whom were Emanu-El congregrants, the rabbi has never directly apologized to them.

In addition, « there are still people who feel an apology should have come to the congregation, » said Stephen Pearce, Emanu-El’s senior rabbi who replaced Kirschner.

The public apology may mark a turning point for both Kirschner and Emanu-El, even though Kirschner’s story illustrates what critics charge are deep flaws in the way congregations and the religious movements generally deal with accusations of rabbinic sexual misconduct.

« The fact that he has been able to admit it is very significant, not only in the eyes of people but in God’s eyes, » Pearce said.

Because Kirschner resigned, Pearce said, synagogue leaders saw no reason to investigate the women’s charges of sexual misconduct. « Since there was no definitive judgment of guilt other than the statement of the women who came forward, there were those who felt he had been wronged. »

Calling Kirschner « a brilliant rabbi, but a fallen rabbi, » Pearce said the statement creates a sense of closure for the congregation.

« There were doubts in people’s minds. They now know there was misconduct and regret, » Pearce said. « What more is there to say after this?…Everyone involved should now be getting on with their lives. »

Stuart Aronoff, Emanu-El board president, similarly called the apology « a step in the right direction. »

Kirschner was once a rising star in the Reform movement. While still in his 30s, he became the religious leader of one of the two largest synagogues in Northern California and the youngest rabbi ever to head such a sizable Reform congregation.

He was destined for a major leadership role in the Reform movement. Some say he would have been on the short list of candidates to succeed Rabbi Alexander Schindler as president of the movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

But after serving Emanu-El for 11 years, Kirschner suddenly resigned from his pulpit on New Year’s Day 1992 amid accusations from three congregants and a temple employee that he had sexually exploited or harassed them.

Eight other women later came forward to the temple board to complain about the rabbi’s conduct, including members of his congregation and two students from the Graduate Theological Seminary in Berkeley. According to parties involved, at least three of the accusers later reached financial settlements with the temple’s insurance company.

The rabbi left the 1,600-household congregation with a package that included a year’s pay, his accrued pension, and the equity from his share of the family home jointly owned with the temple. According to a source close to the congregation’s board, the total figure came to about $230,000.

It took nearly four years after charges against Kirschner first surfaced until the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform movement’s rabbinical association, suspended him from its ranks.

As a result, he cannot receive CCAR benefits, such as the use of its placement services or pension fund, until at least the year 2000. The suspension does not affect his rabbinic ordination but basically precludes any Reform congregation from hiring him as its rabbi.

He is required to get counseling from a psychotherapist and from a senior rabbinic mentor, according to Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman, then-chairman of the CCAR ethics committee. Kirschner’s suspension will be lifted in the year 2000 only upon the recommendations of his therapist and rabbinic mentor.

The CCAR’s executive committee, which acts on recommendations from the ethics committee, did not stipulate what Kirschner must do to illustrate his repentance.

But according to Kirschner’s written statement to JTA, the rabbinical association has appointed a committee of three rabbis to « approve and supervise » his rehabilitation process.

Though he has not returned to the pulpit, Kirschner is now program director at the prestigious, new Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, which has strong ties to the Reform movement.

Kirschner has refused to discuss any of the charges leveled against him with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency or with the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California. After initially refusing several phone interviews, he agreed to respond to a written list of questions from JTA.

But then he demurred, and through his attorneys, Kirschner provided JTA with the statement in which he admits engaging in extramarital relationships during his years at Emanu-El and violating the CCAR’s Rabbinic Code of Ethics.

In the statement, Kirschner also said: « In June 1994, I acknowledged in writing to the Ethics Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis that I had failed to abide by the provision of its Ethics Code relating to sexual misconduct. `For this failure,’ I wrote, `I express my contrition to those whom I wronged and to the CCAR, whose standards I breached.’ »

In the statement to JTA, Kirschner said that as part of his « process of rehabilitation » he has indicated his « willingness to apologize personally to anyone to whom my conduct as a congregational rabbi was hurtful or offensive. »

He has never apologized to Gemma Elftman.

Elftman, who weighs less than 100 pounds and has been battling anorexia nervosa for years, now lives in Hawaii. She moved there after dropping out of U.C. Berkeley, which she attended during her relationship with Kirschner.

Their 18-month sexual relationship began in early 1990 after the rabbi approached her at a reception for new members and offered to drive her home, according to a 48-page document she submitted in connection with her complaint againt the rabbi and the temple.

Now in her early 30s, Elftman no longer has a connection to the Jewish community.

Lisa Sherman also has left the community.

Sherman was a newlywed and new to Emanu-El, she said, when Kirschner approached her in the late 1980s.

After pursuing her « ardently » for nearly four years, Sherman said, Kirschner kissed her against her will in February 1991, shortly after her father’s death. She rejected him, she said, but Kirschner continued to pursue her for months.

Today, the 41-year-old woman has no connection to Judaism and has divorced her husband of that time. She has returned to Greek Orthodoxy, the religion she was raised in, and had her son baptized into that faith.

The extent of Kirschner’s actions began to surface in November 1991 at a party. Sherman said she was talking with three other women from Emanu-El when one expressed doubt about Kirschner, describing him as « shady. »

« Though she didn’t know it, she was talking to three other victims, » Sherman said.

According to Sherman, the four of them jointly hired an attorney and wrote statements that were presented to Emanu-El’s board in December 1991. The women threatened legal action if Kirschner was not immediately removed from his job.

Kirschner resigned from his pulpit on Jan. 1, 1992.

A letter from the temple president informed congregants of Kirschner’s resignation « with regret » in language that spoke warmly of his contribution to the synagogue and made no reference to the circumstances of his departure.

In Kirschner’s own letter of resignation, sent to the temple’s members, he cited personal reasons for stepping down and did not acknowledge any misconduct.

But in the next few months, another eight women came forward and told temple leaders that they had been sexually harassed or abused by Kirschner, said a member of the Emanu-El’s executive board. That board member agreed to be quoted only anonymously because of the pain the congregation had suffered over the matter.

The CCAR did not get involved in the case until later. The association said it would not investigate the matter until someone filed an official complaint with its ethics committee.

When a formal charge was made, CCAR’s Stiffman wrote back to the complainant declining to investigate Kirschner’s conduct, according to a copy of the letter obtained by JTA. As long as allegations about Kirschner were being worked out through lawsuits, he wrote, the CCAR’s ethics committee could not get involved in the case.

But the CCAR did try fruitlessly to find Kirschner a job shortly after he left Emanu-El.

Rabbi Arnold Sher, the CCAR’s placement director, defended the decision and said a new position would have enabled Kirschner to get « psychological help. »

This year, Kirschner was hired as program director of the newly built Skirball Cultural Center. It is a position he assumed after holding a research fellowship at the Skirball Museum, the center’s predecessor, which was then part of the Reform movement’s seminary in Los Angeles.

The fellowship was funded entirely by Kirschner’s supporters from the leadership of Emanu-El, according to Rabbi Uri Herscher, president and chief executive officer of the Skirball Cultural Center, which has strong ties to the seminary but is legally independent.

Herscher said he believes that Kirschner has repented and that the rabbi’s record has been made clear to the staff of the cultural center. He said every staff member expressed confidence in Kirschner.

But sources at the Skirball, who asked not to be named, say no such presentation was made to the center’s dozens of volunteers, nearly all of whom are women.

Still, there are those who believe that Kirschner has made the necessary amends.

Rabbi Lee Bycel, dean of the Reform seminary in Los Angeles known as the Hebrew Union College, said Kirschner « has done more repenting and more work and more dealing with this than anyone I’ve ever known in my life. »

« In my own conversations with him, I saw a man who had recognized what he had done, was well aware of what these actions meant and had addressed them psychotherapeutically, » said Bycel, who in 1993 offered a seminary teaching job to Kirschner, which he turned down after a small uproar from HUC alumni.

« He was reflecting on it in what I felt was a very Jewish manner, in examining what he had done wrong, seeking to understand why and trying in every way to make teshuvah, that is, restoring the wholeness of his own life. »

Friday April 30, 1999

Former yeshiva head indicted on sex charges

JERUSALEM (JPS) — Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, the former head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir Yeshiva, was indicted on Thursday of last
In all of the cases, Kopolevitch, 51, was accused of conducting « indecent acts without the consent of the student. The accused e

Justice Ministry officials said it has taken a long time to file the indictment because of the investigation of the other rabbis and because Kopolevitch’s lawyer asked to see the indictment and respond to it before it was presented to Jerusalem District Court.

