By PATRICIA COHEN
Dressed in a white straw hat, tan chinos and a blue shirt, Samuel Heilman, the co-author of a new book about Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, stood at the rebbe’s grave site among scores of pilgrims — a vanguard of the thousands expected to visit on Tuesday, in the Jewish calendar the 16th anniversary of his death — who arrived at a Queens cemetery a few days early to commune with their beloved leader.
“It is very holy,” Mr. Heilman said outside the open-air mausoleum, or ohel, that contains the graves of the rebbe and his father-in-law and predecessor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. Hasidim believe that the spirit of a great sage remains after death, and many Lubavitchers think the rebbe is not only a sage, but also the messiah.
The biography’s look at Schneerson’s personal life is already causing a stir in the continuing discussion about his legacy.
Mr. Heilman pointed to a headstone facing the ohel that refers in Hebrew to the rebbe as “the Messiah of God.”
“It’s etched in stone,” he said. Rabbi Schneerson, the seventh and at this point the last leader of the Chabad Lubavitchers, remains as powerful a presence in death as in life.
Over the course of his more than 40 years as grand rebbe, he transformed this tiny Hasidic sect, with its headquarters in Brooklyn, into an influential global network of Jewish followers and emissaries and turned it into one of the most important religious movements within American Jewry. His life and philosophy are essential to understanding contemporary Jewish life.
Mr. Heilman, a sociologist at Queens College, and Menachem Friedman, a professor emeritus at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, offer a view into his world in their new biography, “The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson” (Princeton University Press). But they have provoked a growing chorus of complaints from people inside and outside Chabad with their characterization of the rebbe.
Controversy is perhaps inevitable. “Any attempt to humanize the rebbe is going to provoke this reaction.” said Elliot R. Wolfson, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University and the author of “Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision.”
What some early readers have found most disturbing is the authors’ description of the rebbe as a not especially pious young Hasid. They argue that Rabbi Schneerson’s initial dream was to be an engineer and that he mostly absented himself from Lubavitcher affairs before World War II, living in Berlin and Paris outside of a religious Hasidic community.
Only after he escaped from Europe and arrived in the United States in 1941, when he was a childless refugee with little English and few job prospects, and millions of his people had been massacred did he see he himself as having a different mission, the book contends.
Rabbi Schneerson was a man who “must be feeling desperate in his anxiety, loneliness, confusion and survivor guilt, whose prospects are unclear, looking for a way out, an answer from God,” the authors write.
Sitting outside the ohel visitor center as a large brown tour bus pulled up, Mr. Heilman, a modern Orthodox Jew, spoke of his “profound respect” for the Lubavitchers but noted that his responsibility as a scholar was not simply to celebrate the rebbe’s accomplishments. “They just can’t accept that he transformed himself, that he was not always going to be the rebbe,” he said.
Mr. Heilman and Mr. Friedman did not have access to Chabad’s private archives, though there is already a monumental amount of published material from and about the rebbe, with a new collection of 1,200 documents soon to be released. The scholars did speak with many movement members, some of whom are now critical of the biography.
Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a Lubavitch spokesman who is thanked in the book, labeled their speculations “psychobabble” and disdained their attempt to put “themselves in the rebbe’s head while ignoring his deeply expressive correspondence and his scholarly approach.”
Other critics take the authors to task for not relying more on published material. Steven I. Weiss, the head of news at the Jewish Channel, a cable television network, criticized the book for presenting what he called lurid details and ignoring a vast amount of “primary material which would frequently contradict its assertions.” He also chastised the authors for not noting outright that Mr. Friedman served as an expert witness against the rebbe during a lawsuit in the 1980s over ownership of the Chabad library. Mr. Heilman said, “We have no ax to grind.”
And Mr. Wolfson of N.Y.U. argued that bypassing the rebbe’s religious writings was a mistake. “There is no question that Menachem Mendel and his wife were spreading their wings” during their sojourn in Paris and Berlin, he said. But the diaries from those years show that he was also completely absorbed in Hasidic thought and Jewish learning. “The world he lived in was completely structured around his ideas,” he said.
Mr. Heilman maintained that Lubavitcher accounts can’t be trusted because they are hagiographies and said that he and Mr. Friedman did not examine the rebbe’s extensive writings on scripture because they were interested in his personal history, not his scholarship.
The American and Israeli professors are colleagues and friends who have independently studied the Lubavitchers for nearly 20 years. It was their wives, though, who suggested in 2007 that the two collaborate on a book while they were all vacationing together in Croatia.
In Mr. Heilman’s eyes, the key to the movement’s success was Rabbi Schneerson’s global vision. He figured out how to permit younger followers to engage with the modern world while remaining true to their Hasidic beliefs. By becoming shluchim, or missionaries, they could spread Lubavitch practices, thereby hastening the arrival of the messiah and redemption.
Rabbi Schneerson told his shluchim not to limit their efforts to the most religious but to every Jew. “They take everyone,” Mr. Heilman said.
More books and biographies are on the way, insuring that the Talmudic-like debate about Rabbi Schneerson’s life will continue.
Showing posts with label lubavitch spokesman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lubavitch spokesman. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Behind Chabad Fundraising, A Stealth Security Campaign
by Adam Dickter
Assistant Managing Editor
In the weeks since the Mumbai terrorist attack, the Chabad movement has directed contributions from supporters primarily to two campaigns: One to aid the child whose emissary parents were slain, and another to rebuild the badly damaged outreach center and re-establish operations there, which could cost as much as $1 million, according to a Chabad estimate.
But at the same time, some Chabad leaders are acting on their own to secure funds and resources to make dozens of Chabad houses in far-flung outposts safer.
A group of emissaries in southeast Asia, led by Rabbi Yosef Kantor, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand, has launched a campaign aimed at improving security at their centers, and distributed donation cards at Lubavitch world headquarters in CrownHeights, Brooklyn, last week.
And Rabbi Shea Hecht, a member of a prominent Chabad family well entrenched in the emissary movement, told The Jewish Week he has been working the phones since the tragedy to try to arrange security upgrades and protection.
“Security has to be the No. 1 priority,” said Rabbi Hecht of the Lubavitch-run Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. “If you are not alive, it doesn’t make much difference if you can put bread on the table. One you stay alive, you can worry about the bread.
“If any of us could spend a million dollars to save just one soul, isn't it worth it?”
Rabbi Hecht, who is one of 12 siblings and has six children, and whose wife also comes from a large family, has more relatives than he can count working as emissaries of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, trying to promote Jewish observance.
“In my family alone we are talking about tens and tens of shluchim,” he said, using the Hebrew word for emissary. “Among my immediate friends, tens and tens [more] shluchim. The Hechts are not people who sit on the sidelines. We roll up our sleeves and get the job done.”
While not in any way criticizing the central Chabad operation, Rabbi Hecht, who has developed many political connections in New York, said he expected many emissaries to reach out to him for advice and wanted to have information available for them.
“When they call me, I want to have a file with a lot of information,” he said.
He said he hoped to meet with members of the security consulting firm run by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and had already spoken with another top consulting firm, Kroll Security Group, for help in securing the centers. Spokepersons for both agencies did not return calls for comment.
The spokesman for Chabad, Zalman Shmotkin, would not comment on any fundraising for security. “It is still, unfortunately, too early to discuss these efforts,” he said on Tuesday night.
Rabbi Hecht said that supporters of Chabad around the world were responding generously in the wake of the Mumbai tragedy and that some of them had requested that donations be used for security. He said one of his sons, an emissary in upstate New York, had received such a contribution.
“It wasn’t exactly earmarked, but it was suggested that some of the money be used that way,” said Rabbi Hecht.
While stressing that no one in the movement believed that Chabad centers were more at risk than any other Jewish organization, he said that individual Chabad centers should assess their own security needs and decide how much of the money they raise should be used for security.
