WASHINGTON (DC)
JTA
Rabbi Barry Freundel is serving a 6 1/2 year prison sentence for voyeurism for secretly filming 52 women in the shower room of the mikvah adjacent to Kesher Israel, the prominent Orthodox Washington synagogue he led for some 25 years. On Wednesday, he published this apology letter in the Washington Jewish Week:
No matter how many times I attempt to apologize, it will never be enough. There are simply no words available to sufficiently assuage the hurt that I caused among conversion candidates, congregants, students, family, friends, and rabbinic and academic colleagues. I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions.
On May 15th, as I sat in the courtroom listening to the victim impact statements, each felt like a blade entering my gut. The speakers expressed their feelings of rage, hurt, humiliation, vulnerability and violation. How could I have been so incredibly blind, so unaware of my own impact on others? I ask myself that question every day. Through therapy, I came to understand the psychological underpinnings of why I acted in this despicable way. But I have not yet fully grasped how I could have been so completely oblivious to the harm I was doing to others.
I shook the faith foundations of those who were approaching Judaism with determination and the trepidation of leaving their previous lives behind; I defiled a space that was supposed to be private, sacred and healing; and I caused people to feel unsafe, abused and objectified, I did this to people I genuinely cared about, people to whom I was close, and I shattered the worlds of those I loved most.
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