Tel-Chai Nation

Psychology specialist Michael Tobin describes how the higher echelons in ultra-Orthodox clans try to evade serious responsibility when facing scandals like the late sex offender Chaim Walder, and continue to take questionable paths that're likely to ensure the crisis with sex offenders in their community will only continue. The article also points out something vital to consider:

Would the rabbis turn their gaze inward and ask why sexual abuse occurs at such an alarming rate within their community (Walder, Malka Leifer, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, to name a few of the more public cases)?

Would they ask why Jerusalem’s Tahel Crisis Center receives approximately 500 calls per month from abuse victims within the Jerusalem haredi community?

Would they consult with mental health professionals such as myself and my colleagues who work within the religious community and have far too much experience treating sexual abuse victims?

(Most of the abuses cases are generally same-sex: Rabbis and older yeshiva students abusing younger yeshiva students, Leifer toward her female seminary students, and within families, both same-sex and opposite sex abuse occurs. Until recently, silence and obfuscation seemed to be the haredi response to abuse.)

Sadly, the answers to these questions are no, no and no.

First, I think he's sadly right the leaderships would not consult with experts like himself who don't come from Haredi backgrounds. Which sums up one of the worst things about how they operate - they don't want non-Haredi specialists - who could be far more qualified - to deal with patients coming from their communities. Second, he's got a valid point that there's only so much homosexual rape that can occur within such insular societies, because of the gender segregation customs and tactics they go by, which makes it difficult to communicate on a healthy basis between sexes and thus understand anything about each other correctly. And any lack of sex education only makes things worse.

Now, following the Walder crisis, the rabbis have chosen a new tactic, which I call “The Conspiracy of Deflection.” In the immediate aftermath of Walder’s suicide, the response was to impose an injunction against speaking “lashon hara” (slander) about Walder’s alleged abuse (Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, rosh yeshiva at Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak) or to call accusations against Walder a secular conspiracy against the religious community (Rabbi Tzvi Tau, dean of Har Hamor Yeshiva, a religious-Zionist institution).

And even that's not good. More upon that here:

Both rabbis enjoined their listeners not to feel sympathy for this self-serving monster and told their followers to remove Walder’s books from their homes. For those of us in the mental health profession, who’ve been waiting for the rabbis to express zero tolerance for sexual abuse, this was a welcome change.

So, what happened next somewhat surprised me – I wish it hadn’t. Rabbi Meiselman, the rosh yeshiva of Toras Moshe in Jerusalem and a descendant of the Brisker dynasty, turned Chaim Walder into a non-haredi.

ACCORDING TO the rabbi, he was a well-known rasha years before the story broke and there were compelling rumors about him for more than 30 years. He quotes Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who called him a rasha and a sexual pervert. (Yes, that does raise questions as to why no one did anything about it. If so, then there needs to be an investigation into this egregious, rabbinical cover-up.)

Some could argue it was overlooked because Auerbach was a criminal himself, who ran a cult that caused horrific riots and chaos a few years ago, undoubtably to hurt the Netanyahu government. And the rabbi Tau, who's reportedly of the kind of lifestyle that's almost Haredi if not exactly, is an embarrassment to anybody who calls themselves a Zionist if he has lenient views of such felons as Walder. Let's also recall the now deceased writer didn't have formal training for the job he worked in, which the gurus didn't seem to find concerning any more than the politicians of the past.

In any event, there's valid concerns here about how the Haredi leaderships are shirking responsibility and not taking any proper steps in education to prevent these behind-closed-doors crimes from remaining commonplace. Exactly why most people within these insular communities should depart them for a change. More at the link.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, misogyny, Moonbattery, sexual violence