“There is a big difference between those in New York City or L.A. or other places in the U.S. and those in Asian countries or African countries,” he said. “There are some that have to be very careful what they do and how they do it. An assessment has to be made on many levels, and I am doing my own study.”
Since the tragedy, the Chabad movement has conducted an orchestrated marketing and public relations campaign. Chabad officials in New York and emissaries around the world are conducting media interviews, and constituents who have been touched by the movement are reaching out in droves to local and international publications to extol its praises.
Chabad handpicked emissaries to speak with the media that officials believed would best represent the movement to a general public that may have had little or no knowledge about it.
The message was twofold: Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, the emissaries killed in Mumbai, would have wanted their deaths to inspire and bring Jews closer to Chabad and Judaism, and the movement’s late spiritual leader, Rabbi Schneerson, taught that it was a religious obligation to take a dark moment and turn it into a positive.
The strategy is to help the audience to “become a continuum of the holy world of Gavi and Rivkah so that they have a way to channel their own personal grief in a manner that makes this world a better place,” Shmotkin told JTA. “A shaliach has to be able to sensitively and articulately convey the basic messages of urging people to increase their own acts of goodness and kindness” in response to tragedy.
Within a week of the attacks, Chabad had raised about $1 million through mailboxes it had opened on Chabad.org.
“[The fundraising] is an opportunity to connect more and more Jews to the mission, and to the Rebbe’s mission of getting every Jew involved. And part of that is channeling the empathy people are now feeling,” said Rabbi Kantor, the director of the Chabad of Thailand, who helped establish the movement’s presence in Mumbai prior to the Holtzbergs’ arrival.
“I see this as being a big package or opportunity to be able to inspire and direct Jews on how they can channel their outpouring of support and sympathy, their emotion, rage, outrage and frustration,” he said.
While the immediate fundraising was geared toward helping the toddler and rebuilding in Mumbai, the stepped-up publicity may also prove to be a boon for Chabad houses. Chabad emissaries usually receive minimal seed money to start their outposts, but each house is responsible for raising its own budget each year. Though Chabad does not keep a formal database on how much each outpost raises, officials estimate that the emissaries combined take in more than $1 billion per year.
JTA contributed to this report.
Assistant Managing Editor
In the weeks since the Mumbai terrorist attack, the Chabad movement has directed contributions from supporters primarily to two campaigns: One to aid the child whose emissary parents were slain, and another to rebuild the badly damaged outreach center and re-establish operations there, which could cost as much as $1 million, according to a Chabad estimate.
But at the same time, some Chabad leaders are acting on their own to secure funds and resources to make dozens of Chabad houses in far-flung outposts safer.
A group of emissaries in southeast Asia, led by Rabbi Yosef Kantor, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand, has launched a campaign aimed at improving security at their centers, and distributed donation cards at Lubavitch world headquarters in CrownHeights, Brooklyn, last week.
And Rabbi Shea Hecht, a member of a prominent Chabad family well entrenched in the emissary movement, told The Jewish Week he has been working the phones since the tragedy to try to arrange security upgrades and protection.
“Security has to be the No. 1 priority,” said Rabbi Hecht of the Lubavitch-run Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. “If you are not alive, it doesn’t make much difference if you can put bread on the table. One you stay alive, you can worry about the bread.
“If any of us could spend a million dollars to save just one soul, isn't it worth it?”
Rabbi Hecht, who is one of 12 siblings and has six children, and whose wife also comes from a large family, has more relatives than he can count working as emissaries of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, trying to promote Jewish observance.
“In my family alone we are talking about tens and tens of shluchim,” he said, using the Hebrew word for emissary. “Among my immediate friends, tens and tens [more] shluchim. The Hechts are not people who sit on the sidelines. We roll up our sleeves and get the job done.”
While not in any way criticizing the central Chabad operation, Rabbi Hecht, who has developed many political connections in New York, said he expected many emissaries to reach out to him for advice and wanted to have information available for them.
“When they call me, I want to have a file with a lot of information,” he said.
He said he hoped to meet with members of the security consulting firm run by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and had already spoken with another top consulting firm, Kroll Security Group, for help in securing the centers. Spokepersons for both agencies did not return calls for comment.
The spokesman for Chabad, Zalman Shmotkin, would not comment on any fundraising for security. “It is still, unfortunately, too early to discuss these efforts,” he said on Tuesday night.
Rabbi Hecht said that supporters of Chabad around the world were responding generously in the wake of the Mumbai tragedy and that some of them had requested that donations be used for security. He said one of his sons, an emissary in upstate New York, had received such a contribution.
“It wasn’t exactly earmarked, but it was suggested that some of the money be used that way,” said Rabbi Hecht.
While stressing that no one in the movement believed that Chabad centers were more at risk than any other Jewish organization, he said that individual Chabad centers should assess their own security needs and decide how much of the money they raise should be used for security.
“There is a big difference between those in New York City or L.A. or other places in the U.S. and those in Asian countries or African countries,” he said. “There are some that have to be very careful what they do and how they do it. An assessment has to be made on many levels, and I am doing my own study.”
Since the tragedy, the Chabad movement has conducted an orchestrated marketing and public relations campaign. Chabad officials in New York and emissaries around the world are conducting media interviews, and constituents who have been touched by the movement are reaching out in droves to local and international publications to extol its praises.
Chabad handpicked emissaries to speak with the media that officials believed would best represent the movement to a general public that may have had little or no knowledge about it.
The message was twofold: Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, the emissaries killed in Mumbai, would have wanted their deaths to inspire and bring Jews closer to Chabad and Judaism, and the movement’s late spiritual leader, Rabbi Schneerson, taught that it was a religious obligation to take a dark moment and turn it into a positive.
The strategy is to help the audience to “become a continuum of the holy world of Gavi and Rivkah so that they have a way to channel their own personal grief in a manner that makes this world a better place,” Shmotkin told JTA. “A shaliach has to be able to sensitively and articulately convey the basic messages of urging people to increase their own acts of goodness and kindness” in response to tragedy.
Within a week of the attacks, Chabad had raised about $1 million through mailboxes it had opened on Chabad.org.
“[The fundraising] is an opportunity to connect more and more Jews to the mission, and to the Rebbe’s mission of getting every Jew involved. And part of that is channeling the empathy people are now feeling,” said Rabbi Kantor, the director of the Chabad of Thailand, who helped establish the movement’s presence in Mumbai prior to the Holtzbergs’ arrival.
“I see this as being a big package or opportunity to be able to inspire and direct Jews on how they can channel their outpouring of support and sympathy, their emotion, rage, outrage and frustration,” he said.
While the immediate fundraising was geared toward helping the toddler and rebuilding in Mumbai, the stepped-up publicity may also prove to be a boon for Chabad houses. Chabad emissaries usually receive minimal seed money to start their outposts, but each house is responsible for raising its own budget each year. Though Chabad does not keep a formal database on how much each outpost raises, officials estimate that the emissaries combined take in more than $1 billion per year.
JTA contributed to this report.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Religious Affairs: Burying the Jew-Israeli distinction?
Dec. 4, 2008
Matthew Wagner
THE JERUSALEM POST
The attack in Mumbai by Islamic terrorists that ended the lives of six Jews, including Chabad emissaries Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, raised questions about Israel's role in providing security to Chabad houses.
This week, the Chief Rabbinate Council, spurred by one of its members, Chabad Rabbi Shimon Elituv, called on the government to provide such aid.
United Torah Judaism chairman Ya'acov Litzman sent a letter to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asking that Chabad houses, which "serve the entire Jewish people," receive state funding. In contrast, Foreign Ministry officials said that Israel could not help provide security, since Chabad houses were "not official Israeli organizations."
And Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said that "the State of Israel cannot be the sheriff of Jewish sites in the Diaspora."
Obviously, part of the reason for Dichter's reluctance involves budget concerns. It would be prohibitively costly to fund even a fraction of security for hundreds of Chabad houses around the globe.
The Foreign Ministry's distinction between official and unofficial Israeli organizations, however, might hint at another reason for official opposition to supporting Chabad: Why should the secular State of Israel support Chabad, an organization with the essentially spiritual goal of spreading Yiddishkeit?
Lubavitch Hassidism's express purpose, as articulated Tuesday by one rabbi who eulogized the Holtzbergs at Kfar Chabad, is "to hasten the redemption and spread the light of Torah by making sure there is not one Jewish man who does not wear tefillin, not one Jewish woman who does not light Shabbat candles."
To accomplish this, Chabad's emissaries have created a network of Jewish centers that promulgate good deeds and Torah study wherever there are Jews. Chabad's emphasis is on strengthening the religious aspect of Jewish identity in preparation for the messianic era.
The Zionist state's goal, in contrast, is to normalize the Jewish condition. By providing the Jewish people with its own territory, Zionism's founding fathers hoped to transform the wandering Jew of the exile into a nation like all other nations.
Secular Zionists argued that with the creation of a Jewish state there would no longer be a need for halacha [Jewish law], which served the sole purpose of maintaining Jewish unity as a "portable homeland" in the Diaspora. A new, more normal Jewish identity would be created, and the old Diaspora baggage could be dropped.
Chabad did not seem completely comfortable with the idea of tightening its ties with the State of Israel either. Its leadership in New York was hesitant about the possibility of receiving security aid. The reason, said Chabad sources, was that security issues should be discussed behind closed doors.
But an Israeli Chabad source gave another reason: "Somebody in the Foreign Ministry said that if we started receiving money from the state, we would have to fly an Israeli flag over every Chabad house. We can't do that. There is nothing wrong with flying an Israeli flag occasionally if it strengthens someone's connection with the Jewish people and gives them a little Jewish pride. But we are not a Zionist organization."
HISTORICALLY, CHABAD, like other haredim, virulently opposed secular Zionism, because its ideology proposed to replace Judaism with nationalism. In 1903, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber Schneerson, the fifth rebbe of Chabad, elucidated his staunch opposition to Zionism in a famous letter. "They think nationalism has replaced religion, and that Zionism is now the best means for the preservation of Jewish society, and not Torah and mitzvot," he wrote. "Zionists are more dangerous than the maskilim, because they believe that they are no longer obligated to the Torah, and that one is a proper Jew in that he is a loyal nationalist."
The seventh and last Chabad rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who staunchly opposed territorial compromise and was adamantly pro-Israel, nevertheless was careful never to use the term "State of Israel," always referring, instead, to the "Land of Israel."
In a 1969 letter to former MK Geula Cohen, he explained that one of the reasons he refrained from using the word "state" was because "it implied a general approach and program among Jews to be like all the goyim, a program that resulted in many physical and spiritual causalities and which, due to our sins, continues to do so."
For Schneerson, the nationalist aspect of Zionism represented a potential spiritual danger. Jews were liable to believe that a secular Israeli identity patterned after gentile nations would supplant authentic Jewish identity.
THE ATTACK in Mumbai, however, may have helped both Chabad and secular Zionists realize the symbiotic relationship that has developed between the religious and nationalist aspects of Jewish identity.
The Pakistani Islamist terrorists did not distinguish between the "Jewish" and "Israeli" identity of Chabad. Most of the victims of the attack on the Chabad House either had dual Israeli-American citizenship or were not Israelis. Regardless of whether or not Chabad houses fly the Israeli flag, they are identified with Israel.
President Shimon Peres, the only state official and secular Jew who eulogized the Holtzbergs at Kfar Chabad, barely mentioned the State of Israel or Israelis. Rather, he spoke in the name of "the Jewish people."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert lumped together the state and Jews in his official reaction to the Mumbai attack: "The hatred of Jews, the State of Israel and Jewish symbols is still a factor that spurs and encourages such murderous acts."
In a telephone conversation after the funeral, Rabbi Menachem Brod, the official spokesman for Chabad in Israel, was very candid about his organization's interest in strengthening its ties with the state. Unlike the New York Chabad leadership, he spoke openly about working together with security officials.
"We plan to meet with government representatives soon," he said. "We would like to see what they can do to help."
He added that Chabad already received help, advice and sometimes even training from security personnel located in Israeli embassies.
A senior official in the Foreign Ministry said that Mumbai represented a "turning point in relations between Chabad and the State of Israel. I don't know if we will be seeing more state funding for Chabad Houses, but the attack definitely blurred the distinctions between 'Israeli' and 'Jew.'"
Matthew Wagner
THE JERUSALEM POST
The attack in Mumbai by Islamic terrorists that ended the lives of six Jews, including Chabad emissaries Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, raised questions about Israel's role in providing security to Chabad houses.
This week, the Chief Rabbinate Council, spurred by one of its members, Chabad Rabbi Shimon Elituv, called on the government to provide such aid.
United Torah Judaism chairman Ya'acov Litzman sent a letter to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asking that Chabad houses, which "serve the entire Jewish people," receive state funding. In contrast, Foreign Ministry officials said that Israel could not help provide security, since Chabad houses were "not official Israeli organizations."
And Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said that "the State of Israel cannot be the sheriff of Jewish sites in the Diaspora."
Obviously, part of the reason for Dichter's reluctance involves budget concerns. It would be prohibitively costly to fund even a fraction of security for hundreds of Chabad houses around the globe.
The Foreign Ministry's distinction between official and unofficial Israeli organizations, however, might hint at another reason for official opposition to supporting Chabad: Why should the secular State of Israel support Chabad, an organization with the essentially spiritual goal of spreading Yiddishkeit?
Lubavitch Hassidism's express purpose, as articulated Tuesday by one rabbi who eulogized the Holtzbergs at Kfar Chabad, is "to hasten the redemption and spread the light of Torah by making sure there is not one Jewish man who does not wear tefillin, not one Jewish woman who does not light Shabbat candles."
To accomplish this, Chabad's emissaries have created a network of Jewish centers that promulgate good deeds and Torah study wherever there are Jews. Chabad's emphasis is on strengthening the religious aspect of Jewish identity in preparation for the messianic era.
The Zionist state's goal, in contrast, is to normalize the Jewish condition. By providing the Jewish people with its own territory, Zionism's founding fathers hoped to transform the wandering Jew of the exile into a nation like all other nations.
Secular Zionists argued that with the creation of a Jewish state there would no longer be a need for halacha [Jewish law], which served the sole purpose of maintaining Jewish unity as a "portable homeland" in the Diaspora. A new, more normal Jewish identity would be created, and the old Diaspora baggage could be dropped.
Chabad did not seem completely comfortable with the idea of tightening its ties with the State of Israel either. Its leadership in New York was hesitant about the possibility of receiving security aid. The reason, said Chabad sources, was that security issues should be discussed behind closed doors.
But an Israeli Chabad source gave another reason: "Somebody in the Foreign Ministry said that if we started receiving money from the state, we would have to fly an Israeli flag over every Chabad house. We can't do that. There is nothing wrong with flying an Israeli flag occasionally if it strengthens someone's connection with the Jewish people and gives them a little Jewish pride. But we are not a Zionist organization."
HISTORICALLY, CHABAD, like other haredim, virulently opposed secular Zionism, because its ideology proposed to replace Judaism with nationalism. In 1903, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber Schneerson, the fifth rebbe of Chabad, elucidated his staunch opposition to Zionism in a famous letter. "They think nationalism has replaced religion, and that Zionism is now the best means for the preservation of Jewish society, and not Torah and mitzvot," he wrote. "Zionists are more dangerous than the maskilim, because they believe that they are no longer obligated to the Torah, and that one is a proper Jew in that he is a loyal nationalist."
