NEW YORK
Forward
By Rukhl Schaechter
December 30, 2005
A former congregant has filed a lawsuit against Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, the religious leader of an Orthodox congregation in Monsey, N.Y., accusing him of giving her "sex therapy" when she went to him for counseling.
In the lawsuit, which was filed December 20 in Manhattan and reported December 25 in the New York Post, Adina Marmelstein, 43, claims that Tendler, a father of eight, promised her that he would help her find a husband with whom to raise a family if she slept with him. She is also alleging that Tendler threatened to "have her placed in a straitjacket" if she told anyone about the sessions. The sexual liaisons were allegedly conducted in his rabbinical study in the years 2001 to 2005.
"He had a tremendous amount of power over her," said Marmelstein's lawyer, Lenore Kramer.
Tendler, the scion of a prominent rabbinical family, was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America in March, after a months-long investigation of allegations that he sexually harassed women who came to him for spiritual guidance. When asked by the Forward whether Marmelstein was one of the women interviewed during the RCA investigation, Rabbi Dale Polakoff, president of the organization, declined to comment, citing the advice of counsel.