Tzfat Rabbi Threatened "Horrible Things" If Victims Complained

By Tova Dvorin
Arutz Sheva
July 27, 2015

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/Tzfat%20Rabbi%20Threatened%20'Horrible%20Things'%20if%20Victims%20Complained

Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg of Tzfat (Safed) heavily manipulated the public's trust in the rabbinic system to sexually assault women, an officer involved in the case stated Monday.

"All the complainants are religious women who came to the rabbi, who is considered as very charismatic, and they came to ask for advice," Police Superintendent Galit Winograd, the supervisory officer during the criminal proceedings, revealed Monday. "Sometimes their husbands are the ones who brought them to the rabbi, and he fooled them and told them they needed sexual therapy - and claimed that if they did not accept his treatment, the situation would deteriorate."

Winograd told Walla! News that the pattern of attack was the same: the women would be referred to Sheinberg, and then he would set up a series of meetings, either in person or on video chat.

An investigation was launched in July 2014 when two separate women filed complaints against Sheinberg to the Tzfat (Safed) District Police, she added. Then and there, a special task force was established to investigate the complaints, mostly of female officers.