JEWS BEHAVING BADLY #2 protecting abusers

In my attempt to show that being

religious is not a guarantee of moral

behavior, this post is a part of my series

of reports featuring the bad behavior

of religious people, past or present....

Look for other posts showing the

bad behavior perpetrated by members

of other religious groups.

HIGH INCIDENCE OF CHILD ABUSE IN

NEW YORK’S HASIDIC COMMUNITIES:

Joe Diangelo, 28, says that when he was seven he was taken by his father to a mikvah (bath house) to find the place packed with naked men and boys. “I was in the tub, and I had my back turned, and somebody raped me while I was in the water … I didn’t know what happened. I couldn’t make sense of it...” Diangelo never saw the man who abused him. Today, monitors are posted by the bath to prevent sexual activity, but as a child, Joe was on his own.

Joel Engelman, 24, says his abuse came at the United Talmudical Academy. He was eight when he was called to the principal’s office. When he arrived, he says, Rabbi Avrohom Reichman told him to close the door. “He motioned for me to get on his lap, and as soon as I got on the chair, he would swivel the chair from right to left, continuously. Then he would start touching me while talking to me. He would start at my shoulders and work his way down to my genitals.”

This happened frequently over two months. He told no one for more than a decade. Four years ago, he told his parents. And a year ago, when he heard that Reichman had allegedly abused several other boys, they confronted Reichman.
When the school heard about it, they gave the rabbi a lie-detector test. He failed miserably. So they told Joel, ‘This guy has to go.” But a few weeks later, a religious leader from the school approached Engelman’s mother to ask, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was the molestation?... We found out there was no skin-to-skin contact, that it was through clothing....On a scale of 1 to 10, this was maybe a 2 or a 3, so what’s the big fuss?” The school reinstated Reichman.

Both Engleman and Diangelo were raised as strict Hasidic Jews, and both fled their upbringing for the same reason.

Four ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn have been sued or arrested for abusing boys in the past three years. That’s a tiny fraction of the actual abuse, says Hella Winston, author of Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels. She says that in researching her book, she met dozens of alleged victims who told her sexual abuse is an open secret in the Hasidic community. But the community is so insulated and the rabbis are so powerful that few dare to come forward.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes says he has 10 active sexual abuse cases involving Orthodox Jews. He says the Jewish leaders — like Catholic bishops — try to handle these affairs internally, through a rabbinical court. "You have no business taking these cases to religious tribunals," Hynes says. "They are either civil or criminal in nature. Or both. Your obligation is to bring these allegations to us and let us conduct the investigation."

One of the problems with such abuse is that in isolated religious communities, instead of reporting the abuse to the police, it is reported to religious authorities, as was also done in the Catholic church. When it is handled by the religious community that wants to avoid bad publicity, it is usually covered up and never resolved.

For more information:

Abuse Scandal Plagues Hasdic Jews in Brooklyn
Hasidic Jews join the kiddy-fiddlers’ hall of shame
Sexual Abuse of Kids in Hasidic Jewish Community

JEWS BEHAVING BADLY #1

In my attempt to show that being religious

is not a guarantee of moral behavior,

this post is a part of my series of reports featuring the

bad behavior of religious people, past or present....

Look for other posts about the bad behavior

perpetrated by members of other religious groups.

Rabbi Morris Talansky of Long Island, NY, was charged with assaulting his dentist in an argument over fees. After the case was thrown out, the rabbi, carrying a Bible, wept and said, "I'm grateful to the Almighty and my attorney and the judge." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his resignation after Rabbi Talansky testified last year that he paid the politician $150,000 in cash over 15 years while Olmert was minister of trade and mayor of Jerusalem. Talansky, who was a victim of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, is currently being investigated by federal authorities, who are considering indicting him for allegedly bribing Olmert in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

David Silverman, 23, of Rockland County, NY, is accused of luring three girls, ages 14 and 15 who he met on My Space, to a porn set in a warehouse, giving them alcohol, photographing and filming the resulting orgy with two friends who are now both fugitives in Israel. By the time he was arrested, he had dismantled the porn set and erased his hard drive, but officials were able to recover his files. Silverman says he has returned to his Hasidic Jewish lifestyle and is refusing to even look at the evidence, claiming it is too offensive. Psychologists aren’t buying his claim that he cannot assist in his defense on charges of statuatory rape and child pornography because of his religious devotion. His lawyer admitted that a plea may be the best course. “A lawyer I am. A magician I am not,” he said.

Two teenaged boys claim they endured years of sexual abuse at the hand of Emanual Yegutkin, a principal of a private Jewish school in Brooklyn, NY. The boys were abused between the ages of 7 and 17. Neither boy attended Yegutkin’s school. Yegutkin also worked as a lifeguard at a summer camp and was a ‘rising star’ in the Jewish community. His arrest is the fourth in the Orthodox Brooklyn community in the past three years.

You will find more abuse in the New York Hasidic community in a future post: Jews Behaving Badly #2

Initially, I learned of all of the above stories from reports in the March 2009 issue of Freethought Today, published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

For more information on these reports:

‘Graft’ rabbi off hook in doc assault
Olmert foe listed as Madoff victim

‘Perv’ Twist, ‘Occasional’ Hasid
Hasidic Jew Charged With Rape and Child Pornography Remains in Jail
Hasid ‘rapist’ fit for trial

Teen sex rap for principal of Bensonhurst private school

CHRISTIANS BEHAVING BADLY #2 pedophile Jesuits

PEDOPHILE JESUITS DUMPED IN ALASKA

In my attempt to show that being religious
is not a guarantee of moral behavior,
this post is a part of my series of reports featuring the
bad behavior of religious people, past or present....

Look for other posts showing the bad behavior
perpetrated by members of other religious groups..

In November 2008, Reuters reported that Oregon Jesuits had settled a sexual abuse claim in Alaska for $50 million.
"It seems that Alaska was a dumping ground for predators," said Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The settlement covered 110 victims in native villages. "What happened in these villages was that they sent in a predator and people there had no contact with the outside world for four, five or six months, and during that time a guy could abuse every child. There is a whole generation of children who were abused."
Ken Roosa of Anchorage, Alaska, one of the victims' attorneys, said, "In some villages, it is difficult to find an adult who was not sexually violated by men who used religion and power to rape, shame and then silence hundreds of Alaska Native children. Despite all this, no Catholic religious leader has yet to admit that problem priests were dumped in Alaska.”
On February 5, 2009 The Seattle Times reported that 29 more plaintiffs were added to a similar suit which was filed in January in which 43 Alaskan Natives claimed they had been abused as children and teens by Jesuits or those supervised by Jesuits. Claims range from fondling to rape.
According to Insurance Journal, an investigator in those and similar cases in Alaska, Patrick J. Wall of Newport Beach, Calif., said 28 Jesuit priests accused of sexual misconduct against young parishioners in previously resolved lawsuits, pending lawsuits and others which have yet to be filed were sent to the Fairbanks Diocese from 10 other provinces, including four overseas.
Roosa said, "It was a pedophile's paradise.” Operating in impoverished hamlets far from police agencies in a diocese where the bishop also was a Jesuit, those priests were the ultimate local authority.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Rev, Patrick J. Lee, the current provincial issued a statement last month through a spokesman stating that Jesuits were assigned to the Fairbanks Diocese at their own request because of their “deep desire to spread the gospel.”
It should be noted that Jesuits are “The Society of Jesus.” One can hardly find a group more “Christian” than that.