NEW YORK
Washington Post
By Lauren Markoe| Religion News Service,
Updated: Tuesday, December 11
The world’s largest group of Orthodox rabbis is lauding the process that led to the conviction of a Hasidic Jewish man on Monday (Dec. 10) on sexual abuse charges, and called on all segments of the Jewish community to cooperate with police in such cases.
“The RCA strongly advocates, as a matter of Jewish law, the reporting of reasonable suspicions of child abuse to the civil authorities and full cooperation with the criminal justice system,” reads a statement from the Rabbinical Council of America, which represents more than 1,000 rabbis in 14 countries.
The RCA is generally dissociated from Hasidic Jewish communities — fervently religious groups that follow the teachings of particular rabbis in almost all aspects of daily life. Hasidic Jews distinguish themselves by their Old World clothes, and they typically have little interaction with outsiders.
Concentrated in Israel and Brooklyn, Hasidic communities such as the Satmars, to which the convicted man belongs, have frustrated police with their unwillingness to work with civil authorities on sexual abuse cases. They have invoked Jewish law to justify their insistence that the community alone handle such matters.
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