ISRAEL
Haaretz

Yair Ettinger Aug 08, 2016

The multiplicity of investigations and indictments against sex offenders in recent weeks, primarily involving the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community, has spurred Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, David Lau, to take the unusual step of speaking out on the issue.

Lau issued a call to Haredi parents and educators to take seriously any stories of sexual assaults of children and to increase awareness of and vocal opposition to any such incidents.

“It is absolutely forbidden to sweep these things under the rug and to evade dealing with these difficult phenomena which, if they are not stopped, could cause numerous other souls to be hurt,” Lau wrote, in a letter to a conference of Haredi teachers.

The letter was written during an especially turbulent time, during which every few days a new horrifying story has emerged or an indictment filed on suspicion of sex crimes against…