Abuse Scandal Plagues Hasidic Jews In Brooklyn

[August]

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
All Things Considered, February 2, 2009 ·

Joel Engelman and Joe Diangelo are driving through their old Brooklyn neighborhood. Williamsburg is a place from another time and country. The shop signs are in Hebrew. The men scurry by in long black coats; their hair hangs in corkscrew curls. Married women wear wigs to cover their heads.

Engelman and Diangelo haven't been here in years. They just met a few weeks ago, but as they begin swapping stories and the names of family members, they realize they have a lot in common. Both men are in their 20s, both were raised as strict Hasidic Jews, and both fled their upbringing for the same reason.

"Are you ready for this?" Engelman asks Diangelo, glancing at his friend in the back seat.

"Yeah," Diangelo says, his breath quickening. "Yeah, I'll do it, just a quick pass by."

Diangelo grows quiet as we approach a nondescript brownstone building: a synagogue.

"See the Hebrew sign?" he says, pointing. "You go downstairs, and that's where the mikvah is."

The mikvah is a bathhouse usually used by women for ritual cleansing. But in some Hasidic communities, like this one, fathers bring their young sons on Friday afternoons before Shabbat begins. Twenty-one years ago, when he was 7, Diangelo recalls going to the mikvah with his father to find the place packed with naked men and boys.

"And I was in the tub, and I had my back turned, and somebody raped me while I was in the water," he says. He takes a shaky breath. "And I didn't know what happened. I couldn't make sense of it, really."

Diangelo says he never saw the man who abused him. These days, monitors are posted by the bath to stop any sexual activity. But back then, the boy was on his own. He told no one but began refusing to go to the mikvah. He left Orthodox Judaism when he was 17. He changed his name from Joel Deutsch and cut almost all ties with his family and friends.

Now, Diangelo wears black leather and mascara. He plays in a rock band and takes refuge in the heavy-metal lyrics of Metallica.

"There are so many songs, you know. They have a latest song, which is called 'Broken, Beaten & Scarred,' and one of the verses is: 'They scratched me, they scraped me, they cut and raped me.' " He laughs wearily. "And that's my life right there. When I listen to it, it gives me strength."


Joel Engelman, about age 7

Allegations Of Abuse

For these two men, this is a tour through aching secrets and violent memories. Diangelo and Engelman are unusual because they let their names be used. But they believe that sexual abuse is woven throughout this Hasidic community.

For Engelman, the loss of innocence came at school.

"This is it, right here," he says.

Engelman parks his car across from the United Talmudical Academy, a hulking building on a desolate street. This was the yeshiva, or Jewish boys' school, that Engelman attended. Engelman says he was 8 years old, sitting in Hebrew class one day, when he was called to the principal's office. When he arrived, he says, Rabbi Avrohom Reichman told him to close the door.

"He motioned for me to get on his lap, and as soon as I got on the chair, he would swivel the chair from right to left, continuously," Engelman says. "Then he would start touching me while talking to me. He would start at my shoulders and work his way down to my genitals."

Engelman says this occurred twice a week for two months. He told no one for more than a decade. Reichman was, after all, a revered rabbi. Four years ago, he told his parents. And a year ago, when he heard that Reichman had allegedly abused several other boys, they confronted Reichman. When the school heard about it, they gave the rabbi a polygraph.

"He failed miserably," Engelman says. "So they told me, 'This guy is gone. This guy has to go.' "

But a few weeks later, a religious leader from the school approached Engelman's mother, Pearl. He posed an astonishing question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was the molestation?

She was speechless. Then she says, the man continued, " 'We found out there was no skin-to-skin contact, that it was through clothing.' So he's telling me, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, this was maybe a 2 or a 3, so what's the big fuss?' "

The school hired Reichman back. That was in July 2008 — one week after Joel Engelmen turned 23 and could no longer bring a criminal or civil case against the rabbi.

An Open Secret

Reichman and school officials declined to be interviewed for this story. But Rabbi David Niederman, who heads the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, says the school did its due diligence. He says the allegation was thoroughly investigated by an independent committee of lay people and rabbis.

"I'm convinced that they made a serious investigation," he says. "They felt that it's not credible."

Now Engelman has filed a long-shot civil suit against Reichman and the school, claiming they broke an oral contract.

Reichman's attorney, Jacob Laufer, says the lawsuit is baseless and that the community is fully behind the rabbi.

"Even after these accusations were publicly made," he says, "the parents continue to compete among themselves for the opportunity to have their children be educated by Rabbi Reichman."

