Prominent Washington, D.C. rabbi secretly filmed women bathing: police

By Sasha Goldstein
New York Daily News
October 15, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/washington-rabbi-secretly-filmed-women-bathing-police-article-1.1974323

Barry Freundel was arrested at his Georgetown home Tuesday morning after someone complained that he was filming women bathing at his synagogue.

Freundel has been the rabbi of Kesher Israel since 1987.

A prominent Washington, D.C. rabbi was busted Tuesday after cops discovered he had allegedly been filming women showering at his modern Orthodox synagogue in Georgetown.

Police swarmed Rabbi Barry Freundel’s O Street home Tuesday morning and spent hours investigating, removing hard drives and computers, witnesses told WTTG-TV. The 62-year-old has served as rabbi at Kesher Israel, some five blocks from his home, since 1987.

Freundel is charged with voyeurism and is expected to appear in court Wednesday.

Kesher Israel has a mikvah, a ritual bath women in Orthodox Judaism are expected to use each month, the Jewish Daily Forward reported. The facility’s mikvah has three changing rooms and the bath, used by men and women at different times, the outlet reported.

Freundel was caught after a woman saw him setting up a clock radio that also contained a motion detecting hidden camera inside the mikvah, WTTG reported. He told the woman the device was to help ventilate the room, according to documents obtained by the Fox affiliate.

The rabbi will be held in jail overnight pending his court appearance.

Calling the arrest a "painful moment" for the congregation, Kesher Israel's board of directors announced Tuesday evening that Freundel has been suspended without pay. The board was first to learn of "potentially inappropriate activity" concerning Freundel and "quickly alerted the appropriate officials," a statement from the congregation reads.

The synogogue remains open.

Freundel has taught or lectured at Baltimore Hebrew, the University of Maryland, Georgetown University and served as as consultant to the ethics review board of the National Institute of Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

Former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman is a “longtime member” of the congregation, according to the Kesher Israel website.