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CANDLELIGHTING

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THE JEWISH VIEW

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HOLIDAYS

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JUDAISM 101

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{weblog_name} - We’re Not Voting for a King Here
Comments (2)

I am sure like me you get your share of emails from friends and relatives with the links that they think are very cute, very funny. So I happened to open one up recently that I knew was going to be anti-Palin, because it said so on the email. There was this “really smart” man and woman singing in a folksy way about how if Sarah Palin were to be elected, our country would go to hell and they would end up moving to Canada. When I was a child, I remember seeing bumper stickers during the Viet Nam era that read, “America, love it or leave it.” Each time I saw one, my late father used to roll his eyes and call the person driving the car a “reactionary.” I think, though, when I hear people who call… read more

Is this blog post really the appropriate forum for Vicki Polin’s “protestations”?

Have we all not heard enough over the past several years from this professional purveyor of victimhood, for whom publicity matters far more than truth?

Ms. Polin, you have your own web site, I believe.

In my estimation, it would be best for Jews, in Baltimore and elsewhere, if you simply stayed there.

This was sent out by The Awareness Center

A threatening letter

There’s been plenty of general talk about the threatening letters people write under the guise of supporting survivors while actually supporting continued secrecy or intimidation. Maybe it will be helpful if I share one of them. On Friday, October 24, 2008 I received a bullying letter from a person who claims to be a survivor advocate—Michael Lesher. The tone and venom of the letter speaks for itself.  I will let each one of you decide for yourself what you think of the use of bullying and intimidation tactics.

As an FYI, let me just clarify that the whole premise of the letter stands on the supposed claim that Amy’s daughter’s privacy was deceptively compromised by me. That is a bogus premise—Amy daughter’s letter (Silent No Longer - The Other Side Of Abuse Allegations) was published in a public venue (Jewish Press).  Her daughter was quite deliberate about wanting to use her name to let her side of the story be known, under HER terms, in HER words, in HER name. Anyone claiming otherwise shows their ignorance of the whole story and their bias toward one side of it (i.e. Amy Neustein).

Vicki Polin
Founder - The Awareness Center, Inc.
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org

**************
Subj: Amy Neustein
Date: Friday, October 24, 2008 3:33:19 PM
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

  It has come to my attention that you are circulating a slanderous column written several years ago about Amy Neustein. As is obvious from the facts about her case that used to be contained on The Awareness Center’s own web site, the column—titled “Silent No Longer”—contains manifest inaccuracies and defamatory attacks. It also omits any reference to substantial evidence that Amy’s daughter was sexually abused—evidence you yourself circulated for years via your site.

  I know you have since decided not to publicize the case, on the putative grounds that silence is the best course for Sherry’s welfare. Yet your current course simply makes a liar and hypocrite out of you. Obviously, circulating a column about Sherry is no way to avoid publicity. Even more important, knowingly circulating slanderous personal attacks cannot be justified by any argument. It’s a vile and self-defeating way of dividing people who ought to be working together.

  You’ve had plenty of support from Amy Neustein over the years—and from me. Despite your mean-spirited attacks on both of us, we have not pressed the issue of your own history of bizarre and unsubstantiated allegations. Quite the contrary. Please understand that if you persist in spreading falsehoods about someone whose goodwill you ought to value, my forebearance, at least, will be at an end. I regard your conduct as completely unacceptable—particularly in the forum you have chose for it. Accordingly, I strongly suggest you circulate an apology to the recipients to whom you addressed “Silent No Longer,” explaining that you cannot vouch for its accuracy and would prefer not to be involved in divisive personal quarrels among supporters of sex abuse victims.

  You know I mean what I say. You’ve been warned.

Michael Lesher, Esq.
22 Leitch Place
Passaic NJ 07055
(973) 470-0212
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
http://www.MichaelLesher.com

___________________
Silent No Longer - The Other Side Of Abuse Allegations
By Sherry Orbach
The Jewish Press - 27 May 2005, Page 4

Editor’s Note: In recent months The Jewish Press published two articles by Amy Neustein the first a, feature piece in the Family Matters section, the second an op ed column in which she recounted her longstanding allegations that her ex husband abused their daughter. Ms. Neustein’s daughter, (NAME REMOVED), requested this opportunity to respond.