The lawyer’s response was not immediately available.

According to the indictment, Kopolevitch systematically selected a group of students each year and gave them preferential treatment in and out of class at the residential high school. He gave some of them private lessons in the early morning, brought them to his home or met them in the school health clinic when it was empty.

« For seven years, during the period between 1991 and 1997, the accused committed sexual crimes against students studying at the yeshiva, » the indictment reads. « These crimes involved various types of sexual conduct, beginning with kisses (including on the mouth), fondling (including the chest area, the crotch and the sexual organ), and ending with masturbation through hand or body contact. »

One of the students whom Kopolevitch allegedly forced to have sex was 14 years old.

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you’ll be notified each week when « J. » goes online. We’ll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline. Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.

http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/4691/edition_id/86/format/html/displaystory.html

Ex-yeshiva head indicted for forcing pupils to have sex

By DAN IZENBERG

Jerusalem Post – Friday, April 23, 1999 (7 Iyar 5759 )

http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/23.Apr.1999/News/Article-3.html

JERUSALEM (April 23) – Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, the former head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir Yeshiva, was indicted yesterday on charges of forcing 19 of his pupils, many of them under 16, to engage in homosexual relations with him.

In all of the cases, Kopolevitch, 51, was accused of conducting « indecent acts without the consent of the student. The accused exploited the relationship of dependency inherent in the teacher-student relationship to put pressure on the student. »

According to a Justice Ministry communique, police are still investigating allegations that some of the students complained to other rabbis about Kopolevitch’s behavior and they did nothing about it. Among the rabbis who were reportedly informed were former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira and National Religious Party Knesset candidate Haim Druckman.

The Justice Ministry said it has taken a long time to file the indictment because of the investigation of the other rabbis and because Kopolevitch’s lawyer asked to see the indictment and respond to it before it was presented to Jerusalem District court.

According to the indictment, Kopolevitch systematically selected a group of students each year and gave them preferential treatment in and out of class. He gave some of them private lessons in the early morning, brought them to his home, or met them in the school health clinic when it was empty.

« For seven years, during the period between 1991 and 1997, the accused committed sexual crimes against students studying at the yeshiva, » the indictment reads. « These crimes involved various types of sexual conduct, beginning with kisses (including on the mouth), fondling (including the chest area, the crotch, and the sexual organ), and ending with masturbation through hand or body contact. »

One of the students whom Kopolevitch allegedly forced to have sex was 14 years old.

(Top)

News in Brief

By Danna Harman, Dan Izenberg, Jerusalem Post Staff, Itim

The Jerusalem Post – April 27, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2

Meimad activists protest against Lapid

Holding pots of « chulent, » Meimad Party youth staged a demonstration yesterday outside the Shinui Party offices in Tel Aviv to protest recent statements made by Shinui leader Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, which they find offensive and divisive.

« Why not eat chulent on Shabbat? » the protesters chanted, in response to Lapid’s call for secular Jews to « eat shrimp on Shabbat. »

« Tommy Lapid, using gimmicks and harsh language, is dividing the people and increasing hatred between secular and religious in this country, » said Meimad spokesman Moni Mordechai. Danna Harman Shapira, Druckman won’t be prosecuted

Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein decided yesterday not to prosecute former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira and former NRP MK and current NRP candidate Haim Druckman for failing to take action against the former head of Yeshivat Netiv Meir, Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch. Kopolevitch has been indicted on charges of forcing 19 of his students to engage in homosexual relations with him.

Police investigated allegations that some of the students had complained about Kopolevitch to Shapira, the head of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, and Druckman, who was head of the B’nei Akiva yeshivot at the time, and that they had not passed on the complaints to the authorities. Police recommended prosecuting the two rabbis. Rubinstein did not provide the reasons for his decision not to do so. Dan Izenberg

30 injured in bus crash

Twenty-six seventh graders and four escorts were lightly injured yesterday when a bus driving them home from Masada turned over on its side, just north of the Beit Kama intersection in the Lachish area, Israel Radio reported last night.

The pupils from the Korczak School in Ramat Gan were treated at the scene and taken to Soroka and Barzilai hospitals, the radio said.

The driver said a semitrailer suddenly appeared before him, apparently trying to make a U-turn, without its headlights on. To avoid hitting the truck, he veered to the right, going up onto the shoulder of the road. The bus hit the side of the truck and then turned on its side, he said, according to the radio. Jerusalem Post Staff

No appeal on Lederman’s release

State Attorney Edna Arbel decided yesterday not to petition the High Court against the parole board’s decision to release Yisrael Lederman one year before the end of his three-year jail sentence. Lederman was convicted of spilling boiling tea over Labor MK Yael Dayan in 1996, causing second degree burns to her neck and chest.

The parole board decided that Lederman had expressed unambiguous regret for his action and said he had learned his lesson. The board first decided to release Lederman last September, after he completed half his jail term. However, the High Court of Justice accepted a petition by Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein calling on it to reconsider its decision. In 1978, Lederman was convicted of killing a Palestinian and sentenced to 20 years in jail. He was released after three years. Dan Izenberg

Ben-Porat: Report too close to elections

Former state comptroller Miriam Ben-Porat said yesterday on Army Radio that the latest report should have come out earlier rather than so close to elections. « The date could have been moved up, » she said. « Publication of a state comptroller’s report influences elections results. I wouldn’t put out a report so close to elections. » Ben-Porat said in 1992, she had moved up the then-annual report’s publication date by two weeks to distance it from the election campaign. Itim

Top)

The Unraveling Kippah

by Naomi Ragen (May 7, 1999)

http://www.naomiragen.com/Columns/KnittedKippah.htm

The symbol of the election campaign for the National Religious Party is the unraveling knitted skullcap. Vote for the Mafdal, the commercial says, or all our wonderful educational institutions, our youth groups, our synagogues will go under.

As I watched the commercial, I thought of an experience I had last summer.

Boiling beneath a corrugated tin roof and its one lone fan that sluggishly pushed the stale air in dusty circles, I sat beside an old school friend. We were waiting to visit her son. I studied the bars across the small opened window, the gray metal lockers, the old peeling wooden cubbyholes where visitors like us were meant to deposit our personal belongings before being led inside. It was visiting day at the « religious wing » of a prison somewhere in Israel. My friend’s son was serving out a term for murder. Like many others in the prison’s « religious wing, » he too wore a knitted skullcap.

This week I read about the indictment of Rabbi Zeev Kopolevitch, once head of the most prestigious yeshiva high school in Israel, Netiv Meir. In 23 pages, over nineteen former students describe a series of shocking sexual abuses at the hands of Kopolevitch. But most shocking of all, was the fact that the most respected Rabbis of the National Religious Party, leader of B’nai Akiva yeshiva movement and Knesset member Rabbi Druckman, and former chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, had both allegedly been informed about the abuse and had chosen to do nothing, thus allowing it to continue.

My school friend and her husband are gentle, educated, deeply religious people who abhor violence and extremism. When their son was thirteen years-old, he was invited by a Kahane party activist to use Kach’s workout room in the Old City. Unbeknownst to his parents, he became an avid Kach follower. When he was barely fifteen, he and two friends decided to avenge Meir Kahane’s death by exploding a grenade in the crowded Old City shuk. As a result, an elderly Arab man was killed.

My friend and I see each other in synagogue every Shabbat. It is a synagogue in which prayers for the government and the army are said with sincerity, where new recruits are blessed from the pulpit, and where more than one son has fallen in defense of our country. It is also a place where- despite the admirable but ignored protests of one or two members — someone regularly places Kach literature along with the study sheets about the weekly Torah portion.

Something has gone awry here.

When did messianic fervor to settle Yehuda and Shomron begin to erode reason and human values?

Was it inevitable that the hatred which Jewish settlers experienced in building their homes among Arab villagers, find an echo in their own hearts, shouting down the sincere idealism, the love of Eretz Yisrael which was their original motivation? And if so, is it possible to really serve G-d with a heart attune only to the worthiness of its own cause, deaf to the cries of pain coming from others?

