Conservative Jewry has #MeToo moment as decades-old sexual abuse surfaces

NEW YORK (NY)
The Times of Israel

December 19, 2017

By Cathryn J. Prince

After an internal investigation, the movement cuts ties with its longtime youth head. But a leading child advocate says it shouldn’t take one person’s courage to change a system

NEW YORK — An anonymous November 9 Facebook post cracked a dam of silence surrounding a decades-long child sex scandal as allegations of abuse began trickling forth from the dozens of alleged victims of Jules Gutin, the longtime and much lauded director of the Conservative movement’s youth movement.

Earlier this week the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) severed ties with Gutin, 67, after an internal investigation substantiated an allegation of child sexual abuse dating back 33 years.

For many former USY members, the airing of the abuse allegations is a moment of reckoning that is late in coming — and not entirely…