The seventh and last Chabad rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who staunchly opposed territorial compromise and was adamantly pro-Israel, nevertheless was careful never to use the term "State of Israel," always referring, instead, to the "Land of Israel."
In a 1969 letter to former MK Geula Cohen, he explained that one of the reasons he refrained from using the word "state" was because "it implied a general approach and program among Jews to be like all the goyim, a program that resulted in many physical and spiritual causalities and which, due to our sins, continues to do so."
For Schneerson, the nationalist aspect of Zionism represented a potential spiritual danger. Jews were liable to believe that a secular Israeli identity patterned after gentile nations would supplant authentic Jewish identity.
THE ATTACK in Mumbai, however, may have helped both Chabad and secular Zionists realize the symbiotic relationship that has developed between the religious and nationalist aspects of Jewish identity.
The Pakistani Islamist terrorists did not distinguish between the "Jewish" and "Israeli" identity of Chabad. Most of the victims of the attack on the Chabad House either had dual Israeli-American citizenship or were not Israelis. Regardless of whether or not Chabad houses fly the Israeli flag, they are identified with Israel.
President Shimon Peres, the only state official and secular Jew who eulogized the Holtzbergs at Kfar Chabad, barely mentioned the State of Israel or Israelis. Rather, he spoke in the name of "the Jewish people."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert lumped together the state and Jews in his official reaction to the Mumbai attack: "The hatred of Jews, the State of Israel and Jewish symbols is still a factor that spurs and encourages such murderous acts."
In a telephone conversation after the funeral, Rabbi Menachem Brod, the official spokesman for Chabad in Israel, was very candid about his organization's interest in strengthening its ties with the state. Unlike the New York Chabad leadership, he spoke openly about working together with security officials.
"We plan to meet with government representatives soon," he said. "We would like to see what they can do to help."
He added that Chabad already received help, advice and sometimes even training from security personnel located in Israeli embassies.
A senior official in the Foreign Ministry said that Mumbai represented a "turning point in relations between Chabad and the State of Israel. I don't know if we will be seeing more state funding for Chabad Houses, but the attack definitely blurred the distinctions between 'Israeli' and 'Jew.'"
Monday, May 05, 2008
Newsweek Publishes Annual “50 Most Influential U.S. Rabbis” List
Newsweek has published its second annual list of the “50 most influential rabbis in the U.S.” As was the case last year, the first time the list came out, the top 50 is destined once again to become the subject of intense debate surrounding the names on the list, the criteria for selecting them, and the identity of the selectors. Setting aside petty rivalries and the squabbling about why so-and-so made it into the top 10, why he (or she) is absent, and how they could have him on a list of rabbis to begin with, the most pertinent observation that has been made about last year’s rankings, and again now, is that the obvious prerequisite for making it onto the list is an effective public-relations operation and high-visibility media presence.
The three who compiled the list are all major players in the American media market, and besides being quite obviously warm Jews who enjoy calling themselves machers, it is difficult to say what other expertise they have that enables them to assess a rabbi’s influence. And the criteria they put together for grading the rabbis says as much.
A total of 30 points is awarded depending on how well they are known nationally and internationally and whether they have a media presence. Another 30 points are available for political and social influence and having a greater impact beyond the Jewish community. In other words, 60 percent of their ranking is based on factors not usually connected with a rabbi’s traditional role. Their Jewish leadership, their influence on Judaism, their work with their own communities, and the size of those communities counts for another 40 points.
The compilers took this observation to heart, and this year, while keeping the main list more or less the same (with changes in the rankings, of course) added a second list of the “Top 25 Pulpit Rabbis in America,” those with the ability to inspire and lead communities and individuals.
However, this column is not going to be about what makes a rabbi influential in America; you can read about that in dozens of blogs.
What really interested me is that when looking at this combined list of 75 influential rabbis of one of the largest and richest communities in Jewish history, none of them have any significant influence in that other major Jewish community, Israel. Almost none of them are even known in Israel, outside a very small group of people concerned with Israel-Diaspora relations. Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, appears at the top of the list for the second time. He might be one of the best-connected Jews in Hollywood, but I’m willing to bet that 99 percent of Israeli Jews have never even heard of him or the Wiesenthal Center, or else they think that it deals with Nazi-hunting.
Number two on the list (up from 12 last year), Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, might have been interviewed twice over the last few months in Haaretz, but his influence on anything that happens in Israel is less than negligible. Even within the small Israeli Reform community, his power is limited due to the independent positions taken by the Israeli Reform movement and the uneasy relationship it has with its American “parent organization.”
Last year’s number two, down to four on the current list, Yehuda Krinsky of Lubavitch, and arguably the most powerful figure in the Chabad establishment in the U.S. following the Rebbe’s death, while not being a household name, is probably the only rabbi on the list with some kind of influence outside America, due to the international character of the Lubavitch movement.
But since the whole Lubavitcher structure is based on strong shlichim (emissaries) running their own show wherever they’re based, and anyway, even when the Rebbe was alive, it was already seriously factionalized, Krinsky would find it hard to overrule the Israeli leaders. Besides, Chabad has a lot less influence on Israeli politics today than it did a decade ago, when it had the ear of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Another Lubavitcher on the list, Shmuley Boteach (number nine), enjoyed in the 1990s a brief period of notoriety in Israel for his books on sex, but that has long since passed. Number 11, Kaballah guru Yehuda Berg, gets a brief mention in the Israeli press whenever his acolyte, Madonna, comes for one of her visits, but that’s it. Number 16, Zalman Teitelbaum, leader of the Satmar chassidim (well, at least some of them) has a middle-sized community also in Israel, but their radical anti-Zionist ideology renders them entirely irrelevant outside the charedi world. The rest of the list are total nonentities in Israel, and indeed almost anywhere else in the Jewish world outside the U.S.
A list of the most influential rabbis in Israel would read like this: Yosef Elyashiv, Ovadia Yosef, the Gerrer Rebbe, Mordechai Eliyahu, and so on—elderly ultra-Orthodox leaders of chassidic sects, Litvak yeshivas, or their Sephardi counterparts and groups of radical young settlers. These rabbis command the allegiance of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of followers, control political parties and whole government coalitions, who with one word can launch huge demonstrations, block the entrance to Jerusalem, ruin businesses, build or dismantle settlements, and decide the fate of peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors. (Haaretz)
The three who compiled the list are all major players in the American media market, and besides being quite obviously warm Jews who enjoy calling themselves machers, it is difficult to say what other expertise they have that enables them to assess a rabbi’s influence. And the criteria they put together for grading the rabbis says as much.
A total of 30 points is awarded depending on how well they are known nationally and internationally and whether they have a media presence. Another 30 points are available for political and social influence and having a greater impact beyond the Jewish community. In other words, 60 percent of their ranking is based on factors not usually connected with a rabbi’s traditional role. Their Jewish leadership, their influence on Judaism, their work with their own communities, and the size of those communities counts for another 40 points.
The compilers took this observation to heart, and this year, while keeping the main list more or less the same (with changes in the rankings, of course) added a second list of the “Top 25 Pulpit Rabbis in America,” those with the ability to inspire and lead communities and individuals.
However, this column is not going to be about what makes a rabbi influential in America; you can read about that in dozens of blogs.
What really interested me is that when looking at this combined list of 75 influential rabbis of one of the largest and richest communities in Jewish history, none of them have any significant influence in that other major Jewish community, Israel. Almost none of them are even known in Israel, outside a very small group of people concerned with Israel-Diaspora relations. Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, appears at the top of the list for the second time. He might be one of the best-connected Jews in Hollywood, but I’m willing to bet that 99 percent of Israeli Jews have never even heard of him or the Wiesenthal Center, or else they think that it deals with Nazi-hunting.
