NEW YORK
Times of Israel
Manny Waks
It is heartbreaking that yet another victim of child sexual abuse within the Jewish community has suffered a tragic premature death. Last weekend, 34-year old Joey Diangello (formerly Yoel Deutsch) from New York died of a drug overdose. It is somewhat irrelevant if the overdose was intentional or not, as some have been debating on blogs and social media. We will probably never know definitively. What we do know is that Joey was sexually abused within his former Hasidic community. “I think when that person raped me, he murdered my Jewish soul,” Joey told PIX11 Investigates in early 2009, when he courageously went public with his story, describing how he was raped in a Mikvah (Jewish ritual bath-house) as a child. Joey became a victim advocate and featured in numerous media articles.
It is reasonable to connect Joey’s untimely death with his abuse as a child. Statistics show that drug use among victims of child sexual abuse is higher than in the general population. Moreover, suicide was apparently on Joey’s mind, as noted in his recent Jewish New Year message to Rabbi Eisenman.
So here we have what may be described as akin to the murder of an innocent man – whose Jewish soul had already been murdered – yet the Jewish world maintains its relative silence. At the time of writing, not a single mainstream Jewish media outlet has covered this story. Moreover, I have not seen a single prominent Jewish community leader – rabbinic or otherwise – speaking out about this tragedy. The only ones who have spoken out are victims/survivors of child sexual abuse, victim advocates and those who were connected to Joey in some way. Of course some individual community members have also spoken out.
A disturbing story that has been the focus of the Jewish world and media this past week has been the allegations regarding Rabbi Barry Freundel. It is most appropriate to compare the lack of reactions to Joey’s death, as noted above, to the reactions regarding Rabbi Freundel. In the latter case, so many rabbis, community leaders and members have shared their opinion and generally expressed their disgust. And the media – both Jewish and mainstream – has provided this case significant coverage. The vast majority of those that have spoken out have very little, if anything, to do with the actual case. The most common point of connection is that Rabbi Freundel is a prominent Orthodox rabbi who is alleged to have been filming women using his Synagogue’s ritual bath. Of course those victimised by his alleged actions deserve our full support and compassion. Moreover, it is appropriate for rabbis, community leaders and members globally to condemn Rabbi Freundel’s alleged abuse, as is currently happening. Indeed, I applaud the ground-breaking changes that have ensued – impressively, within a week of these allegations surfacing.
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