The Reichman case is not isolated. Four ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn have been sued or arrested for abusing boys in the past three years. That's a tiny fraction of the actual abuse, says Hella Winston, author of Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels. She says that in researching her book, she encountered dozens of alleged victims who told her sexual abuse is an open secret in the Hasidic community. But the community is so insulated and the rabbis are so powerful that few dare to come forward.

"If I become known as an informer, then people also won't want to have anything to do with my family," she explains. "They won't want to marry my children, won't want to give me a job. This is the fear."

But more and more accusations against rabbis have begun to circulate. Last August, politician and radio talk show host Dov Hikind devoted an hour long program to sexual abuse. He interviewed Pearl Engelman, who spoke under an alias, about her son's case.

The calls flooded in. Hikind, who is an Orthodox Jew himself, represents this area in the New York Assembly. He says after the show, people started showing up at his office with their stories.

"Fifty, 60, 70 people," he says, "but you got to remember for each person who comes forward, God only knows how many people are not coming forward."

Ongoing Investigations

Hikind refuses to release the names of alleged perpetrators, although he is working with the district attorney's office. He says the people who confided in him are afraid to go public, which creates a perfect situation for abusers.

"If you're a pedophile, the best place for you to come to are some of the Jewish communities," he says. "Why? Because you can be a pedophile and no one's going to do anything. Even if they catch you, you'll get away with it."

"To me, it does not make sense," says Niederman, of the United Jewish Organizations, "that so many people have been violated and for so many years they have been quiet. Something does not add up. It's being blown out of proportion — big time."

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes says he has 10 active sexual abuse cases involving Orthodox Jews — including a school principal who was recently arrested on a lead from Hikind. And Hynes says there could be many more. Yeshivas are private schools, which means they don't have to report accusations of sexual abuse to civil authorities.

"I've got no way to know if there's a pattern of concealing the conduct," he says.

Hynes says the Jewish leaders — like Catholic bishops — try to handle these affairs internally, through a rabbinical court. It's a practice that infuriates him.

"You have no business taking these cases to religious tribunals," Hynes says. "They are either civil or criminal in nature. Or both. Your obligation is to bring these allegations to us and let us conduct the investigation."

Hynes says he's trying to work out a memorandum of understanding with the rabbis, in which they promise to bring the prosecutor every allegation of abuse.

Pearl Engelman is skeptical: The rabbis have hardly been forthcoming in her son's case. Still, she loves her community and worries these allegations have tarnished it.

"This is a community of the most wonderful people, hardworking people who lead righteous lives," she says. "And it's just a few corrupt people who give us a bad taint."

Her son Joel isn't so sure it's that few. Anyway, for him, any remedies come too late.

"Pretty much, I left my childhood here," he says. "After I left here, I had a totally different picture of school, religion and life."

But Engelman hopes that his story will shine a light on the secret and, perhaps, protect the next generation of children in this community.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=99913807

[BryanVP]

The jews have been practicing pedophilia, and homosexuality since before they even started writing the bible. All the stuff about hasidic jews being anti zionist is bullshit.

It's great though to see this on a more mainstream source than usual.

[Joe_J.]

These days, monitors are posted by the bath to stop any sexual activity.

That says a lot about these so called 'chosen' jewish filth.

[MikeTodd]

Who monitors the monitors?

[Joe_J.]

Originally Posted by MikeTodd

Who monitors the monitors?

Why, the Talmud, of course.

The Pharisees Endorsed Child Sex

The rabbis of the Talmud are notorious for their legal hairsplitting, and quibbling debates. But they share rare agreement about their right to molest three year old girls. In contrast to many hotly debated issues, hardly a hint of dissent rises against the prevailing opinion (expressed in many clear passages) that pedophilia is not only normal but scriptural as well! It’s as if the rabbis have found an exalted truth whose majesty silences debate.
Because the Talmudic authorities who sanction pedophilia are so renowned, and because pedophilia as “halakah” is so explicitly emphasized, not even the translators of the Soncino edition of the Talmud (1936) dared insert a footnote suggesting the slightest criticism. They only comment: “Marriage, of course, was then at a far earlier age than now.” 3
In fact, footnote 5 to Sanhedrin 60b rejects the right of a Talmudic rabbi to disagree with ben Yohai's endorsement of pedophilia: "How could they [the rabbis], contrary to the opinion of R. Simeon ben Yohai, which has scriptural support, forbid the marriage of the young proselyte?" 4