Number two on the list (up from 12 last year), Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, might have been interviewed twice over the last few months in Haaretz, but his influence on anything that happens in Israel is less than negligible. Even within the small Israeli Reform community, his power is limited due to the independent positions taken by the Israeli Reform movement and the uneasy relationship it has with its American “parent organization.”
Last year’s number two, down to four on the current list, Yehuda Krinsky of Lubavitch, and arguably the most powerful figure in the Chabad establishment in the U.S. following the Rebbe’s death, while not being a household name, is probably the only rabbi on the list with some kind of influence outside America, due to the international character of the Lubavitch movement.
But since the whole Lubavitcher structure is based on strong shlichim (emissaries) running their own show wherever they’re based, and anyway, even when the Rebbe was alive, it was already seriously factionalized, Krinsky would find it hard to overrule the Israeli leaders. Besides, Chabad has a lot less influence on Israeli politics today than it did a decade ago, when it had the ear of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Another Lubavitcher on the list, Shmuley Boteach (number nine), enjoyed in the 1990s a brief period of notoriety in Israel for his books on sex, but that has long since passed. Number 11, Kaballah guru Yehuda Berg, gets a brief mention in the Israeli press whenever his acolyte, Madonna, comes for one of her visits, but that’s it. Number 16, Zalman Teitelbaum, leader of the Satmar chassidim (well, at least some of them) has a middle-sized community also in Israel, but their radical anti-Zionist ideology renders them entirely irrelevant outside the charedi world. The rest of the list are total nonentities in Israel, and indeed almost anywhere else in the Jewish world outside the U.S.
A list of the most influential rabbis in Israel would read like this: Yosef Elyashiv, Ovadia Yosef, the Gerrer Rebbe, Mordechai Eliyahu, and so on—elderly ultra-Orthodox leaders of chassidic sects, Litvak yeshivas, or their Sephardi counterparts and groups of radical young settlers. These rabbis command the allegiance of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of followers, control political parties and whole government coalitions, who with one word can launch huge demonstrations, block the entrance to Jerusalem, ruin businesses, build or dismantle settlements, and decide the fate of peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors. (Haaretz)
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Is Orthodoxy Confronting Abuse?
Eugene L. Meyer and Richard Greenberg
JTA Wire Service
JANUARY 17, 2007
New York
Within Jewish circles, much of the focus on sexual predators has centered on the Orthodox community, particularly its more fervently religious precincts, where some contend that clergy sex abuse is more hidden -- and possibly more widespread -- than elsewhere.
Whether or not those contentions are true, the problem in that community was spotlighted by two recent episodes. They are among several incidents, emanating from across the denominational spectrum, that JTA examined in this five-part investigation of the Jewish community's response to clergy sex abuse.
The first of two episodes that JTA tracked in the fervently Orthodox, or haredi, community involved a fierce debate over remarks by a haredi rabbi who reportedly suggested that his community sweeps the issue "under the carpet." The second involved the arrest of a haredi rabbi and teacher, who was charged with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a minor.
On Thanksgiving, at the annual national convention of Agudath Israel of America, a haredi advocacy organization, Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, a featured speaker, ignited a controversy with his discussion of the haredi response to clergy sex abuse.
Salomon, a dean of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, N.J., one of the world's largest yeshivas, said, according to an Agudath Israel spokesman, that haredim are indeed guilty of "sweeping things under the carpet."
What he meant was open to interpretation. Salomon declined comment, but according to the Agudath Israel spokesman, Rabbi Avi Shafran, Salomon meant that rather than ignoring or covering up sexual misconduct, as detractors maintain, haredi officials deal with it discreetly to protect the dignity of the families of perpetrators and victims.
The response to Salomon's remarks was swift and often heated, with several Web site and blog contributors arguing that the rabbi's comments should be taken literally -- that is, haredi officials often look the other way when clergy sex abuse takes place in their midst.
Shafran, who accused the online detractors of making glib and sweeping generalizations without corroborating evidence, termed the comments "abhorrent."
Other communities were criticized as well on one Web site.
"Denial, secrecy, and sweeping under the carpet are not unique to charedi, Orthodox, or Jewish institutions," wrote Nachum Klafter, a self-described "frum psychiatrist," in a Nov. 26 posting on the Web site haloscan.com. "They are typical reactions of well-intentioned, scandalized human beings to the horrible shock of childhood sexual abuse."
Eleven days after those remarks were posted, a haredi rabbi, Yehuda Kolko, was arrested and charged in connection with the alleged molestation of a 9-year-old boy and a 31-year-old man, both former students of his during different eras at Brooklyn's Yeshiva-Mesivta Torah Temimah. Kolko, 60, had long served the yeshiva as a teacher and an assistant principal.
Kolko, meanwhile, is named in at least four civil suits filed over the past eight months by his alleged victims, including the 9-year-old boy. The most recent litigation, which seeks $10 million in damages from Torah Temimah, was filed in New York state court the day before Kolko was arrested. It alleges not only that Kolko molested the 9-year-old during the 2003-04 school year, but that the school administration covered up the rabbi's pedophilia for 25 years.
The suit charges that Rabbi Lipa Margulies, identified as the leader of Torah Temimah, knew of many "credible allegations of sexual abuse and pedophilia against Kolko," yet continued to employ him as an elementary school teacher "and give him unfettered access to young children."
Avi Moskowitz, the attorney representing Torah Temimah, said: "The yeshiva adamantly denies the allegations in the complaints and is sure that when the cases are over, the yeshiva will be vindicated."
Another one of the lawsuits brought against Torah Temimah was filed in May by David Framowitz, now 49 and living in Israel. In that $10 million federal litigation Framowitz, who was joined by a co-plaintiff also seeking $10 million, alleged that he was victimized by Kolko while he was a seventh- and eighth-grader at Torah Temimah.
Although the lawsuit, which named Kolko as a co-defendant, referred to Framowitz only as "John Doe No. 1," he has since dropped his anonymity and gone public with his story.
"That's the only way that people would believe that there's actually a problem, if they knew that there's a real person out there who was molested," Framowitz told JTA in a recent telephone interview. "There are many other victims out there, and I want people to know that this really exists."
Framowitz grew up in part in fervently Orthodox communities in Brooklyn where rabbinic sex abuse, he said, is rarely reported. And when it is reported, he added, rabbinic courts seldom have the expertise or the inclination to deal with it effectively.
After his own reports of abuse were met with disbelief and inaction, Framowitz said he chose to "deeply bury" his painful memories of the alleged incidents.
"I never really got over it," he said, "but I was able to get on with my life." An accountant by trade, Framowitz made aliyah several years ago, and now lives in the West Bank community of Karnei Shomron with his wife and four adult children. They have one grandson.
Framowitz said he decided to speak out publicly about his experience after he learned through the Internet in the fall of 2005 that Kolko was still teaching young boys. He said he is relieved that Kolko has been arrested and charged, although in connection with reported incidents unrelated to his alleged victimization.
"It's a relief knowing that the story is finally out there," Framowitz said, "and that maybe Kolko will be prevented from being around other kids."
JTA tried unsuccessfully to reach Kolko, who along with Framowitz was the focus of a May 15 New York magazine story that said "rabbi-on-child molestation," according to several sources, "is a widespread problem in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and one that has been long covered up."
Attorney Jeffrey Herman, who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuits stemming from Kolko's alleged misconduct, was quoted in the New York magazine piece saying that the clergy abuse situation in the haredi community "reminds me of where the Catholic church was 15 or 20 years ago. What I see are some members of the community turning a blind eye to what's going on in their backyards."
