More Women Come Forward against Georgetown Rabbi

By Debra Alfarone
WUSA
December 18, 2014

http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/dc/2014/12/18/women-foward-georgetown-rabbi-barry-fruendel/20610235/

[with video]

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- More women are coming forward and accusing Georgetown Rabbi Barry Freundel of possibly videotaping them as they disrobed for a Jewish ritual bath called a mikvah.

Freundel was a religious leader at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown until shortly after D.C. police arrested him and charged him with six counts of voyeurism in October.

Now, three women are part of a civil lawsuit stemming from those videotape allegations. One of the alleged victims part of the lawsuit, Emma Shulevitz, says she was converting to Judaism in 2012, and Freundel asked her to take a 'practice' mikvah,

"I feel so hurt, I feel so disappointed, and I feel like finally there's some understanding of what happened," Shulevitz said.

Shulevitz says after she saw that the 62-year-old religious leader was arrested, she remembered something that struck her as odd.

"He told me where to put my things in the mikvah, he told me not to put my belongings on the counter top, so that's evidence to me that he had a camera, he had something there," she said back in 2012.

The Metropolitan Police Department says Freundel did have a camera inside a clock radio. The civil lawsuit places blame on not just Kesher Israel and Georgetown University and Law School where Freundel taught, but also now includes the Rabbinical Council of America or RCA.

Lawyer Steven Kelly says the RCA gave Freundel a free pass to create and hold power over the mikvah,

"Freundel was permitted to rig the game. He used that power and abused that power in ways that allowed him to sexually exploit innocent people like Emma," Kelly said.

An interesting twist is that the criminal case alleges that Freundel videotaped women six times. The plaintiffs in the civil suit haven't seen the video evidence yet. They don't know if they are part of the six, or in addition to them. Kelly says he suspects many more women will come forward.

Kesher has been fired from the synagogue and has 13 days left to move out. He has plead not guilty to the criminal charges.