BishopAccountability.org
	Misplaced Trust Hasidic-Feminist January 29, 2009 http://hasidic-feminist.blogspot.com/2009/01/misplaced-trust.html Don't ask my why, but I've been perusing the list of registered sex offenders in NY state (http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/nsor/search_index.htm) and I am just horrified anew every time I see a familiar Jewish face. Even more horrible are the descriptions of the torture and abuse they put their victims through. I read them and I shudder, and then I look back at the picture and I cannot make the connection. How do I connect this face, a face I was taught to trust above all others because of the markers that signified it was holy, how can I attribute these horrible acts to men I had a complete and wholehearted faith in as a child? You and I both know that the men who make it on to a list of registered sex offenders are the exceptions; some stroke of bad fortune landed them there. For every deed that is discovered, accounted for, and reported, there are hundreds of other unspeakable acts being committed by the day. As a parent, I want the best for my children. I feel that every mother must have the same wish. We seek to protect our innocent offspring from all the evils out there. I protect my children by educating them. How do you protect your children? As a child, I wasn't protected from the evil within the Satmar community. If anything I was set up to become a victim. You see, when I was growing up, I was taught never to trust an outsider. For example, if in an emergency situation I was always told to look for a familiar Hasidic face and ask for help. I wasn't told to approach a police offer - that was discouraged, actually. I was told to turn to the nearest Hasidic Jew. How sick is that? I fell for that policy hook, line, and sinker. The presence of a Hasidic person anywhere made me feel safer, in the way cops and bodyguards do - I felt so sure that this strange man would protect me, his fellow kin, at all costs. So when I rode the train to the city on my own as a young girl and a Hasidic man beckoned me to him, I sat down thinking this man had kindly offered me his protection. When he slid close to me so that I was squeezed uncomfortably between him and the woman next to me, It was of course an accident... Walking to school each day I passed old Mr. Friedman, and as my mother and father advised me, each morning I showed respect for my elders by stopping to talk with him, happily accepting the candy he offered me. It never occurred to me, not in my wildest dreams, that a man with a long enough beard and payos and the right religious garments could be anything but my spiritual and moral superior, a guardian angel of sorts. I felt that we all took a collective responsibility for each other, an attitude that echoes Richard Rorty's "Save our Own" philosophy - certainly a Hasidic man would rush to save one of his kind before anyone else. I relied on that sense of kinship, a sort of group loyalty, and I fully trusted anyone who had the religious "look". How ironic it is that the men on the list have the kind of face I would have trusted in a heartbeat as a child, the beard, the "leVish", the kind, shy smile. I would not have hesitated for a second to accept a ride to Boro Park from any of these men. And yet here they are, accused of committing the most horrible acts against innocent children. We are doing our children a great disservice by imparting to them the sense that everything is black and white, that Hasids are holy and everyone else is evil. There are good and bad people everywhere. By instilling this very dangerous trust in anyone that looks the part, while at the same time stripping the true rescuers of their power to help, we are leading our children into a trap that they have very little chance of escaping. The only way to protect our children is to arm them with knowledge, and to do so we must impart to them only truths, and not religious fallacies. After seeing this list, I doubt I will ever trust another Hasidic face again. It kills me to say this, as I do not want to "paint everyone with the same brush", but how can I ever trust anyone again? My former neighbors, old family friends, accused of the worst possible crimes. I hate to say this too, but the only Caucasians on that list are Hasidic Jews. What does that say? Who does that equate us with? Figure it out for yourself. We are all culpable for these men's actions and for the victims who have suffered them. We have created and supported an environment that allows the trapper to freely ensnare and the prey to enter without hesitation. However, you and I can choose to be the lone rangers in the forest, disabling the traps, warning the animals, and keeping our world a safe place for innocents.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.