Hard numbers are not available to determine if clergy sex abuse is more widespread in haredi communities than in other Jewish locales. However, several insiders said there is anecdotal evidence that abuse often goes unreported there. The reason, they said, is that many individuals in those communities, which are noted for their insularity, resistance to modernity and reverence for religious leaders, are loath to confront rabbis for fear of being publicly shunned.
Shafran said he doubts that clergy sex abuse is more prevalent in the fervently Orthodox world than elsewhere. Asked whether victims there are afraid to report abuse, he said, "I hope it's not true. But it's easy to see how someone would be reluctant to publicly report such an issue."
He said modesty, which is prized by many haredim, might preclude the open discussion of matters "that are part of the average radio talk show agenda."
Others believe that underreporting of clergy sexual misconduct may in fact facilitate abuse.
"Offenders have learned to hide behind" the reluctance of victims to speak out, said Brian Leggiere, an Orthodox Jew and a psychiatrist in Manhattan who has treated both perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse. He added, though, "The situation is changing for the better, but very slowly. Each community is different, so it's hard to generalize."
In some neighborhoods, Leggiere pointed out, public safety is beginning to gain traction as an ideal worth defending, as is the notion that professional therapy or other forms of treatment for sex abuse victims, as well as for perpetrators, should not be stigmatized. Judging the judges Among many Orthodox Jews, the preferred forum for adjudicating communal disputes is a beit din, a rabbinic court. But critics say such panels often try to dissuade sex abuse victims from pursuing their complaints, a charge vigorously denied by Shafran. But, he added, "In cases where there is some degree of doubt, the beit din has a responsibility to counsel against going to authorities until there is proven criminal activity."
Mark Dratch, a modern Orthodox rabbi who chairs the Rabbinical Council of America's Task Force on Rabbinic Improprieties, said that if the beit din "is used to make the community safer, that's appropriate. If that relationship is used to bypass the justice system, I think that's wrong, particularly in cases of suspected criminal activity.
"The problem in the ultra-Orthodox community is people go to the beit din and not to civil authorities. There is a very complicated relationship between rabbis and civil authorities," he said. "It doesn't always work appropriately."
Dratch, who now directs JSafe, a nonprofit organization addressing abuse in the Jewish community, said he has "pleaded with members of Agudah to expose the dangers of clerical and familial abuse. I said if you don't expose, victims have no place to turn."
Agudath Israel has not promulgated anti-abuse policies for its affiliated congregations, Shafran conceded, "nor have there been complaints" of sexual misconduct at Agudath Israel-affiliated congregations. But he added, "I wouldn't rule out that one day there would be such guidelines. The Talmud teaches us that we should stay away from even the appearance of impropriety."
Agudath Israel does have binding behavioral guidelines that apply to its youth groups and its five summer camps, which serve about 2,000 youngsters, according to Shafran.
Yehuda Kolko worked at one of those camps, Camp Agudah in Ferndale, N.Y., decades ago, according to Shafran, apparently long before the behavioral guidelines existed.
The federal lawsuit filed in May states that while Kolko was at Camp Agudah, he repeatedly molested Framowitz, who was a camper there in the summers following his seventh- and eighth-grade years at Torah Temimah.
Framowitz's co-plaintiff -- "John Doe No. 2," an adult male living in the United States -- alleged that he also was abused by Kolko, but only at Torah Temimah. The lawsuit contends that the administrations at both the camp and the school knew Kolko was a pedophile and did nothing about it. Shafran declined comment on the litigation, which is being divided into two complaints, one for each plaintiff, according to attorney Herman. The complaint initiated by Framowitz has been dismissed on the plaintiffs' initiative but will be refiled, Framowitz and Herman said.
An attorney representing Kolko in the federal litigation declined comment on behalf of his client. The modern Orthodox community was deeply scarred by the sex abuse scandal involving Rabbi Baruch Lanner, a former regional director of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, a branch of the centrist Orthodox Union. Lanner was sentenced in 2002 to seven years in prison for sexually abusing two female students during the 1990s while he was their principal at a yeshiva high school in New Jersey.
However, a 2000 report by a special O.U. commission found that Lanner had also sexually abused women and teenage girls, and physically abused boys and girls while he was a leader at NCSY. The case attracted widespread attention, in part, because the report said some O.U. and NCSY leaders had failed to take action for several years to halt Lanner's misconduct.
Ultimately, according to organization insiders, O.U. Executive Vice President Rabbi Raphael Butler resigned under pressure in the wake of the scandal.
Both the O.U. and the NCSY have upgraded behavioral guidelines and enhanced anti-abuse training programs, according to officials at both organizations. The NCSY policies, which cover 17 pages and were revised most recently in October, are binding on at least 25,000 individuals, including NCSY professionals, volunteers and program participants. The guidelines spell out prohibited conduct in detail, and include step-by-step instructions for filing an abuse complaint.
Both O.U. and NCSY officials said they are not aware of any complaints of sexual misconduct toward youths since the NCSY guidelines were upgraded a few years ago.
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement has no written conduct guidelines applying specifically to its estimated 4,000 global emissaries, known as shluchim, or its approximately 3,000 multi-use facilities that double as synagogues and are usually referred to as Chabad Houses.
However, many Chabad Houses have adopted behavioral policies originally formulated for the movement's schools, according to movement spokesman Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin.
In addition, according to Shmotkin, shluchim must strictly abide by the Shulchan Aruch, the 16th-century code of Jewish law that prohibits non-married or unrelated adults of the opposite sex from being secluded with each other.
Some of the denominational policies examined by JTA are designed to guard against situations that could result in inappropriate contact with minors, regardless of their sex. They mandate, for example, that at least two adults be present when a child is receiving private religious instruction. A non-seclusion requirement is among many anti-abuse provisions included in mandatory school behavioral policies adopted by Chabad about five years ago. The policies cover approximately 2,000 personnel at some 350 Chabad schools attended by about 24,000 students.
The policies also instruct school officials to consult two recognized rabbinic authorities -- one Chabad-affiliated and one not -- regarding the centuries-old Jewish legal injunction known as mesirah, which in some instances prohibits Jews from reporting Jewish perpetrators to non-Jewish authorities. Mesirah has been blamed for the reticence of some Orthodox sex abuse victims to go public with their complaints. In a spring 2004 article in the anti-abuse publication Working Together, Dratch of JSafe said that in cases of child sex abuse, "the consensus of contemporary Jewish religious authorities is that such reporting is religiously mandatory."
Three years ago, several safeguards were adopted by Torah Umesorah-The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, a service organization -- the largest of its kind in the United States -- that provides religious educational materials for nearly 200,000 Orthodox students spanning that denomination's ideological spectrum.
The Torah Umesorah guidelines, which were presented to school principals, warn teachers and other staffers to refrain from sexually immodest behavior or speech and from inappropriate touching. They also prohibit school personnel from being secluded with students.
But the guidelines are nonbinding because each of the hundreds of schools served by Torah Umesorah are self-governing.
"We're a service agency, not a governing agency," Rabbi Joshua Fishman, the organization's executive vice president, told JTA.
Elliot Pasik, a New York attorney and children's rights advocate, said the way in which the guidelines were distributed calls into question Torah Umesorah's commitment to protecting students from sexually predatory teachers and other staffers.
The guidelines were accompanied by a Sept. 24, 2003, cover letter signed by Fishman that said in part: "This document should be maintained with a sense of confidentiality. It should only be shared with your educational administrative and teaching staff."
Perhaps as a result of that directive, Pasik said few, if any, parents he knows with children attending schools serviced by Torah Umesorah were told about the rules unless they called the Torah Umesorah national office in Manhattan. Pasik's children have attended yeshivas affiliated with Torah Umesorah.
