WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
Lawsuit filed in Georgetown rabbi case; synagogue severs relations with leader
By Peter Hermann December 2 at 2:35 PM
A lawsuit filed Tuesday against a Georgetown synagogue and others accuses the sanctuary’sauthorities of covering up a series of unusual practices of an influential rabbi, which the suit says allowed his alleged secret recordings of women in a ritual bath to go unchecked.
The lawsuit was filed by a student at Georgetown University Law School, who accuses the rabbi, 62-year-old Barry Freundel, of luring her to the bath as part of her studies at the school. Among the unusual practices performed by the suit alleges, were the use of practice dunks before the bath, known as a mikvah, and encouraging non-Jews, unmarried women and students to use the bath as part of their studies– rituals that run counter to accepted Jewish practices.
Also named in the suit are the National Capital Mikvah, where the baths took place, and Georgetown University Law School, where Freundel taught.
Filed in D.C. Superior Court, the lawsuit seeks class-action status and identifies the plaintiff only as a third year law student. “This case involves an unfathomable breach of trust by a Georgetown professor and religious leader and defendants’ utter failure to prevent and/or stop it,” Baltimore attorney Steven D. Silverman wrote in the lawsuit. He wrote later, “Defendants’ turned a blind eye to obvious signs to Freundel’s increasingly bizarre behavior, ignoring the bright red flags that Freundel was acting inappropriately with women subjected to his authority.”
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