UNITED STATES
Arizona Jewish Post
Posted June 11, 2015 / Deborah Rosenbloom, JTA
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When I read the article in The New York Times detailing the accusations against Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center, I was deeply saddened.
This is the synagogue and community where I grew up. My parents moved to Riverdale in the 1950s and are among the RJC’s founding members. Rosenblatt — like the synagogue’s four rabbis before him — played an important part in the life of my family. However, my focus is not the RJC or any one rabbi.
My concerns are with the institutions in which we place our trust — institutions that seem to ignore the simple fact that rabbis and teachers are human and subject to temptations and personal demons. We hold our leaders in high esteem, but our institutions fail to monitor them to ensure that their power is not being abused and that the esteem is merited.
Whispers, like those in Riverdale, have been present in dark corners of many communities over the years. Those whispers have been hushed by men and women who choose to protect the institution to the detriment of those it’s supposed to serve. This is what happened at Penn State, which ignored or mishandled numerous episodes over the years in which football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused children. Our leaders often demonstrate poor judgment, pretending that if they ignore the underlying problem or handle it quietly among themselves the behavior will stop and the problems disappear
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.