Furthermore, he added, "I have personally spoken with several teachers and they knew nothing about these guidelines."
Asked to respond, Fishman declined comment, except to say, "We believe that molesters should be reported."
Pasik said the situation shows the need for a centralized governing body -- perhaps a state or federal agency -- that can hold schools accountable for the safety of students.
"It's hard for people in any organization to govern themselves," he said. "We're not being patrolled or governed by anybody."
Pasik recently lobbied for passage of legislation in New York that authorizes non-public schools to require fingerprinting and FBI background checks for prospective employees. The measure was enacted Aug. 16.
The larger issue of child molestation in the Orthodox community was addressed in a one-page statement accompanying the Torah Umesorah guidelines.
Issued by the organization's rabbinical board, the statement says in part that "a small number of individuals have caused untold pain to many children. In addition to the sins which they have committed, they have created painful memories in the minds of their victims, memories which can have a devastating lifetime impact."
The statement urges "everyone to use every means to stop these violations of children, including, at times, exposing the identities of the abusers and even their incarceration. At times, our primary intent may not be to punish the perpetrators, but rather to help them. Therefore, it is preferable, wherever appropriate, to force them to undergo appropriate professional therapy."
JTA Wire Service
JANUARY 17, 2007
New York
Within Jewish circles, much of the focus on sexual predators has centered on the Orthodox community, particularly its more fervently religious precincts, where some contend that clergy sex abuse is more hidden -- and possibly more widespread -- than elsewhere.
Whether or not those contentions are true, the problem in that community was spotlighted by two recent episodes. They are among several incidents, emanating from across the denominational spectrum, that JTA examined in this five-part investigation of the Jewish community's response to clergy sex abuse.
The first of two episodes that JTA tracked in the fervently Orthodox, or haredi, community involved a fierce debate over remarks by a haredi rabbi who reportedly suggested that his community sweeps the issue "under the carpet." The second involved the arrest of a haredi rabbi and teacher, who was charged with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a minor.
On Thanksgiving, at the annual national convention of Agudath Israel of America, a haredi advocacy organization, Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, a featured speaker, ignited a controversy with his discussion of the haredi response to clergy sex abuse.
Salomon, a dean of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, N.J., one of the world's largest yeshivas, said, according to an Agudath Israel spokesman, that haredim are indeed guilty of "sweeping things under the carpet."
What he meant was open to interpretation. Salomon declined comment, but according to the Agudath Israel spokesman, Rabbi Avi Shafran, Salomon meant that rather than ignoring or covering up sexual misconduct, as detractors maintain, haredi officials deal with it discreetly to protect the dignity of the families of perpetrators and victims.
The response to Salomon's remarks was swift and often heated, with several Web site and blog contributors arguing that the rabbi's comments should be taken literally -- that is, haredi officials often look the other way when clergy sex abuse takes place in their midst.
Shafran, who accused the online detractors of making glib and sweeping generalizations without corroborating evidence, termed the comments "abhorrent."
Other communities were criticized as well on one Web site.
"Denial, secrecy, and sweeping under the carpet are not unique to charedi, Orthodox, or Jewish institutions," wrote Nachum Klafter, a self-described "frum psychiatrist," in a Nov. 26 posting on the Web site haloscan.com. "They are typical reactions of well-intentioned, scandalized human beings to the horrible shock of childhood sexual abuse."
Eleven days after those remarks were posted, a haredi rabbi, Yehuda Kolko, was arrested and charged in connection with the alleged molestation of a 9-year-old boy and a 31-year-old man, both former students of his during different eras at Brooklyn's Yeshiva-Mesivta Torah Temimah. Kolko, 60, had long served the yeshiva as a teacher and an assistant principal.
Kolko, meanwhile, is named in at least four civil suits filed over the past eight months by his alleged victims, including the 9-year-old boy. The most recent litigation, which seeks $10 million in damages from Torah Temimah, was filed in New York state court the day before Kolko was arrested. It alleges not only that Kolko molested the 9-year-old during the 2003-04 school year, but that the school administration covered up the rabbi's pedophilia for 25 years.
The suit charges that Rabbi Lipa Margulies, identified as the leader of Torah Temimah, knew of many "credible allegations of sexual abuse and pedophilia against Kolko," yet continued to employ him as an elementary school teacher "and give him unfettered access to young children."
Avi Moskowitz, the attorney representing Torah Temimah, said: "The yeshiva adamantly denies the allegations in the complaints and is sure that when the cases are over, the yeshiva will be vindicated."
Another one of the lawsuits brought against Torah Temimah was filed in May by David Framowitz, now 49 and living in Israel. In that $10 million federal litigation Framowitz, who was joined by a co-plaintiff also seeking $10 million, alleged that he was victimized by Kolko while he was a seventh- and eighth-grader at Torah Temimah.
Although the lawsuit, which named Kolko as a co-defendant, referred to Framowitz only as "John Doe No. 1," he has since dropped his anonymity and gone public with his story.
"That's the only way that people would believe that there's actually a problem, if they knew that there's a real person out there who was molested," Framowitz told JTA in a recent telephone interview. "There are many other victims out there, and I want people to know that this really exists."
Framowitz grew up in part in fervently Orthodox communities in Brooklyn where rabbinic sex abuse, he said, is rarely reported. And when it is reported, he added, rabbinic courts seldom have the expertise or the inclination to deal with it effectively.
After his own reports of abuse were met with disbelief and inaction, Framowitz said he chose to "deeply bury" his painful memories of the alleged incidents.
"I never really got over it," he said, "but I was able to get on with my life." An accountant by trade, Framowitz made aliyah several years ago, and now lives in the West Bank community of Karnei Shomron with his wife and four adult children. They have one grandson.
Framowitz said he decided to speak out publicly about his experience after he learned through the Internet in the fall of 2005 that Kolko was still teaching young boys. He said he is relieved that Kolko has been arrested and charged, although in connection with reported incidents unrelated to his alleged victimization.
"It's a relief knowing that the story is finally out there," Framowitz said, "and that maybe Kolko will be prevented from being around other kids."
JTA tried unsuccessfully to reach Kolko, who along with Framowitz was the focus of a May 15 New York magazine story that said "rabbi-on-child molestation," according to several sources, "is a widespread problem in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and one that has been long covered up."
Attorney Jeffrey Herman, who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuits stemming from Kolko's alleged misconduct, was quoted in the New York magazine piece saying that the clergy abuse situation in the haredi community "reminds me of where the Catholic church was 15 or 20 years ago. What I see are some members of the community turning a blind eye to what's going on in their backyards."
Hard numbers are not available to determine if clergy sex abuse is more widespread in haredi communities than in other Jewish locales. However, several insiders said there is anecdotal evidence that abuse often goes unreported there. The reason, they said, is that many individuals in those communities, which are noted for their insularity, resistance to modernity and reverence for religious leaders, are loath to confront rabbis for fear of being publicly shunned.
Shafran said he doubts that clergy sex abuse is more prevalent in the fervently Orthodox world than elsewhere. Asked whether victims there are afraid to report abuse, he said, "I hope it's not true. But it's easy to see how someone would be reluctant to publicly report such an issue."
He said modesty, which is prized by many haredim, might preclude the open discussion of matters "that are part of the average radio talk show agenda."
Others believe that underreporting of clergy sexual misconduct may in fact facilitate abuse.
"Offenders have learned to hide behind" the reluctance of victims to speak out, said Brian Leggiere, an Orthodox Jew and a psychiatrist in Manhattan who has treated both perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse. He added, though, "The situation is changing for the better, but very slowly. Each community is different, so it's hard to generalize."
