What do the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore, Yeshivah Torah Temimah and NCSY have in common? These institutions are victims of sex abuse. That’s right victims. They are suffering the consequences of employing people who have either been convicted or about which there was strong evidence that they have sexually abused people in their care to one extent or another. They have suffered, or are now suffering the consequences of it and their reputations have forever been tarnished. But as has been amply pointed out, they are not purely victims. They are in part responsible for their fate. Not because God- forbid they approved or condoned such behavior by their employees. Of course not. But because they choose to be protective of their reputations and those of the institutions when accusations came up about abuse.
It’s understandable to want to protect an image. Especially when the institution involved is a Torah one. One need be careful before publicizing misdeeds by an employee of a Torah institution. First, the employee himself has a right to that protection since even a false accusation can ruin a reputation for life. And second, an institution representing Torah and which has generally done a good job at it has the same right, even an obligation to protect itself from false accusations.
The problem is that victims have rights too. And the voices of those who have been truly victimized must not be stifled. Justice and fairness demands it.
Questions always arise about how we balance the rights of one individual (or institution) against the rights of another. And what is to be gained by exposing the abuser to the public, if matters can be handled quietly thus saving the reputation of Torah institutions and that of their leaders?
I think the answer can be found in an article describing the latest such incident. It involves disclosing the identity of a sexual abuser 20 years after his death. The abuser in this case was a long term principal of a school as well as a rabbi for some synagogues over his career. He apparently sexually abused many victims over the years. And no one except for the victims and their immediate families seemed to be the wiser. I suspect when this abuser died, he died with honor, having otherwise served the community with distinction. His family though bereaved was probably very proud of him. He must have received wonderful accolades at his eulogy.
When accusations about his being an abuser started popping up in the The Baltimore Jewish Times, I can’t imagine the reaction of his family, whose memory of him here-to-fore had been nothing but glorious. The horror of hearing that your, husband, father, or grandfather had secretly been a sexual abuser for many years with many victims must have been impossible to take.
According to the article, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann was so upset by these belated allegations about a respected Mechanech with an exemplary reputation… a man who died 20 years ago... that he organized a boycott against the Times. What could possibly be gained , he reasoned, by such a revelation now? He has been dead for 20 years. Why dredge it all up now? Even f it is true, it surely cannot happen again since he is no longer here? All it accomplished was to besmirch the school he led along with his wife, children, grandchildren, and by extension all of Orthodoxy. He was joined in his outrage by Rabbi Abba Cohen of Agudath Israel.
These of course are all valid questions. But there are valid answers. Those answers are first to be found in the numerous victims who were abused all of those years. These people cannot and should not be swept under the rug. They have a right to closure. They have a right to make it known that they were abused in a Frum environment. But that isn’t all. The more important answer is the need to keep Torah institutions free of sexual abusers.
The legitimate desire to keep a Torah institution free of controversy enabled sexual abusers to continue. And that is illegitimate. Little if anything was ever done when accusations were made in the above named institutions. Their leaders either never believed the accusers or thought the problem could be handled internally without hanging dirty laundry in public.
But they were wrong. It was badly mishandled and abuse was allowed to continue. Of course none of it was intentional. No Torah leader would ever countenance such behavior by any employee, least of all a school principal. And also, to be fair to the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore, there is no evidence I am aware of that anyone ever knew about the abuse while it was happening other than the victims and their immediate families. But in all of the other cases I mentioned and in others that I didn’t, there was such evidence. And it was buried.
As a result of the exposure of this sexual predator, the Baltimore rabbinic community came out almost in unison with a strongly worded letter titled “Abuse in Our Community” acknowledging mistakes and calling for major innovations in the system to help prevent anything like this from ever occurring again. Will this end all abuse? I don’t know. I hope so. But at least they are facing the problem now and for the first time they have pledged to do something tangible about it.
Rabbi Heinemann signed the letter too. He has quietly discarded his call for boycotting The Baltimore Jewish Times. He has apparently re-thought his position and perhaps now realizes the value of exposing this individual.
This still leaves the unintended consequences for the family of the deceased perpetrator. They remain victims. Twenty years after his death they now face a life of humiliation. And that is indeed very sad. Hopefully the community will be understanding and accepting of these victims too and continue to treat them with the kindness and warmth of friendship they received before all this happened.
Had there been an effort in place to implement the measures outlined in the letter from the rabbinic community before exposure, I might have agreed that exposing him now would do more damage to his family than it would to help his victims. But, the initial reaction by Rav Heinemann tells quite a different story. The story needed full exposure. The shock needed to be felt by the community leadership. And it was… to a positive effect. And it is a lesson that the entire world of Orthodoxy should learn.
