Several weeks ago, my wife and I were planning on returning to our shul for Shabbat services.
Since the molestation series emerged in the Jewish Times it hasn’t been easy to go very many places and feel HaShem’s protection.
One of the reasons is that I just can’t lose the fact that Rabbi Moshe Eisemann, a man who allegedly molested two friends of mine is still living on Yeshiva Lane, and is still an Artscroll Publishing author. I write the word “allegedly” only to cover myself legally. Charges were never pressed as far as I know. Yet, as the noted psychologist Dr. David Pelcovitz noted, people don’t make these allegations up. That 99 percent of those say they were victims of molestation or trauma, were. And molesters don’t typically molest just two or three people, they molest, many, many more.
That particular Shabbos was the one where Ner Israel Rabbinical College rabbis go to various synagogues “in town” and give the sermon for the day.
At Tiferes Yisroel that morning, the scheduled speaker was Rabbi Sheftel Neuberger, the president of Ner Israel. Rabbi Neuberger’s father was and remains to me an important hero in my life.
I still “talk” to him, asking him what he would do in certain cases of community issue here in Baltimore.
I went to Rabbi Neuberger to ask if I should leave Detroit back in 1997 when the job of editor became open here. There were many times I wanted to quit this profession, and I’d go to Rabbi Neuberger. He told me “no.” Here I stay. There were so many questions he answered for me. Since he passed away, finding someone with his vision has been difficult. It’s like his passing has left a hole in our hearts, not to mention the way our community works.
I imagine in a fantasy way that he sits with HaShem and is an advisor for the whole world now.
But I couldn’t get myself up to shul several weeks ago. I don’t have a single argument with Ner Israel’s current leadership. I just don’t understand, however, how a man with so many allegations is allowed to live out his life on the campus of such a prestigious place of Torah.
I know the pain suffered by the two friends I have who were victims of his. I know, at least for one, how it is part of the operational system of his life.
So when a Ner Israel rabbi comes to talk at a synagogue, any synagogue, I just want to ask “when are you going to do something to disassociate the campus from this man?” Because as long as he’s there, then it seems like molestation is given validation by one of the greatest rabbinic colleges in the world. That’s wrong.
Maybe it was better that I just stayed home.

He’s there because he hasn’t been proven guilty in a court of law.