I was taking a bus the other day and an elderly woman got on. She put her cane on the side and stretched her arms between both of the bus’s railings to help herself up. A woman wearing a wig, perhaps innocently in a hurry, rushed up the steps behind her, pushing her. The elderly woman turned around, furious: » And you call yourself religious? » She thundered. « You’re a fake, a fake! »

Like it or not, those who wear the knitted skullcap, or any other accouterment of religious observance, have a tremendous responsibility. We aren’t allowed what for others would be natural human frailties, feelings of revenge, because our Torah forbids us to hold a grudge, to take revenge, to spill human blood….Or to ignore the suffering of innocents because it embarrasses those in power.

We must ask ourselves if in our enthusiasm for one sacred idea, we have not trampled so many others. We must ask ourselves if the knitted skullcap still sits well, and firmly, and comfortably on our heads. As any B’nai Akiva girl– knitter–of- skullcaps– will tell you, when a skullcap starts to get crooked, or is too round or flat, all you can do is start from scratch, taking out all the wrong stitches that led you astray.

Stitch by painful stitch, we need to get back to where it was we started from, not so long ago.

(Top)

Conspiracy of Silence

By Netty C. Gross

The Jerusalem Report – May 24, 1999

SECTION: Pg. 28

An alleged scandal at a flagship Orthodox Jerusalem high school is exacerbated by suggestions that it was allowed to fester for years

STUDENTS MILL AROUND THE corridors of Netiv Meir, an all-male yeshivah high school located on the main drag of Jerusalem’s largely ultra-Orthodox Bayit Vegan neighborhood. Portraits of bearded, glum and famous rabbis share wall space with ads for an Orthodox rock concert. In the halls, teachers talk to students, who are preppy-looking even if there’s an odd tzitzit, or ritual fringe, protruding from under a shirt. There’s a security guard, who wants to know why I am in the place. In short, everything seems normal. But it’s not. The 46-year-old live-in school, until recently the jewel in the crown of the religious Zionist Bnei Akiva yeshivah network and the darling of the parent National Religious Party, is reeling from a sex scandal. Indeed, some feel that the affair has visited as much pain and anguish on religious Zionists as Bar-Ilan University student-turned Rabin assassin, Yigal Amir.

In the last week of April, charges were filed against Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolovitch, for 15 years Netiv Meir’s rosh yeshivah, or principal. The charismatic, 52-year-old rabbi is accused of sexually abusing 19 students between 1991 and his dismissal in 1997. The 23-page indictment describes him as a pedophile, who promised good grades to male students, who allowed him to kiss and touch them in intimate areas. In the 1,500 pages of evidence gathered by police, it’s alleged that Kopolovitch asked his victims to strip and masturbate with him, threatening bad marks if they refused.

Kopolovitch, the indictment alleges, arranged late-night study sessions for favorites at the Netiv Meir dormitory, in its infirmary or at his nearby home, stressing the importance of a relationship « beyond the spiritual. » The alleged contact with Kopolovitch was the first sexual encounter for many of the victims. Some reportedly needed psychological counseling to recover from the trauma. Kopolovitch, married and the father of three, denies the charges. Through his lawyer, he has reportedly said he is the victim of a witchhunt orchestrated by students « who didn’t understand me » and a power struggle at the yeshivah.

THE CHARGES AGAINST Kopolovitch are serious enough, but they’re only part of the story. There’s also the « conspiracy of silence, » as police call it. Investigators say Kopolovitch’s alleged behavior was known within the school for several years and tolerated by the governing hierarchy of the religious Zionist movement. Top rabbis were allegedly aware of what was going on, but didn’t stop it or report it to police or social workers – a criminal offense.

Netiv Meir had a close relationship with leading figures of religious Zionism, including former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapiro, former Bnei Akiva yeshivah network chairman Rabbi Avraham Zuckerman, and his successor, Rabbi Haim Druckman, who in late March accepted the No. 2 slot on the NRP’s Knesset slate. Police believe Shapiro and Zuckerman knew about Kopolovitch’s alleged abuses for five years and did nothing; Druckman forced the rabbi to resign in 1997 after a Jerusalem weekly published the allegations – but failed to inform law enforcement authorities.

Another theme echoing through the case is the deferential treatment afforded NRP high-ups by the legal system. The initial police request to question the three rabbis languished on Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein’s desk for months after it was made early last year. Rubinstein allowed Shapiro’s interrogation to take place by correspondence, and let Zuckerman and Druckman be questioned in their homes. Explaining that decision, a Justice Ministry statement said that Shapiro and Zuckerman are both in their 80s, and cited « overall circumstances, including the nature of the investigation and the type of offenses. » All three rabbis denied knowledge of Kopolovitch’s alleged abuses. In late April, Rubinstein said the rabbis would not be indicted for failing to notify authorities. But indictments for this failure are being prepared against former rosh yeshivah Eliyahu Grossberg and Haim Zvi Rosenberg, the vice-principal. The three rabbis were not, explained Justice Ministry spokeswoman Orit Shemesh, « educational employees, » and as such the requirement to report to the police under Section 368D/b did not apply. Shemesh declined comment when asked if the case didn’t also come under Section 368D/a, which requires any citizen who has « reasonable basis » to believe that an offense has been committed against a minor by those responsible for him to report the case to the police or a social worker. Tellingly, a senior NRP official told The Report that the Justice Ministry quietly informed the party a month ago, before Druckman was put on the Knesset ticket, that the trio would not be indicted. « We knew they were off the hook back then, » said the NRP official. Should the ministry be giving confidential information to a political party? The spokeswoman for the ministry would not comment. WHEN IT COMES TO SEX SCANdals, the modern Orthodox are as defensive and tight-lipped as the ultra-Orthodox. Yair Sheleg, an Orthodox journalist at the daily Ha’aretz, says that fits small, closed communities – that kibbutzim are « notoriously reluctant to come forward in reporting rapes. »

Many Orthodox rabbis decline to talk about the case. Others have explanations for the tendency to cover things up. « Religious Zionists still haven’t emerged from our ghetto, » says Rabbi Yehudah Gilad, of the religious kibbutz movement’s Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa and a Knesset candidate from the moderate Orthodox Meimad party. « I think it’s changing, but for the most part, we aren’t mature or confident enough as a group to step forward and accept criticism. Some of the insecurity is a reaction to the culture war with the secular. Orthodox people know modesty is one of their emblems, and when a sexual scandal unravels, the thinking is, ‘Why give the secular a rope to hang us. Let’s deal with this internally.’ » Asked how he’d confront a similar crisis, Gilad parses it out carefully. « My first concern, » he says, « would be for the student’s welfare. Next, I’d inquire what the law required me to do, and implement it. » Shmuel Reiner, the rabbi of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi and dean at Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa, says the Orthodox community is « paying a price for our emphasis on modesty, on not being forthcoming about sexuality. When something like this happens, we’re unequipped to deal with it. » Reiner says the Kopolovitch case has had two immediate effects: High school yeshivot, which insist that students board at the school, « have declined in popularity and I’m happy. The rabbis in these yeshivot have too much of a hold on kids’ lives. » And, Reiner says, he and colleagues have become increasingly careful about being alone with students or touching them, however innocently. « I travel all over the country seeing soldiers, but I’m sure never to be alone in my car with students. »

ZE’EV KOPOLOVITCH WAS raised in an Orthodox Zionist family from Rehovot. His religious identity was blurred; he joined the Slonim hasidic sect and showed up for his first teaching job at a Bnei Akiva school in Pardes Hannah in the 70s, wearing an ultra-Orthodox hat and long coat. « His nickname was ‘Crembo’ (a popular chocolate-covered marshmallow treat), recalls one former student there. « Black on the outside, white on the inside. He was warm, physical, charismatic, pushing the idea of being more religious rather than being more right-wing politically. When I heard of the charges, I said it must be a misunderstanding. There was no hint of sexual impropriety back then. » In 1982 Kopolovitch was asked to take over at Netiv Meir by Rabbi Aharon Bina, the yeshivah’s founder. Opened in 1953, the school has always been at the center of a tug-of-war between nationalist and ultra-Orthodox factions. The appointment of Kopolovitch, who tried to accommodate the nationalists but leaned toward the ultra-Orthodox, created a furor among the more politically oriented faction. Still, the school flourished during his tenure.

