Tel-Chai Nation

Another terrible story emerges from within the Satmar community:

SPRING VALLEY — The principal of a major religious school with facilities in this village and in Brooklyn has been charged with assaulting a 10-year-old student.

Rabbi Meilech Spitzer, 59, a top administrator with the United Talmudical Academy on Madison Avenue in Spring Valley, is accused of slapping the boy in the face several times and causing his eye and face to swell up, police said. [...]

The investigation became more challenging when the boy’s parents refused to file charges and cooperate with detectives, likely making a prosecution more difficult, Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said Monday.

Zugibe said his detectives were working with Spring Valley police and would attempt to interview the boy and his family.

“If indeed the victim is unwilling to cooperate, it makes any prosecution questionable,” Zugibe said. “We will make an assessment.”

Zugibe said there’s no evidence the family and the boy have been pressured by community leaders not to cooperate.

Many times, families can be ostracized and their children ejected from schools for going outside the religious community and reporting criminal matters.

There have been accusations that religious families of children sexually abused have been pressured not to cooperate. In some cases, the families have worked with prosecutors

The United Talmudical Academy is a school system run by the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect in New York City and in suburban communities like Spring Valley, Monsey and Kiryas Joel in Orange County.

The problem is that even now, there's bound to be some families in the Satmar community who'll still balk at turning to the regular authorities about these crimes.

In a criminal complaint obtained by The Journal News, Spitzer is charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and accused of intending to physically harm the child. [...] Spitzer slapped the boy “numerous times on the left side of his face and left ear,” the complaint said.

The boy’s left eye swelled up as well as the left side of his face and ear, the complaint said.

I hope the poor boy and his family will think to leave the Satmar sect after this horrible incident. It would help them very much to keep their distance from those awful pseudo-followers of Judaism.

Labels: haredi corruption, New York, United States