FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel
By Sergio Carmona
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Child sexual abuse survivors, rabbis and mental health professionals all repeated this duel message as they recently addressed a crowd of 400 Orthodox Jews at Aventura Chabad — “The Orthodox Jewish community will no longer sweep abuse under the rug and survivors who step forward will be embraced.”
The event was organized by Jewish Community Watch, an organization based in New York committed to raising awareness and preventing child sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community. The organization wanted to further its goal of educating parents, preventing child sexual abuse, assisting survivors and breaking the silence and shame that surrounds CSA in the Orthodox Jewish community at the event, which was emceed by reporter Rosh Lowe. The event included survivors of abuse who bravely broke their silence and shared their story publicly.
During the event Rabbi Elchonon Tauber, a rabbinical judge from Los Angeles, insisted to the crowd that someone who knows of abuse and doesn’t report it to the police is in violation of Jewish law. He also urged the audience to view child sex abuse as they would any other crime.
“If you saw someone poisoning the food in a Cheder (religious elementary school), you wouldn’t ask your rabbi his opinion on whether or not they should be reported. You would go straight to the police. Do the same thing with abuse! If you know of an individual who is harming children, go directly to the police,” Tauber urged the audience.
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