Over the years, stories about his alleged sexual activities also flourished in the school. A Purim video made by a student reportedly was rife with innuendo; students complained to other teachers and rabbis but their complaints went unheeded.

His downfall came as a fluke. In 1994 it looked like Kopolovitch might simply fade away. After heart surgery, he retired. But a fight erupted over the future of the yeshivah, which went four months without a principal. Kopolovitch was persuaded to return. Then, in 1997, after a Jerusalem weekly referred to allegations about him in a larger story on the religious-nationalist power struggle in the yeshivah, Druckman, as head of the Bnei Akiva network, asked him to leave.

These days, Netiv Meir is a fossil of its former self. It used to take in 120 students a year and turn away hundreds more; for the 5760 academic year, only 49 new students have signed up. Kopolovitch is said to be a broken man. He is no longer allowed to pray in Jerusalem’s Slonim shtiebl or other synagogues, and has taken refuge in the tiny Sokhotchover hasidic sect.

It remains to be seen whether the case will have any effect on the NRP’s chances in the upcoming elections. One NRP source insisted « this story won’t affect us politically. Druckman was cleared of any wrongdoing. » Others disagree. One parent, whose son attended the school until the scandal broke, makes no bones about her feelings. « Kopolovitch, » she says, « was sick. The rabbis who protected him were evil. They will never get my vote again. »

(Top)

Kopolevitch pleads not guilty

By Dan Izenberg

The Jerusalem Post – June 11, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 5A

Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch yesterday pleaded not guilty in the Jerusalem District Court to charges of having forced 19 students, many of them minors, to engage in homosexual relations with him.

Judges Ya’acov Zemach, Miriam Naor and Moussia Arad read out the indictment during yesterday’s session, the first in the trial of the 51-year-old former head of Yeshivat Netiv Meir. The court agreed to a request by Kopolevitch’s lawyer, Eyal Shomroni, to suspend the hearings until he has studied the evidence, and postponed the trial for three months. « There is so much material that it will take some time to cope with it, » Shomroni said afterwards.

According to the indictment, Kopolevitch systematically selected a group of students from each year and gave them preferential treatment in and out of class. He tutored them privately early in the mornings, brought them to his home or met then in the school health clinic when it was empty.

« For seven years, in the period between 1991 and 1997, the accused committed sexual crimes against students studying at the yeshiva, » the indictment reads. « These crimes involved various types of sexual conduct beginning with kisses (including in the mouth), fondling (including the chest area, the crotch and the sexual organ) and ending with masturbation through hand or body contact. »

Photo: Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, former head of Yeshivat Netiv Meir, walks through the Jerusalem District Court yesterday. (Credit: Ariel Jerozolimski/The Jerusalem Post)

(Top)

Plea bargain agreement reached in yeshiva molestation case

IsraelWire – Monday, October 11, 1999 16:36

(IsraelWire-10/11) The attorney for defendant Rabbi Ze’ev Kapelovich and the state have reached a plea bargain agreement in the case charging the former principal of the Netiv Meir Yeshiva with molesting many students during his employment.

The indictment against the rabbi was handed down about a half a year ago following a comprehensive police investigation, which uncovered that prominent rabbinical authorities affiliated with the National Religious Camp made efforts to cover up the rabbi’s actions.

During the legal proceedings, many of the rabbi’s former students testified as state witnesses. The Justice Ministry must now approve the deal.

(Top)

Court convicts former yeshiva head of indecent acts against students

By Dan Izenberg

The Jerusalem Post – October 11, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4

The Jerusalem Distict Court yesterday accepted a plea bargain arrangement and convicted Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, the former head of Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Netiv Meir, of indecent acts against 12 of his students.

The agreement between Kopolevitch and the state was controversial because the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office agreed to ask the court for a sentence of no more than three-and-a-half years in jail while giving Kopolevitch’s lawyer, Eyal Shomroni-Cohen, the right to plead for a lighter sentence.

Indeed, Shomroni told the panel of three judges, Ya’acov Zemah, Miriam Naor and Moussia Arad, that he would ask them not to send his client to jail. Had Kopolevitch not reached a plea bargain agreement, he might have faced a much stiffer punishment. However, in accordance with the agreement, the state submitted a modified indictment which reduced the number of Kopolevitch’s victims from 19 to 12. It also drastically reduced the number of charges carrying a maximum of seven years in jail according to the Sexual Crimes section of the Penal Code. Of the 12 charges included in the modified indictment, nine carried a maximum sentence of four years.

Jerusalem District Attorney prosecutor Drora Nahmani- Roth justified the state’s consent to the agreement during a court hearing yesterday. « The State Attorney’s Office seriously considered whether or not to agree to the plea bargain, » she said. « It was not an easy thing given the nature and scope of the charges and the behavior of the defendant in each of the separate cases. We held meetings, examined previous cases and (found) that we are not significantly deviating from the appropriate punishment.

« We also believe that (Kopolevitch’s) readiness to confess is very important for the plaintiffs. We are talking about youths who are the salt of the earth. Today, most of them are serving in army battlefront units. We did not want to remove them from the new system of relations they have established since their school days. We very much wanted to spare these 19 boys, who have all graduated from the yeshiva, from having to testify in court. » Nahmani-Roth added that all of the original plaintiffs had consented to the plea bargain.

The State Attorney’s Office announced yesterday that two other yeshiva officials face charges of complicity. They allegedly knew about Kopolevitch’s crimes but did not report them to the authorities. Before deciding whether to submit the charges to court, the State Attorney’s Office will hold a hearing for the two unnamed officials.

There have been reports that former chief Ashkenazi rabbi Avraham Shapiro, the head of Mercaz Harav Kook, and NRP MK Haim Drukman were among those who had received complaints about Kopolevitch’s behavior and had done nothing about them.

(Top)

May I Have a Word, Mr. Rubinstein?

by Naomi Ragen

Jerusalem Post – November 4, 1999

http://naomiragen.com/Columns/MrRubinstein.htm

I am having difficulty understanding something about the Ministry you head, Mr. Rubinstein, and would really appreciate your help. It seems that in the last few weeks in at least two instances your Ministry seems to be working overtime to get sex offenders, pedophiles and rapists, as well as those who harbor and protect them, special light treatment under the law because they all happen to be rabbis.

First, there is the disgraceful case of the former headmaster Kopolevitch of Netiv Meir yeshiva high school who lived in a pedophile’s heaven for the last fifteen years, abusing dozens, even hundreds of boys under his tutelage, boys whose complaints were apparently ignored by the Bnai Akiva yeshiva network’s most respected spiritual leaders, Rabbi Druckman and Rabbi Shapira.

And then there is the rapist in Kabbalistic rabbi’s clothing who is still wandering around the south teaching Torah to innocent children, when he should have long joined his comrades in the religious wing of Masiyahu Prison.

Mr. Rubinstein, what can your Ministry be thinking when it agrees to a plea bargain of four and half years for Rabbi Kopolevitch? When it dismisses charges against Rabbis Druckman and Shapira for allowing Kopolevitch to continue committing the most disgustingly immoral acts against young boys in their educational network, long after they apparently knew the facts? When it suspends proceedings against a Rabbi who raped a young woman under the guise of giving her kabbalistic help?

I am only a woman (and everyone knows with what great respect and interest the opinions of such people are held in the religious world) yet, I think that it behooves you to listen carefully to my opinion and my amazement at your Ministry’s behavior.

A friend of mine who was visiting Israel from the States went on a tour of the Supreme Court building. She sat in on an actual case in which a religious man who had molested a child was serving seven years. The man expressed regret, but the judges, pointing out how terrible such a crime is, how destructive to the victim, denied his appeal to have his sentence shortened. How can it be, my friend asked , that this criminal got six years for abusing one child, and Kopolevitch, whose crime is a hundred-fold, will get only four and a half? And this criminal was just an ordinary fellow, unlike Kopolevitch who had perfected a system in which he exploited the full measure of his spiritual and educational authority to lure his victims and ensure their silence.

My friend, an Orthodox woman, daughter of a famous Rabbi who received rabbinical ordination from the Chafetz Chaim himself, was appalled.

