ISRAEL
Times of Israel
BY RENEE GHERT-ZAND December 2, 2014
Hundreds of Orthodox Jews from around the world gathered at a Jerusalem hotel this week to publicly deal with a subject whose discussion had been taboo until only recently in their religiously observant communities: domestic violence and sexual abuse
Men, in their black hats and suits, and women in their wigs and hats, filled the venue’s meeting rooms and hallways, eager to speak with one another. These were rabbis, teachers, social workers, psychotherapists and concerned lay people who have come together.
The conference, spearheaded by Tahel – Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children, an Israeli non-profit organization, is tackling a wide range of related issues. There were sessions on human trafficking, the rabbinic role in preventing and stopping abuse, the interface between the Orthodox community and the criminal justice system, and the neuroscience of pedophilia, among many other topics.
News headlines about notorious Orthodox Jewish sex offenders like Nechemia Weberman (sentenced in Brooklyn in 2013 to 103 years in prison for his ongoing molestation of a girl beginning when she was 12) and Baruch Lanner (former New Jersey director of National Council of Synagogue Youth, who was convicted in 2002 of sexually abusing two girls at the high school where he was principal), prove that the dark secret of child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community is coming out in to the light.
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