In some neighborhoods, Leggiere pointed out, public safety is beginning to gain traction as an ideal worth defending, as is the notion that professional therapy or other forms of treatment for sex abuse victims, as well as for perpetrators, should not be stigmatized. Judging the judges Among many Orthodox Jews, the preferred forum for adjudicating communal disputes is a beit din, a rabbinic court. But critics say such panels often try to dissuade sex abuse victims from pursuing their complaints, a charge vigorously denied by Shafran. But, he added, "In cases where there is some degree of doubt, the beit din has a responsibility to counsel against going to authorities until there is proven criminal activity."
Mark Dratch, a modern Orthodox rabbi who chairs the Rabbinical Council of America's Task Force on Rabbinic Improprieties, said that if the beit din "is used to make the community safer, that's appropriate. If that relationship is used to bypass the justice system, I think that's wrong, particularly in cases of suspected criminal activity.
"The problem in the ultra-Orthodox community is people go to the beit din and not to civil authorities. There is a very complicated relationship between rabbis and civil authorities," he said. "It doesn't always work appropriately."
Dratch, who now directs JSafe, a nonprofit organization addressing abuse in the Jewish community, said he has "pleaded with members of Agudah to expose the dangers of clerical and familial abuse. I said if you don't expose, victims have no place to turn."
Agudath Israel has not promulgated anti-abuse policies for its affiliated congregations, Shafran conceded, "nor have there been complaints" of sexual misconduct at Agudath Israel-affiliated congregations. But he added, "I wouldn't rule out that one day there would be such guidelines. The Talmud teaches us that we should stay away from even the appearance of impropriety."
Agudath Israel does have binding behavioral guidelines that apply to its youth groups and its five summer camps, which serve about 2,000 youngsters, according to Shafran.
Yehuda Kolko worked at one of those camps, Camp Agudah in Ferndale, N.Y., decades ago, according to Shafran, apparently long before the behavioral guidelines existed.
The federal lawsuit filed in May states that while Kolko was at Camp Agudah, he repeatedly molested Framowitz, who was a camper there in the summers following his seventh- and eighth-grade years at Torah Temimah.
Framowitz's co-plaintiff -- "John Doe No. 2," an adult male living in the United States -- alleged that he also was abused by Kolko, but only at Torah Temimah. The lawsuit contends that the administrations at both the camp and the school knew Kolko was a pedophile and did nothing about it. Shafran declined comment on the litigation, which is being divided into two complaints, one for each plaintiff, according to attorney Herman. The complaint initiated by Framowitz has been dismissed on the plaintiffs' initiative but will be refiled, Framowitz and Herman said.
An attorney representing Kolko in the federal litigation declined comment on behalf of his client. The modern Orthodox community was deeply scarred by the sex abuse scandal involving Rabbi Baruch Lanner, a former regional director of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, a branch of the centrist Orthodox Union. Lanner was sentenced in 2002 to seven years in prison for sexually abusing two female students during the 1990s while he was their principal at a yeshiva high school in New Jersey.
However, a 2000 report by a special O.U. commission found that Lanner had also sexually abused women and teenage girls, and physically abused boys and girls while he was a leader at NCSY. The case attracted widespread attention, in part, because the report said some O.U. and NCSY leaders had failed to take action for several years to halt Lanner's misconduct.
Ultimately, according to organization insiders, O.U. Executive Vice President Rabbi Raphael Butler resigned under pressure in the wake of the scandal.
Both the O.U. and the NCSY have upgraded behavioral guidelines and enhanced anti-abuse training programs, according to officials at both organizations. The NCSY policies, which cover 17 pages and were revised most recently in October, are binding on at least 25,000 individuals, including NCSY professionals, volunteers and program participants. The guidelines spell out prohibited conduct in detail, and include step-by-step instructions for filing an abuse complaint.
Both O.U. and NCSY officials said they are not aware of any complaints of sexual misconduct toward youths since the NCSY guidelines were upgraded a few years ago.
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement has no written conduct guidelines applying specifically to its estimated 4,000 global emissaries, known as shluchim, or its approximately 3,000 multi-use facilities that double as synagogues and are usually referred to as Chabad Houses.
However, many Chabad Houses have adopted behavioral policies originally formulated for the movement's schools, according to movement spokesman Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin.
In addition, according to Shmotkin, shluchim must strictly abide by the Shulchan Aruch, the 16th-century code of Jewish law that prohibits non-married or unrelated adults of the opposite sex from being secluded with each other.
Some of the denominational policies examined by JTA are designed to guard against situations that could result in inappropriate contact with minors, regardless of their sex. They mandate, for example, that at least two adults be present when a child is receiving private religious instruction. A non-seclusion requirement is among many anti-abuse provisions included in mandatory school behavioral policies adopted by Chabad about five years ago. The policies cover approximately 2,000 personnel at some 350 Chabad schools attended by about 24,000 students.
The policies also instruct school officials to consult two recognized rabbinic authorities -- one Chabad-affiliated and one not -- regarding the centuries-old Jewish legal injunction known as mesirah, which in some instances prohibits Jews from reporting Jewish perpetrators to non-Jewish authorities. Mesirah has been blamed for the reticence of some Orthodox sex abuse victims to go public with their complaints. In a spring 2004 article in the anti-abuse publication Working Together, Dratch of JSafe said that in cases of child sex abuse, "the consensus of contemporary Jewish religious authorities is that such reporting is religiously mandatory."
Three years ago, several safeguards were adopted by Torah Umesorah-The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, a service organization -- the largest of its kind in the United States -- that provides religious educational materials for nearly 200,000 Orthodox students spanning that denomination's ideological spectrum.
The Torah Umesorah guidelines, which were presented to school principals, warn teachers and other staffers to refrain from sexually immodest behavior or speech and from inappropriate touching. They also prohibit school personnel from being secluded with students.
But the guidelines are nonbinding because each of the hundreds of schools served by Torah Umesorah are self-governing.
"We're a service agency, not a governing agency," Rabbi Joshua Fishman, the organization's executive vice president, told JTA.
Elliot Pasik, a New York attorney and children's rights advocate, said the way in which the guidelines were distributed calls into question Torah Umesorah's commitment to protecting students from sexually predatory teachers and other staffers.
The guidelines were accompanied by a Sept. 24, 2003, cover letter signed by Fishman that said in part: "This document should be maintained with a sense of confidentiality. It should only be shared with your educational administrative and teaching staff."
Perhaps as a result of that directive, Pasik said few, if any, parents he knows with children attending schools serviced by Torah Umesorah were told about the rules unless they called the Torah Umesorah national office in Manhattan. Pasik's children have attended yeshivas affiliated with Torah Umesorah.
Furthermore, he added, "I have personally spoken with several teachers and they knew nothing about these guidelines."
Asked to respond, Fishman declined comment, except to say, "We believe that molesters should be reported."
Pasik said the situation shows the need for a centralized governing body -- perhaps a state or federal agency -- that can hold schools accountable for the safety of students.
"It's hard for people in any organization to govern themselves," he said. "We're not being patrolled or governed by anybody."
Pasik recently lobbied for passage of legislation in New York that authorizes non-public schools to require fingerprinting and FBI background checks for prospective employees. The measure was enacted Aug. 16.
The larger issue of child molestation in the Orthodox community was addressed in a one-page statement accompanying the Torah Umesorah guidelines.
Issued by the organization's rabbinical board, the statement says in part that "a small number of individuals have caused untold pain to many children. In addition to the sins which they have committed, they have created painful memories in the minds of their victims, memories which can have a devastating lifetime impact."
The statement urges "everyone to use every means to stop these violations of children, including, at times, exposing the identities of the abusers and even their incarceration. At times, our primary intent may not be to punish the perpetrators, but rather to help them. Therefore, it is preferable, wherever appropriate, to force them to undergo appropriate professional therapy."
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