And now we have the rapist who presented himself as a Rabbi versed in the mysteries of the kabbalah, a spiritual magic-worker, and wound up instructing a young woman who had come to him for help to undress and submit to his « magic » sexual demands. Exploiting a religious young woman’s innocence, he used his tremendous spiritual power to desecrate not only her body, but her soul as well. Why does such a person deserve leniency? Why does he deserve to have the case against him suspended because « he isn’t feeling well? » I would think such a person deserves to have the case against him pursued relentlessly; deserves to serve a prison sentence twice as harsh as anyone else’s.

Because when a Rabbi abuses someone who looks up to him, he does it not only with his body, but with the full weight of everything the victim holds sacred, destroying the victim’s innocence, faith, religious beliefs, connection to G-d, in a way that no ordinary hormone-crazed offender could ever do. The damage is much greater, because the victim’s faith — that which drew them to be students in Netiv Meir, or to the doorstep of a Kabbalistic mystic — has been raped as well.

I appeal to you, Mr. Rubinstein, as a comrade, a fellow religious Jew, to whom the Torah is sacred. You sent your children to school with mine. We go to the same kind of synagogue. And I have to believe, that as a professed religious Jew, we both hold the Torah in the highest respect.

Would it not make more sense, therefore, to deal twice as harshly with such perpetrators as Kopolevitch and the rapist in « mekubal’s » clothing, and to insist on calling to task those who harbor and employ them? Your apparent sympathy and kindness towards these people baffles me. More, it causes me endless shame.

Why, Mr. Rubinstein? In Heaven’s name, why?

(Top)

Former yeshiva head apologizes for molesting students

By Dan Izenberg

The Jerusalem Post – November 11, 1999, Thursday

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4

Speaking softly, his hands trembling, the former head of Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Netiv Meir Yeshiva apologized in court yesterday for the sexual assaults he committed on several of his students.

« I express regret, » he told Jerusalem District Court Judges Ya’acov Zemah, Miriam Naor, and Moussia Arad. « I am sorry for all the students who were harmed and ask for the mercy of the court. » The brief appeal came at the end of a three-hour session in which seven character witnesses, including the principal of the Horev Yeshiva High School, Mordechai Alon, the former secretary-general of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, and former students, attested to Kopolevitch’s exceptional devotion to his students and school.

Kopolevitch, dressed in black suit and hat, sat alone, his head down, hands trembling, a wet handkerchief clutched in his hand, as he heard the testimonies to his educational qualities.

He is on trial for forcing 12 of his students, who belonged to a favored inner circle which he created, to conduct homosexual acts with him. The prosecution dropped charges involving seven other students after reaching a plea-bargain arrangement in which Kopolevitch confessed to having relations with the others.

« He was the yeshiva head who invested the most in his students, was ready to do anyone’s bidding to an exceptional degree, » said Ya’acov Lipshitz, the former head of Bnei Akiva. « He went to Bnei Akiva camps all over the country and was always received with great love and esteem. No other yeshiva head gave so much, with so much intensity. It was very unusual. »

Avishai Grosser, who graduated from Netiv Meir in 1997, said that Kopolevitch remembered the name of every one of the 450 students in the school. « He always put his heart into it, » he said. « He attended every Shabbat meal, almost always came to prayer services, and was always ready to hear our problems and help us. »

Given the charges against Kopolevitch, including that he performed some of his acts on his students at his home late at night, some of the tributes were unintentionally ironic.

« He was dedicated to each student individually and would receive them in his home, » said Netiv Meir graduate Asher Vodka. « His home was very close to the yeshiva. Any student could come for advice at any time of day or night. »

Another student, Ehud Shraga, inadvertently damaged his credibility when, in his overeagerness to protect his teacher, he told the court that he does not believe Kopolevitch performed sexual acts and that the students who testified against him are liars.

Prosecutor Ruth Nahmani-Roth asked the court to sentence Kopolevitch to three-and-a-half years in jail, saying that this would be a moderate punishment that would take into account his heart problems.

Kopolevitch’s lawyer, Eyal Shomroni-Cohen, asked the court to sentence his client to do community service in lieu of a jail sentence. He pleaded for leniency on the grounds that Kopolevitch has a serious heart problem, that the first and most severe incidents occurred almost 10 years ago, and that Kopolevitch had spared his students from testifying in public by agreeing to a plea bargain.

(Top)

Constructive whistle-blowing

By Barbara Sofer

The Jerusalem Post, November 12, 1999

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 9B

Vomiting out those who shame our community will not diminish our tradition. Our concern is fixing what isn’t working within our ranks

Last Shabbat, after synagogue, one of my dearest friends praised me for not writing anything negative about Ze’ev Kopolevitch, the former head of Bnei Akiva’s flagship yeshiva high school, Netiv Meir.

Kopolevitch, you may recall, was arrested for sexually molesting the young men entrusted to his care. Many of the boys and men in my synagogue attended that school, although – as one neighbor whose son graduated there sadly put it – they’re not bragging about it anymore.

There’s a rabbinical term, « shtika kehoda’a, » meaning « silence is acquiescence. » Lest my muteness be misunderstood, I join with the many who have already expressed their repugnance over his behavior and the abuse of his position. Who wouldn’t be disgusted? Imagine what a tragedy this must have been for young men at the cusp of manhood. A dozen young men came forward with accusations. How many more were too ashamed to come forward?

I differ from my friend and co-columnist Naomi Ragen only in my reaction to the plea bargain. True, Kopolevitch got fewer years in prison than he might have in a regular trial. But his admission of guilt was imperative. Had he not confessed, the religious community in which I live might have found every reason not to believe the ugly truth.

In the many months since this hideous scandal became public, the accusations were waved away as everything from teenage misinterpretation of innocuous rabbinical affection, to a witch hunt, to a plot by the rabid leftist press panting to destroy religion at every opportunity.

Indeed, unbelievable as it sounds, even after his confession, I’ve heard testimonies as to what a fine educator Kopolevitch was. Had he not fessed up, we might have expected videotapes with catchy tunes documenting the travesty done to him.

Still, I can understand the reason my usually sagacious friend doesn’t want anyone to write about this disgrace. We in the religious community hate to show our blemishes. Not only because we’re personally embarrassed, but because we see ourselves in an ongoing , historical, daily struggle with forces that belittle and obliterate our beloved tradition.

This goes way beyond political concerns. We want others to embrace Judaism. If we ran into one of those three-wish-giving genies we would want her to wave a magic wand over the Jewish people and have them start observing Shabbat. We believe it would bring peace. We believe it will bring the messiah. In this context, highlighting our own imperfections seems counterproductive.

Then along comes a kippa-wearing debaucher of innocents, and our efforts to impart the real impressive standards of religion are made considerably more difficult. Even worse, this particular problem goes beyond one twisted figure, but to rabbis who were told of his repugnant abuses, who harbored him and still go unpunished.

WE often feel trapped against our will into being perpetual sales representatives for our chosen way of life. We needn’t be. Vomiting out those who shame our community will not diminish our tradition. This isn’t the whistle- blowing of previous centuries, when members of the Jewish community tattled on wayward Jews to the local magistrate or the Czar. Our concern is fixing what isn’t working within our ranks.

Where to draw that line in finding fault within our community is a question raised indirectly by my fellow columnist Jonathan Rosenblum.

In last week’s column « Are haredim lousy parents? » he criticized Naomi Ragen and another friend of mine, Tzvia Greenfield.He accused them of building their careers on attacking the haredi community, in particular because they were quoted in « Be Fruitful and Multiply, » an article in Time magazine (October 25) equating large families with lack of responsibility. (If you missed the original article and want to see what the fuss is about, log on to the Time magazine Web site, and plug « Jewish women » into the magazine’s search engine.)

Like Rosenblum, I found the article outrageous. It echoed old political credos advising poor people to learn to curb their family size. The article presented no hard evidence that showed children of conscientious parents in large families fared worse – i.e. in measures of self- esteem, health, or education – than those in small families. Nor could I imagine Time running such a story about families in Bangladesh or Ethiopia.

Family size is ultimately the most personal – to use a loaded word – choice. Most women I know wish they had more, not fewer, children.

Nonetheless, the voices of concern sounded by influential women living inside or close to the community are legitimate. If they believe that families are indeed living under appalling, unnecessary stress, and that women are helpless against social coercion to reproduce, they are obligated to speak up. We all are. Shtika kehoda’a.

Light, even from an unflattering spotlight, can be ultimately healing. We who cover our heads – men and women both – simply have to make extra sure that no shadow falls over our eyes – or our minds.

