A rabbi friend called me the other day to wish me a Happy New Year.
He then told me that he thought that I was being too critical of the Orthodox rabbis.
“They did sign that document,” he said, referring to the April 11, 2007 condemnation of child molestation.
I told him that since April 11, 2007, little or nothing has changed.
There are still children facing the dangers of life-changing acts of molestation. The use of drugs and alcohol seems to be on the rise, and the connection between molestation survivors and the need to abuse drugs is becoming more and more linked.
And here they are on the threshold of a new year, just saying words out of a Makzor. They are Millie Vanillie in black hats, just lip-synching their prayers, nothing more.
Why is that a rabbi can still live at our area yeshiva even though the college “leadership” knows that he is a concern? And they even know who his victims were. Happy New Year.
And why is that a young woman in Israel continues to speak publicly and urgently about the abuses of her father back here in Baltimore. Yet to discount her, they call her “crazy?” Who is crazy, the molester or the survivor?
Two women I know molested by a rabbi in this town are too afraid to use their names. This rabbi hires legal counsel for protection. Happy New Year.
Last year, we finally had a case come to trial involving a child molester. And all that Israel Shapiro could do to stay out of jail was to resort to an Alford plea. He was given five years of supervised probation. An Alford plea allows the defendant to circumvent a guilty plea, but accept the consequences of a guilty verdict. Happy New Year.
There’s an emerging group of women in town referred to as “buttoned down and shut tight.” They are frum women who dress modestly, were educated in girls’ only schools, but were molested. Some can’t even date men they are so frightened. Some resort to eating disorders to deal with their pain. Look around you, they’re here. Happy New Year.
At a conference recently in Brooklyn, two issues stuck in my head. One, hearing a state legislator, a frum man, call molestation within the frum community an “epidemic.” The other was hearing a formerly frum young man talk about how molestation is now a “rite of passage” in some yeshivas.
You know what I think?
And people here in this community are concerned about the shidduchim of the relatives of these men, the innocent family members who aren’t at fault.
They then turn the accusers into the reasons for their misery, not the perpetrators. They turn the reporters of this information into ones at risk. Rabbi Ben Zion Twersky was named to head an anti- molestation task force in Brooklyn. Soon people wouldn’t acknowledge his existence. His children felt their future shidduchim threatened.
So here’s the idea.
Why don’t these family members buy billboard signs or advertisements apologizing for the acts of their relatives? Wouldn’t it make for an even greater shidduch possibility if one knew that your family was publicly and absolutely sorry for their family member’s transgressions. Wouldn’t it take a sheer act of uncommon bravery to do such a thing?
Is there anyone brave enough in Baltimore’s Orthodox community who could stand up and apologize for all of this.
What about you Vaad Ha Rabbanim? Is the word “brave” in your lexicon of chumrahs?
I think not.
But I do know that on Thursday late afternoon when that Book of Life is getting ready to be sealed, you better be sorry.
And you better be genuine about your sorrow.
If not, even the brave won’t be able to help you.
So, yeah, I’m critical of the rabbis.
But next time don’t produce a letter if you don’t mean anything by it, or if it’s the work of the younger rabbis in town, not the real consensus.
Better yet, why doesn’t the Vaad rent a billboard apologizing and seeking forgiveness? Place it on Reisterstown Road in Pikesville so that we can all take a look.
That would beat a meaningless letter any day.

The irreverance IS the message.  Why should we have reverance for people behaving badly?  Where did Kavod Hatorah ever mean in history allowing a Navi Sheker to flourish?  Where did it mean allowing fanatical cruel rabbis to pursue personal agendas while the children were being abused? The whole problem with our community is that so much Kavod is given to rabbis that when one of them (inluding the one in yeshivah who molested me and my friends) ply their sick trade, nobdoy will stop them or even believe it because it goes against Kavod Harotah.  I wish some of us would have had more irreverence to be able to stand up to him, to Rabbi Neuberger and to all of them to demand proper action. What Torah exactly do you follow? 

What’s going on there in Baltimore?

Irevverence, indeed.

Your irreverence compromises the message