Beyond The Law No More




There have been a series of dramatic developments involving child abuse cases in Israel and in the Jewish community in the UK.

1. An unnamed Judge in Israel, who is alleged to have repeatedly beaten his children, has still not been interviewed by the police, even though the police requested this permission three years ago from Yehudah Weinstein, the Attorney General.

This has now provoked an outcry - due to the appearance that the Attorney General's office has been protecting the Judge from investigation.

Dr Yizhak Kadman, Director of the Israel Center for the Child, said on Army Radio that there is a double standard here. If there had been an allegation of bribery of a judge, the system would have quickly taken action to investigate. However, because it is "only" an allegation of child abuse, they have blocked the investigation.

Latest: The AG has now permitted the police access to interview the Judge. 

2. In the Rav Moty Elon child sex abuse case, the prosecution has reduced the charge sheet, due to the unwillingness of one of the alleged victims to testify in court.

3. In the UK, Rabbi Chaim Halpern plus three unnamed men were arrested.

This follows months of allegations by up to 30 women/girls that they had been sexually abused by Rav Halpern during his 'counselling' sessions.

During the period between the allegations surfacing and the arrests, various rabbonim tried to 'deal with' the allegations, including establishing a board of enquiry.

Meanwhile, Rav Halpern tried to shut-up the blogs, by obtaining a court order that Google reveal the IP's and identities of the anonymous bloggers and commenters.

4. In a related story, Rav Halpern's Rosh Beit Din, Rav Padwa was featured in a documentary recently about child-abuse cover-ups in the orthodox community. He was covertly videoed telling a victim of child abuse not to report to the police.

Rumour has it that Rav Padwa will himself be called in to the British police to be investigated.

All these cases show a trend, that child protection has become a priority issue - and the idea that certain important individuals are beyond the law, is no longer being tolerated. 

Comments

  1. Anonymous1 March 2013 at 09:10

    A public warning was posted in the chadash do we know anything about the committee that published it ?Whats the full story ?It was amazing to read finally that the Rabbonim advocate reporting child abuse to the police .

    ReplyDelete
  2. David Morris1 March 2013 at 09:22

    It was certainly amazing that Chadash agreed to publish the one page of tightly printed text about the risks of child abuse and the importance of reporting incidents to the State authorities - even against your local rav's instruction.

    It's hard to imagine that the editor of the very conservative Hareidi publication knew what he was printing.

    The ad refers to "Remember to listen to my hotline" with a US number.

    This seems to be referring to a hotline run by Rav Nuchem Rosenberg in NY.
    See http://nochemrosenberg.blogspot.co.il/

    The ad also looks like Rav Rosenberg's style.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1 March 2013 at 10:56

    was shocked to find out from the public warning that men take their children to the mikveh. Why??? I didnt even think this happened.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6 March 2013 at 21:58

    Check out Rabbi Avinoam Cohen ,Jerusalem post ,victims are causing a revolution in awareness of child abuse in our commmunity!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8 March 2013 at 08:20

    Of course chadash prints an apology this week for full page article that somehow slipped through into last weeks paper, about child abuse.Everyone I spoke to last week ie victims and parents of victims and the average person on the street saw last weeks article as a break through .Chadash said they received complaints ,these complaints I guess were from perpetrators and people that believe in cover ups !Shame on you editors of chadash ,you have a real oppurtunity to change the present matsav and you throw it away nebach !

    ReplyDelete

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