(Top)

Kopolevitch gets 3 1/2 years

Bt Tamar Hausman

The Jerusalem Post – November 19, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A

The Jerusalem District Court yesterday sentenced Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch to three-and-a-half years in prison for sexually assaulting several students during his time as principal of Yeshivat Netiv Meir in Jerusalem.

Kopolevitch admitted his guilt as part of a plea bargain to reduce his sentence from the original five-year term. The judges were initially angered by the deal but, after a lengthy deliberation, decided to let it stand. Kopolevitch was convicted of violating a dozen students – nine under the age of 14 – between 1991 and 1997. He organized meetings with the students in his office, the yeshiva’s infirmary, and outside the school after class hours, forcing them to engage in sexual acts with him by telling them that their compliance was a condition for retaining a good relationship with him and receiving good grades.

Last week, Kopolevitch apologized for his actions, saying: « I am sorry for all the students who were harmed and ask for the mercy of the court. »

Lawyers on both sides agreed to the shorter sentence in order to end the drawn-out trial, which, the prosecution argued, caused additional harm to Kopolevitch’s victims. The defense pleaded for leniency on the grounds that Kopolevitch suffers from serious heart problems.

Even after the deal was reached, defense attorney Eyal Shomroni-Cohen had asked the court to reduce the sentence to community service, while prosecutor Ruth Nahmani-Roth asked the court to give Kopolevitch the maximum five-year sentence.

Judges Ya’acov Zemah, Miriam Naor, and Moussia Arad wrote in their final ruling that « the defendant made his students into sexual objects – objects that are easily accessible and easy to abuse. He took advantage of the honor young boys feel toward their rabbi for the sake of performing vile acts. »

« He trapped naive boys and gave them no room to escape. If they didn’t comply, their studies would suffer; if they did, it would be their souls and their youth that would be damaged. He performed rude sexual acts during an impressionable, emotional period in their lives, as they were entering adulthood. »

(Top)

Decries Light Penalty

By:Doron Blau

The Jerusalem Post – November 28, 1999

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 6

Sir, – It is common practice in many countries to sentence a convicted criminal to concurrent jail sentences for several offenses. On this basis, the sentence of 3 1/2 years (42 months) for 12 cases of child abuse means that the value of punishment for this unspeakable crime to innocent children, who were placed in their tender years in the hands of « an honorable rabbi, » is 3 1/2 months per child. I am disgusted at the gall of the Israeli judicial system that gives us the feeling that a punishment of 3 1/2 months in jail (not considering time off for « good behavior ») is the value placed on our children.

My children are worth more than that. Aren’t yours?

DORON BLAU, Netanya.

(Top)

Dedicated Teacher

By M. G. Steinhart

The Jerusalem Post – February 6, 1998

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 8

Readers Letters:

Sir, – As a parent who has had five sons study at the Nativ Meir school over the past 10 years, I have been privileged to know Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch. I can state unequivocally that he was at all times a caring, dedicated headmaster who was concerned for the welfare and the well-being of his students above all else. All my children have nothing but praise for him concerning his dealings with students. Whenever any sort of problem arose, he would give of his time and spare no effort in trying to help.

To suggest that such a man could be guilty of child molestation is so totally ridiculous as to be unworthy of response. To subject a man to a police inquiry with all the attendant publicity on the basis of the comments of a few disgruntled individuals – without a shred of proof – is a tragic comment on the society in which we live.

When his innocence has been proved, as I am sure it will be, how will his good reputation be reinstated by those who now seek to condemn?

G. STEINHART, Jerusalem.

(Top)

News in brief

By Batsheva Tsur

The Jerusalem Post – February 2, 1998

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2

Police mull rabbi’s detention for abusing boys

Police representatives met with State Attorney Edna Arbel yesterday to discuss whether to detain Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, former head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir yeshiva high-school, who is suspected of committing indecent acts on his former students.

Justice Ministry spokeswoman Etty Eshed refused to reveal whether any decision was taken, saying merely that the investigation was continuing, but Israel Radio reported Kopolevitch would be questioned but not detained. She also refused to comment on reports that former chief rabbi Avraham Shapira and former MK Rabbi Haim Druckman would be questioned under caution on suspicion of refraining from reporting the alleged indecent acts. Batsheva Tsur

(Top)

Police seek to question Shapira, Druckman in connection with yeshiva sex scandal case

By Jerusalem Post Staff

The Jerusalem Post – January 30, 1998

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 5

The police have asked State Attorney Edna Arbel’s permission to question Rabbis Avraham Shapira and Haim Druckman under caution on suspicion that they did not report a string of indecent acts an influential yeshiva head allegedly committed on his students over a number of years, Israel Radio reported yesterday.

The rabbi suspected of improper sexual behavior is Ze’ev Kopolevitch, formerly head of Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Netiv Meir, the flagship of the Bnei Akiva yeshivot.

Kopolevitch allegedly kissed and fondled dozens of students at the yeshiva over a number of years. He has denied the allegations, which first appeared in the local Jerusalem press a few months ago.

The intention to question Shapira, a former Ashkenazi chief rabbi, and Druckman has raised the ire of the National Religious Party.

« Everybody in the country has to obey the laws of the land, » Acting Education Minister Yitzhak Levy said on Israel Radio yesterday.

« I am sure that if the police need to investigate, they will investigate, » he said.

« I am also sure that there is nothing to this. I am only saying that this has harmed the privacy of public leaders, in that everyone, including their students, now knows that they will be investigated under caution, even though the police have not called them in for questioning. »

These developments follow the investigation this week of another prominent educator.

Gary Bilu, head of the Beit Zvi drama school in Tel Aviv, is also under investigation for allegedly improper sexual conduct with male students.

Two of Kopolevitch’s former students, interviewed anonymously on Israel Radio yesterday, said that Kopolevitch had kissed them, and there were rumors that he fondled other students.

A parent, who would only identified himself as Eli, said that Kopolevitch suddenly left the yeshiva three years ago, apparently because of sexual misconduct, but was reinstated a year later.

He reportedly was suspended again six months ago.

Yehuda Glick, today the spokesman for the Absorption Ministry, came to Kopolevitch’s defense.

He said he does not know how he would have coped with the problems of adolescence « without the caring relation of the rabbi, including kisses and hugs, that were in my eyes the kisses and hugs of a rabbi who loves his students. »

Glick said that rumors surrounding Kopolevitch are nothing new, and that they are the result of the jealousy of « haredi rabbis » in the yeshiva who could not tolerate a man with a haredi appearance, like Kopolevitch, being open to modernity and Zionism.

(Top)

Rabbi faces indictment for sexually abusing students

By Tamar Hausman

Jerusalem Post – Wednesday, March 8 2000 (1 Adar I 5760)

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/03/08/News/News.3739.html

(March 8) – Jerusalem police yesterday recommended that Rabbi Ze’ev Sultanovich, a lecturer at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva who allegedly sexually abused a number of students between 1994 and 1996, be indicted.

An investigation into the matter was launched in early January, several weeks after police received complaints from three men, now in their 20s, who studied at the yeshiva in their teens and said they had been sexually molested by Sultanovich. Sultanovich has denied the charges.

Police also recommended that Rabbi Menahem Burstein, a teacher at the yeshiva, and eight students, be indicted for trying to prevent the three men who filed the complaint from providing evidence in the investigation.

Burstein had allegedly written a letter to the parents of the three requesting that they drop the matter. Police also said that the eight students, friends of Sultanovich, came to the house of one of the complainants on Monday night and threatened him to stop the complaints to police or else they would spread stories about him and the two others.

Police now believe that Sultanovich, who is about 40, also sexually molested several other students. But those students have not yet come forward, and police are trying to determine whether they are being prevented from doing so by other students or by Burstein.

Police have turned the case over to the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office.

The head of the yeshiva, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira, was alerted to the complaints about six months ago in an anonymous letter and soon after in an anonymous phone call. He asked Burstein to look into the accusations, and Burstein found them to be false following a three-month investigation.

Shapira sent several verbal messages via other students and teachers for the accusers to speak to him personally, but no one came forward.

