NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press
Written by
Kathleen Hopkins
@Khopkinsapp
LAKEWOOD — The choice before a deeply religious father was one he never wanted to make.
His son had been molested by a fellow Orthodox Jew, and the local rabbis to whom he reported the abuse did nothing to remove the offender from his positions as camp counselor and schoolteacher.
The father had to choose: He could follow Orthodox tradition and allow the local rabbis to continue to handle the matter, or he could go to the police.
The father went to the police. Now the molester, Yosef Kolko, is headed to state prison.
But some in the community saw the father as the offender for involving the secular authorities in an Orthodox matter. He was ostracized from his community in Lakewood, where he was a respected rabbi, Ocean County prosecutors said. He resigned from his job at Lakewood’s prestigious rabbinical college and moved his family to the Midwest.
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