Although I have not seen my mother, Amy Neustein, in sixteen years, I remember her clearly. She claims the reason she repeatedly accused my father in the media of sexually abusing me was to gain custody rather than fame. Yet when she did have custody of me long before the legal battles began I remember her voluntarily sending me off to live with my grandmother in upstate New York, after which I rarely saw her.

I remember, on one of my rare visits to my mother’s house in Brooklyn, watching her softly stroking her hair with an antique silver brush as she gazed at herself in her bedroom mirror and wondered out loud whether she was pretty enough to be famous.

I remember my mother sitting with me on the plastic covered couch in my grandmother’s country home at age five as if it were yesterday. We had been rehearsing for hours. She would begin by telling me a sordid and false story about my father, such as a detailed account about how he had molested me or about how he had thrown me violently against a wall. She then instructed me to repeat the story word for word until she was satisfied with my rendition. At the time, my father had indicated he would be filing for custody. My mother warned that if I did not tell these lies to the judge, I would be taken from my grandmother.

After my mother lost legal custody, I visited her once a week. During these visits, my mother used to tape record me and pose me for pictures in order to gain material for her next media performance. I fought back in the only way I could. Once, I chased her around a table in an attempt to snatch her tape recorder.

For eighteen years (I am now 24); I was silent as my mother spun lie upon lie about my father and me. According to her story, she is the victim of a conspiracy involving my father, Brooklyn Family Court, federal and state appellate courts, the Legal Aid Society, the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Ohel family services, and several leaders of the Jewish community. These co-conspirators, my mother insists, punished her for revealing that my father had sexually abused me by taking me away from her.

The truth, however, is that my father never sexually abused me, and that reporters and alleged victims’ advocates who supported my mother chose to retell her lies without adequately checking the facts.

The reason my family and I did not seek media attention to counter my mother’s allegations is that we wished to maintain our privacy. My family believed that my mother’s publicity would fizzle out, and that it was best to avoid the media spotlight as much as possible so that I could live a normal life. But my mother has been relentless in her exploitation of me. Recently she embarked on another media tirade, and has published her false allegations in this paper and others.

The worst article I have yet to see this year contains my full name as well as photos of me as a child and as an adult, along with sickening and absurd lies about my father and me. Even if the allegations were true (which they are not), it is a widely accepted principle of journalistic responsibility and of everyday morality that it is wrong to invade the privacy of victims (alleged or actual) by publishing their full names and photographs. Kalu ‘chomer (how much more so) when the allegations are false. Such deceptive reporting is so damaging and hurtful that I feel I no longer have any choice but to break my silence.

I do not hate my mother; I see her as troubled. Nor do I seek revenge. I am only speaking out to stop her, and her supporters who profess to care about me, from continuing to exploit and torment me. With no other recourse, my mother has tried to counter my denial of her allegations by claiming that I am being brainwashed and used by my father and other alleged members of the so called conspiracy who “desperately fear public scrutiny and government inquiry”

Anyone who knows me well will vouch that I am independent minded and not the weak character my mother makes me out to be. The only parent who tried to brainwash me is my mother. The only people who are using me to advance their own careers are my mother and her allies. I vividly remember my mother sitting me on the couch at age five and coaching me to lie about my father. These are my memories and not anyone else’s.

I do not profess to know how typical my story is. I hope it is the exception and not the rule.

However, the research involving allegations of child sexual abuse in court custody cases indicates that false allegations can occur in anywhere from 2 percent to 60 percent of such cases, and so it is far from an exact science. In these instances the accuser can often be the most vocal, the most sympathetic, and thus the most believable: But sometimes the real victim is the accused.

And the one who pays the biggest price of all is the child. What I have learned from my case is that you can find “experts” to say anything, and that journalists are sometimes more interested in a good story and don’t want to be confused by the facts.

The damage caused by the irresponsible reporting and advocacy of my mother and her
supporters extends beyond my family. Not only have they stained the credibility of the victims’ rights movement they claim to speak for, but they have diverted attention from the true needs of children in the family court and child welfare systems by misrepresenting what I, and similar children, required. What I did not require, contrary to my mother’s claim, was for the family court to be opened to the media.

I, for one, owe my existence as a normal young adult to the family judges, Ohel foster care, and the Legal Aid Society attorney who helped me reunite with my father in the face of considerable opposition in the media.

Most of all, I am grateful to my father for the sacrifices he has made for me over the years.