Rabbi Yehoshua Magnes, a teacher at Mercaz Harav, said that Sultanovich, who was once a student there, often lectures on an informal basis, is friendly with some of the students, and comes to pray. Magnes confirmed Burstein’s letter to parents and said that he also « may have spoken directly to the boys to try to prevent them from talking. »

Magnes responded to the police recommendation by saying, « There doesn’t seem to be such a strong case. It seems a bit shaky. But we’ll wait and see. »

Shapira was also previously suspected of trying to prevent a police inquiry into the improprieties of a yeshiva teacher. Last year, he received a warning letter from Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein after he was said to have tried to cover up the illegal sexual behavior of Ze’ev Kopolevitch, formerly head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir yeshiva, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.

(Top)

Yeshiva teacher accused of molesting students

By Tamar Hausman And David Zev Harris

Jerusalem Post – Wednesday, January 12 2000 02:00

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/01/12/News/News.1204.html

JERUSALEM (January 12) – Police three weeks ago launched an investigation into alleged sexual abuse by a teacher at Jerusalem’s Mercaz Harav yeshiva 14 years ago.

Officials at the yeshiva, however, said the man under investigation never taught there, but was a student about 20 years ago and that he still comes there on occasion to pray.

In mid-December, police were alerted to accusations by three men – now in their late 20s – who studied at the yeshiva in their teenage years and said they were sexually molested by the man. Police then began investigations into other men who reportedly were also sexually abused, but did not come forward. The head of the yeshiva, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira, was alerted to the complaints several months ago in an anonymous letter and soon after in an anonymous phone call, said Rabbi Yehoshua Magnes, a teacher at Mercaz Harav. Shapira asked Rabbi Menahem Burstein to look into the accusations, and he found them to be false following a three-month investigation.

Magnes also said that Shapira sent several verbal messages via other students and teachers for the accusers to speak to him personally, and that no one came forward.

« It’s possible that something like this could happen, but if it were something illegal and we knew about it, we would have dealt with it immediately, because it would hurt the yeshiva, » said Magnes.

« But the media have found him guilty already, at the first stages of the investigation. If it’s true, then he deserves all of this, but if it’s not, then, really, the damage has already been done. »

Israel Radio reported that the suspect once told his students that if Yigal Amir hadn’t killed prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, he would have.

Senior National Religious Party figures, meanwhile, reacted to reports that Shapira attempted to silence those who made the allegations of sexual misconduct.

« If this is really true, we must condemn the deeds with full force, » said one NRP leader. « The idea of covering up is grotesque and unacceptable. »

There is a growing feeling in the party that should the police find that Shapira warned the victims and their families not to go public, that the time has come to place a gap between themselves and the aging rabbi.

This is not the first time that Shapira has been suspected of trying to prevent a police inquiry into the improprieties of yeshiva teachers. Last year, he received a warning letter from Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein after he was said to have tried to cover up the illegal sexual behavior of Ze’ev Kopolevitch, formerly head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir Yeshiva, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. Party leader Yitzhak Levy told reporters victims of such attacks must not be afraid to go straight to the police. However, he fell short of criticizing Shapira.

It is impossible to prevent the symbiosis between rabbis and the party, said one senior NRP figure. « However, what we can do is cooperate intelligently with them and perhaps not work according to their commands. »

Another senior party member said it is wrong for the party’s leaders to consult rabbis on serious political issues, in particular regarding the Golan. Last week, a group of rabbis led by Shapira issued a halachic edict banning a withdrawal from the Heights, stating they are a part of the Land of Israel. « I fear that such a halachic ruling is not a beneficial intervention on the part of the rabbis, » said the party member.

(Top)

Former yeshiva head indicted on sex charges

http://www.jewishsf.com/bk990430/iyeshivaassault.shtml

JERUSALEM (JPS) — Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, the former head of Jerusalem’s Netiv Meir Yeshiva, was indicted on Thursday of last week on charges of forcing 19 of his pupils, many of them under 16, to engage in homosexual relations with him.

According to a Justice Ministry, police are still investigating allegations that some of the students complained to other rabbis about Kopolevitch’s behavior and that the rabbis did nothing about it. Among the rabbis who were reportedly informed were former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira and National Religious Party Knesset candidate Haim Druckman.

The lawyer’s response was not immediately available.

One of the students whom Kopolevitch allegedly forced to have sex was 14 years old.

(Top)

Nowhere to Cry For Help

By Jacob Solomon

The Jerusalem Report – January 31, 2000

SECTION: Pg. 54

THE JERUSALEM DISTRICT COURT’S CONVICTION of Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolovitch last November for sexually molesting 19 of his students at the all-male Netiv Meir yeshivah high school sent shock waves through national-religious circles – and well beyond. Netiv Meir is considered the flagship of the B’nei Akiva yeshivah network, and Rabbi Kopolovitch, its 52-year-old principal, had committed the offenses over a six-year period. The consternation was all the greater because Israel’s religious citizens identify themselves, to a large degree, by their adherence to the precepts of sexual modesty. The hallmarks of religious communities in Israel include a strict dress code, the segregation of men and women at social and cultural events, and a prohibition against women teaching even secular subjects in yeshivah high schools like Netiv Meir.

Still, however stringent a society may be, it cannot altogether suppress human nature. Men and women from all backgrounds and all walks of life have fantasies – and some of them are patently bizarre. Most people keep their wanton urges under control, and certainly keep them secret. They may well lead worthy lives, give of themselves, and serve the community with imagination and integrity. But for a small minority, such thoughts become obsessions that, when self-control is lacking, may get in the way of responsible behavior.

Where can such troubled people – and especially public figures grappling with this kind of problem – turn for help? The question is a difficult one given that Israel is a small and intimate society. It’s all the more onerous in Israel’s even smaller and more intimate religious community, in which a stigma is often attached to those who avail themselves of psychotherapeutic counseling, and anonymity can never be taken for granted.

Could Rabbi Kopolovitch have confided in a skilled professional his strong urge for physical intimacy with his students and still feel assured that his right to privacy would be rigorously respected? Could he have received counseling in tune with his background and beliefs?

The answer to both these questions is most probably « no. » Rabbi Kopolovitch was undoubtedly a prisoner of his public position. The very act of consulting a mental-health professional, had it become known, would have exposed him to the risk of having a black mark placed on his record and perhaps even losing his position as a yeshivah principal. So how could Rabbi Kopolovitch – and other Orthodox people with similar problems – have been helped? And what can now be done to prevent ugly and destructive incidents of this sort from recurring?

The way forward is to train many more therapists with roots in the modern- and ultra-Orthodox communities. No doubt some therapists suitably trained to work with religious patients already exist. But few in the community know of them. What’s more, under the health-fund system, in order to receive psychological counseling as part of the « basket of services, » a patient must obtain a referral from his family doctor. The inevitable questions from non-specialists and clerks would likely deter many a needy but embarrassed person from seeking help. And failing recourse to health-fund doctors and therapists, one’s only choice is to pay the high fees of private consultations.

Provision should therefore be made for certified therapists to advertise themselves, however discreetly, through the press (which is currently illegal). They should be directly accessible by phone, obviating the need to face a line of clerks and their awkward questions. And they should be able to establish their practices in places that will ensure their patients’ privacy. Finally, as many potential religious clients have low incomes and high family responsibilities, such counseling should be subsidized by the taxpayer and/or private donations. This would be a small price to pay for preventing a recurrence of such appalling incidents.

Had a system like this been in place when Rabbi Kopolovitch became aware of his aberrant drives, he would have been able to turn to a qualified therapist without fear of exposure. Certainly it is society’s duty to protect innocent youngsters from the perversions of their elders. But it is equally a duty not only to provide necessary social services to all sectors of society but to tailor them to the needs of special groups, where necessary. Just because the religious public is not clamoring for the conditions described above does not mean that it doesn’t desire or deserve them.

Jacob Solomon lectures on economics at Touro College and heads the humanities faculty at the Anglican International School in Jerusalem.

http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/kopolevitch_zeev.html

Boca rabbi faces maximum of 8 years in prison for molesting boys

By Jon Burstein Staff Writer Posted December 21 2001

FORT LAUDERDALE · A once-popular Boca Raton rabbi now faces no more than eight years in prison after federal prosecutors on Thursday backed away from seeking the harshest possible prison sentence for sex crimes involving children.

