UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast
The New York Times’ reports on child molestation are just the tip of iceberg, reports Steven I. Weiss.
If a community can’t protect its children, what value is that community to anyone in it?
That’s the question New York’s ultra-Orthodox community has yet to answer after decades of stories about how its insular practices and suspicion of outside authorities have placed its members, and especially its children, at risk.
Take circumcision. At least two babies have died in the past decade, and several more have faced severe health consequences, because they were infected with herpes simplex during a rare and controversial part of the ritual used by a very few ultra-Orthodox mohels in which the mohel places his mouth directly on the wound and sucks it, according to New York City health authorities. My 2006 investigation showed that the New York State Health Department stepped in to give the practice a green light despite conducting almost no research or discussion into the matter, but after receiving guidance from Hasidic leaders.
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