Yiddish Posters up in Williamsburg Asking for Cash for Accused Child Molester Angering Victim's Family

By Simone Weichselbaum
New York Daily News
May 14, 2012

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/yiddish-posters-williamsburg-cash-accused-child-molester-angering-victim-family-article-1.1078161

Yiddish signs posted in Williamsburg asking for contributions for accused child molester Nechemya Weberman.

Posters promoting an upcoming fund-raiser for a rabbi charged with sexually abusing a teenage girl blanketed Jewish shopping strips in Williamsburg Monday - sparking a campaign protesting the charity bash.

Signs supporting Nechemya Weberman, 53, - written in Hebrew and Yiddish mix - promote a Wednesday gathering at the Continental Caterers dining hall at 75 Rutledge Street.

Cops busted Weberman in February 2011 after a 16-year-old girl reported he was her therapist and had forced her during counseling session to perform oral sex and other lewd acts starting when she was 12-years-old.

"It is very painful," said the victim's mother about the street ads up on poles on Bedford and Lee Avenues. "The community has taken his side."

At least two styles of posters were spotted. The more cartoonish set shows a missile falling onto a crowd of Orthodox Jewish men announcing a danger hitting the neighborhood.

The ads explain Weberman's innocence by bashing the victim's story and questioning why she decided talk to the police.

It is against Jewish law to report a Jew to secular authorities without rabbinical oversight.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has worked closely with religious leaders allowing rabbis to okay which victims come forward. But backlash to Hynes' rabbinical relationships is growing as more rabbis are arrested for molesting kids.

"Don't cover up what happened to children in this community. This has been happening for too many years," said Hershy Deutsch, founder of the Kings County Safety Patrol, a civilian patrol group in the Jewish section of Williamsburg organizing a protest for Wednesday's fund-raiser.

"I want a lot of people out there for the family to show people that giving money to this perpetrator is wrong," Deutsch said.

Weberman's lawyer George Farkas defended the call for cash insisting Weberman is an innocent man whose reputation is forever ruined.

"He is an accused molester. The damage is done," said Farkas who is aiming to take the case to trial instead of brokering a deal with prosecutors. "There are many supporters who believe of his innocence."

Contact: simonew@nydailynews.com