UNITED STATES
Jewish Exponent
NOVEMBER 12, 2014
By: Amy Neustein
Twelve years ago, attorney Michael Lesher and I wrote a column for this newspaper about the tendency of too many rabbinic leaders to ignore the reality of sexual abuse in order to keep up the facade of a faultless Jewish community. At that time, the Catholic Church was reeling from charges that its prelates protected child-molesting priests, covering up the truth and silencing victims. Since then, we opined that cover-ups were common across religions.
Now, we may be proven wrong. The recent arrest of Rabbi Barry Freundel of the Kesher Israel Congregation in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., for placing secret cameras in his mikvah while female converts were preparing for ritual purification, has forced the Rabbinical Council of America to set up a committee to re-examine the entire conversion process and suggest practical safeguards against possible abuses.
Among the advocates and sex abuse survivors I have spoken to in the past few weeks, there are those who see this move by the RCA as nothing more than a stratagem.
“They are hiding behind a committee now just as they hid the complaints of the converts in 2012 and 2013 from the synagogue,” exclaimed one abuse survivor who asked that her identity be protected.
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