How A Respected Jewish Educator Preyed On Children For A Half-Century

PROVIDENCE (RI)
Forward

August 28, 2018

By Ari Feldman

By his own admission, Stanley S. Rosenfeld, a Jewish educator who worked primarily in New York City and Rhode Island, sexually abused “hundreds” of children — nearly all middle school-aged boys — during his five-decade career. From a beloved summer camp in New Jersey, to elite Orthodox schools in New York, to a small Conservative synagogue in Rhode Island, Rosenfeld assaulted and molested children with near impunity, charged with a crime exactly once.

Nearly all the people who knew him, including his victims, described him as friendly, pleasant and a good teacher. But his acts of sexual violence — ranging from genital groping to performing nonconsensual fellatio — marred the childhoods of people now between 30 and 76 years old.

The Jewish institutions that employed him are still reckoning with the aftermath.

So is Rosenfeld.

The Forward first published an article about Rosenfeld in July. At the time, it was not known whether he was still alive. The next day, this reporter located Rosenfeld living in a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island. He is 84 years old.

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