Child Sexual Abuse In Orthodox Jewish Community. Orthodox Jewish communities have been roiled by allegations of child sexual abuse in recent years both here and overseas. Evidence has pointed to a widespread pattern of behavior in which Orthodox Jewish leaders, including rabbis, have obstructed efforts to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to the […]
Child Sexual Abuse In Orthodox Jewish Community. Orthodox Jewish communities have been roiled by allegations of child sexual abuse in recent years both here and overseas. Evidence has pointed to a widespread pattern of behavior in which Orthodox Jewish leaders, including rabbis, have obstructed efforts to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to the attention of secular authorities. Child sexual abusers within the Jewish Orthodox community have been allowed to continue their predatory behavior unchecked because of this obstruction. No one knows how many Jewish Orthodox children have been victimized because of the sexual abuse cover-ups perpetuated by community leaders.
The personal injury lawyers at Parker Waichman LLP are investigating the child sexual abuse epidemic within the Jewish Orthodox community, and we intend to make sure those community leaders who allowed such crimes to go unpunished are held accountable. We are currently offering free and confidential lawsuit consultations to Jewish Orthodox sexual abuse victims. If you or a loved one were betrayed by a leader in the Jewish Orthodox community and you want justice, we urge you to contact one of our experienced and compassionate personal injury lawyers today.
Child sexual abuse can occur in any community. But when a community’s leaders allow it to go unpunished, and even worse, pressure victims and their families into staying silent, sexual predators are given a free hand to exploit children as they wish. Sadly, that appears to be what has happened in some Orthodox Jewish communities in the U.S. and abroad.
According to a July 2011 report from the New York Post, sexual abuse victims in some of New York’s Orthodox Jewish communities have been routinely discouraged by rabbis from making reports to criminal authorities. “There are prohibitions and a psychological fear about saying bad things about people or talking about negative things that bring shame,” Long Island psychologist Michael Salamon, author of a book about abuse in the Orthodox community, told the Post.
That JTA News Service reported that same month that Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, the vice-president of Agudath Israel of America’s Supreme Council of Rabbinic Sages, insisted in a speech in Flatbush, Brooklyn that the sexual abuse of a child should be reported to a rabbi, who would then determine if the police should be called. The misguided speech occurred on July 12, the same day members of the New York Jewish Orthodox community were frantically searching for 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, whose dismembered body was found the following day in a dumpster and in the apartment of Levi Aron, a suspected child predator.
It is also becoming more apparent that the conspiracy of silence regarding child sexual abuse is not limited to one, or even a few, Jewish Orthodox communities. There have been reports of similar pressure being heaped on child sexual abuse victims and their families in Orthodox communities as far away as Australia. In that country, a scandal involving alleged widespread abuse at Yeshivah College prompted police to write students, imploring victims to come forward. Apparently, officials at the college did not report the crimes of Jewish studies teacher David Kramer, who fled Australia in the early 1990s after parents complained he had sexually abused boys. Kramer went on to offend in the U.S., sodomizing a 12-year-old boy while conducting a youth program at a St Louis synagogue. Parents in Australia have said their children were threatened with being thrown out of Yeshivah College if they reported Kramer’s conduct to secular authorities.
The personal injury attorneys at Parker Waichman LLP offer free, no-obligation case evaluations. For more information, fill out our online contact form or call 1-800-YOURLAWYER (1-800-968-7529).