The surprising move came in the opening minutes of Rabbi Jerrold Levy’s sentencing hearing and only a couple of weeks after prosecutors filed court documents portraying him as a cunning pedophile who targeted vulnerable boys.

If U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas chose to follow prosecutors’ initial request, Levy, 59, could have faced up to 60 years in prison.

But prosecutors instead asked the judge to sentence Levy within standard federal sentencing guidelines for the crime: between 61/2 and eight years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Reinhart declined to discuss what prompted Thursday’s reversal, but said the reasons will become clear after Levy’s sentencing hearing resumes next Friday.

Ed Shohat, Levy’s attorney, said he learned on Wednesday that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had backed away from its initial stance.

« They didn’t have a basis for [the request for a maximum sentence], and I think they knew it, » Shohat said.

Levy, who was an associate rabbi of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, pleaded guilty in August to four federal charges that include having sex with a 14-year-old Wellington boy he met online and sending child pornography over the Internet.

Levy’s April 5 arrest on the first day of Passover left the temple — one of the region’s largest Reform Jewish congregations — reeling. The married rabbi had been with the temple for eight years.

About 30 congregation members, along with Levy’s wife and children, packed Dimitrouleas’ courtroom on Thursday in a day of testimony from mental health experts who had examined Levy. Levy — visibly thinner since his arrest — nodded and smiled to several spectators as he walked in handcuffs and leg shackles into the courtroom.

Levy’s attorneys argued on Thursday that the rabbi deserves a sentence of less than 61/2 years because his sexual disorder drove him to illicit behavior with teenage boys.

In addition to the Wellington boy, Levy solicited up to six boys on the Internet for sex, according to court documents. He would approach the teenagers in an Internet chat room for gay teens.

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatric expert in sexual disorders, testified Levy’s attraction to teenagers was a preoccupation he couldn’t control. An obsessed Levy — who spent up to five hours a night on the Internet — knew what he was doing was wrong, but it was as if he had a gun to his head, said Berlin, founder of Johns Hopkins University’s sexual disorder clinic, in Baltimore.

« This was a man who was struggling and losing the battle, and not someone who just didn’t give a darn, » Berlin said. « This was the culmination of a long history of being a sexually troubled, repressed and confused man. »

The government’s expert, Dr. Phillip Resnick, is an internationally known forensic psychiatrist who has provided expert testimony or consultation in the cases of Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her two sons. Resnick testified that Levy could control his sexual appetites. Levy never victimized any congregation members because the risk was too high, he said.

But with the Internet, Levy had the opportunity to approach teenage boys in a setting where the chance of getting caught was much lower, Resnick said.

Temple Beth El congregation members who attended Thursday’s hearing said Levy is clearly a man who needs mental help.

« It’s just a shame that we have to turn our backs on understanding, » said Shirley Applebaum, a congregation member. « It’s a shame to make a circus out of a sickness. »

Stanley Winter, a 10-year member of the temple, said he was shocked on Thursday to hear some of the lurid details of Levy’s case.

« In plain English, he just isn’t all there, » Winter said. « This man belongs institutionalized, not in jail. »

Levy’s attorneys are set at next week’s hearing to call at least three more witnesses. The rabbi also will be given a chance to speak.

Jon Burstein

Ex-yeshiva head indicted for forcing pupils to have sex

By DAN IZENBERG

Jerusalem Post – Friday, April 23, 1999 (7 Iyar 5759 )

http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/23.Apr.1999/News/Article-3.html

« For seven years, during the period between 1991 and 1997, the accused committed sexual crimes against students studying at the yeshiva, » the indictment reads. « These crimes involved various types of sexual conduct, beginning with kisses (including on the mouth), fondling (including the chest area, the crotch, and the sexual organ), and ending with masturbation through hand or body contact. »

One of the students whom Kopolevitch allegedly forced to have sex was 14 years old.

(Top)

News in Brief

By Danna Harman, Dan Izenberg, Jerusalem Post Staff, Itim

The Jerusalem Post – April 27, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2

Meimad activists protest against Lapid

« Why not eat chulent on Shabbat? » the protesters chanted, in response to Lapid’s call for secular Jews to « eat shrimp on Shabbat. »

30 injured in bus crash

The pupils from the Korczak School in Ramat Gan were treated at the scene and taken to Soroka and Barzilai hospitals, the radio said.

No appeal on Lederman’s release

Ben-Porat: Report too close to elections

Top)

The Unraveling Kippah

by Naomi Ragen (May 7, 1999)

http://www.naomiragen.com/Columns/KnittedKippah.htm

As I watched the commercial, I thought of an experience I had last summer.

Something has gone awry here.

When did messianic fervor to settle Yehuda and Shomron begin to erode reason and human values?

Stitch by painful stitch, we need to get back to where it was we started from, not so long ago.

(Top)

Conspiracy of Silence

By Netty C. Gross

The Jerusalem Report – May 24, 1999

SECTION: Pg. 28

An alleged scandal at a flagship Orthodox Jerusalem high school is exacerbated by suggestions that it was allowed to fester for years

(Top)

Kopolevitch pleads not guilty

By Dan Izenberg

The Jerusalem Post – June 11, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 5A

Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch yesterday pleaded not guilty in the Jerusalem District Court to charges of having forced 19 students, many of them minors, to engage in homosexual relations with him.

Photo: Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch, former head of Yeshivat Netiv Meir, walks through the Jerusalem District Court yesterday. (Credit: Ariel Jerozolimski/The Jerusalem Post)

(Top)

Plea bargain agreement reached in yeshiva molestation case

IsraelWire – Monday, October 11, 1999 16:36

During the legal proceedings, many of the rabbi’s former students testified as state witnesses. The Justice Ministry must now approve the deal.

(Top)

Court convicts former yeshiva head of indecent acts against students

By Dan Izenberg

The Jerusalem Post – October 11, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4

(Top)

May I Have a Word, Mr. Rubinstein?

by Naomi Ragen

Jerusalem Post – November 4, 1999

http://naomiragen.com/Columns/MrRubinstein.htm

My friend, an Orthodox woman, daughter of a famous Rabbi who received rabbinical ordination from the Chafetz Chaim himself, was appalled.

Why, Mr. Rubinstein? In Heaven’s name, why?

(Top)

Former yeshiva head apologizes for molesting students

By Dan Izenberg

The Jerusalem Post – November 11, 1999, Thursday

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4

Speaking softly, his hands trembling, the former head of Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Netiv Meir Yeshiva apologized in court yesterday for the sexual assaults he committed on several of his students.

Kopolevitch, dressed in black suit and hat, sat alone, his head down, hands trembling, a wet handkerchief clutched in his hand, as he heard the testimonies to his educational qualities.

Given the charges against Kopolevitch, including that he performed some of his acts on his students at his home late at night, some of the tributes were unintentionally ironic.

(Top)

Constructive whistle-blowing

By Barbara Sofer

The Jerusalem Post, November 12, 1999

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 9B

Vomiting out those who shame our community will not diminish our tradition. Our concern is fixing what isn’t working within our ranks

Where to draw that line in finding fault within our community is a question raised indirectly by my fellow columnist Jonathan Rosenblum.

Family size is ultimately the most personal – to use a loaded word – choice. Most women I know wish they had more, not fewer, children.

(Top)

Kopolevitch gets 3 1/2 years

Bt Tamar Hausman

The Jerusalem Post – November 19, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A

Last week, Kopolevitch apologized for his actions, saying: « I am sorry for all the students who were harmed and ask for the mercy of the court. »

(Top)

Decries Light Penalty

By:Doron Blau

The Jerusalem Post – November 28, 1999

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 6

My children are worth more than that. Aren’t yours?

DORON BLAU, Netanya.

(Top)

Dedicated Teacher

By M. G. Steinhart

The Jerusalem Post – February 6, 1998

SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 8

Readers Letters:

Sir, – As a parent who has had five sons study at the Nativ Meir school over the past 10 years, I have been privileged to know Rabbi Ze’ev Kopolevitch. I can state unequivocally that he was at all times a caring, dedicated headmaster who was concerned for the welfare and the well-being of his students above all else. All my children have nothing but praise for him concerning his dealings with students. Whenever any sort of problem arose, he would give of his time and spare no effort in trying to help.

When his innocence has been proved, as I am sure it will be, how will his good reputation be reinstated by those who now seek to condemn?

G. STEINHART, Jerusalem.