Faltering first steps

NEW YORK
New York Post

Posted: May 27, 2012

Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes, under increasing pressure over his office’s handling of child sexual-abuse cases involving the Orthodox Jewish community, has finally taken some positive steps.

Unfortunately, not all those steps are fully in the right direction.

Yes, he publicly warned that rabbis who insist on deciding whether abuse allegations should be reported to police now risk prosecution themselves.

That was aimed directly at Agudath Israel of America, a politically powerful Orthodox group that has demanded such rabbinical pre-clearance in certain cases.

According to The Jewish Week, Hynes informed the group “that it was a mistake to advise someone with information about child abuse to first speak with a rabbi.”

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