UNITED STATES
JTA
By Sharon Weiss-Greenberg
April 15, 2016
(JTA) — Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, is no stranger to controversy. In statements from his pulpit and in blog posts, he has demonized Israel’s late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, called for the collective punishment of Palestinian “savages” and, after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza strip, let it be known that the Jewish state was no longer worthy of his political or financial support.
While many have chosen to ignore him as inconsequential, his statements have been condemned over the years by the Orthodox Union, the Rabbinical Council of America (where he formerly served as vice president) and the Anti-Defamation League. As the past president of the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County in New Jersey, and a former dayyan, or judge, on the Beth Din of America, he has held some of the most prominent positions in modern Orthodoxy and continues to enjoy the support of his large and influential congregation.
From his position of prominence, Pruzansky recently authored a blog post asserting that in many cases, women who report being raped on college campuses are leveling false allegations because they felt spurned by their romantic partners or were intoxicated at the time of the act. Citing no evidence other than “media reports,” he asserts that most reported rapes on campus are “situations in which the couple had a romantic relationship that went sour.” Having treated intimacy as “something casual and cavalier,” he writes, many accusers bear responsibility for the “misunderstandings, miscommunications and gray areas” that are erroneously called “rape” (his quotation marks).
“If indeed there was a ‘rape culture’ on American campuses,” writes Pruzansky, “no intelligent woman would want to attend college. The fact that more women attend college today than men itself belies the accusation.”
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