Out of Babylon

It was in Babylon after the exile under Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC that Judaism's leading sages probably began to indulge in pedophilia. Babylon was the staggeringly immoral capitol of the ancient world. For 1600 years, the world’s largest population of Jews flourished within it.
As an example of their evil, Babylonian priests said a man's religious duty included regular sex with temple prostitutes. Bestiality was widely tolerated. So Babylonians hardly cared whether a rabbi married a three year old girl.
But with expulsion of the Jews in the 11th century AD, mostly to western Christian lands, Gentile tolerance of Jewish pedophilia abruptly ended.
Still, a shocking contradiction lingers: If Jews want to revere the transcendent wisdom and moral guidance of the Pharisees and their Talmud, they must accept the right of their greatest ancient sages to violate children. To this hour, no synod of Judaism has repudiated their vile practice.

Sex with a “Minor” Permitted

What exactly did these sages say?
The Pharisees justified child rape by explaining that a boy of nine years was not a “man” (See, "Judaism and Homosexuality: A Marriage Made in Hell") Thus they exempted him from God’s Mosaic Law: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination” (Lev. 18:22) One passage in the Talmud gives permission for a woman who molested her young son to marry a high priest. It concludes, “All agree that the connection of a boy aged nine years and a day is a real connection; whilst that of one less than eight years is not." 5 Because a boy under 9 is sexually immature, he can't "throw guilt" on the active offender, morally or legally. 6
A woman could molest a young boy without questions of morality even being raised: "…the intercourse of a small boy is not regarded as a sexual act." 7 The Talmud also says, "A male aged nine years and a day who cohabits with his deceased brother's wife acquires her (as wife)." 8 Clearly, the Talmud teaches that a woman is permitted to marry and have sex with a nine year old boy.

http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/p...liasecret.html

LiveLeak.com - The Jewish Talmud - Recipe For Pedophilia and Murder

LiveLeak.com - The Jewish Talmud - Recipe For Pedophilia and Murder

[BryanVP]

This reminds me of an old story.

A rabbi, a troop leader, three boyscouts, and of course a pilot were in a single engine cesna plane. The pilot runs out and says "The engines out we're going down and I've only got three parashutes!"

The Troop Leader then asks the pilot, "What about the kids?" to which the Pilot replies loudly "FUCK THE KIDS"

Then the Rabbi asks, "Do we have the time?!?"

[August]

I'm just waiting for Child Protective Services and the state police to swoop in and confiscate their children like they would with any other group.

[Nate Richards]

Good for us.

[E. Moolnar]

This is just the tip of the iceberg, the orthodox community is quite secretive and what happens rarely reaches the outside especially in the Goym realm. Not just the sexual abuse of women and children but the physical and psychological abuse is also common.

But this to children, this wrong even if they are Jews they do not deserve this.

[Tulpar]

Originally Posted by E. Moolnar

But this to children, this wrong even if they are Jews they do not deserve this.

...Wait until those Judean grow up and do the same in return to Goyim children.

[Elizabeth Fragale]

Kikes are nothing but perverts. They pervert race, sex, nature, and everything that would otherwise seem beautiful. Whether they do this consciously or not, I don't know. But they need to be stopped, they cannot even maintain loyalty with eachother.

[The Bobster]

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...nce_on_-1.html

Abuse comes to light: Hasidim silence on perverts cracking
BY Alison Gendar and Simone Weichselbaum
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU

Saturday, February 28th 2009, 10:13 PM

Just before last Thanksgiving, a 13-year-old Brooklyn girl told her parents she had been molested. They didn't go to police.

Her dad went straight to their rabbi.

The religious leader told him to go to another rabbi for guidance. The frantic couple spoke to two more rabbis before taking their advice: Talk to cops.

"I wanted to find the right way to go about this without traumatizing my daughter any further," the 32-year-old mom told the Daily News.

"I knew if I called the police, they would ask us to come down to the precinct. It would become public knowledge and my daughter would have to retell the story over and over again."

The family met privately with a detective and a prosecutor, and authorities charged a 59-year-old neighbor, Arye Ickovits, with sexually abusing the young teen after luring her into his bedroom.

As crimes go, the Dec. 3 arrest was so run-of-the mill, it barely made headlines. But until recently, it might not have happened at all.

Sexual abuse in New York's Hasidic community was almost never reported to police for fear of shaming the victim and exposing the insular world's less savory elements.

Advocates say that wall of silence is starting to crumble.

"They are coming to terms, standing up and saying, 'No more sweeping the abuse under the rug; no more denial. We need to deal with it, to face it, and to protect our children,'" said Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn).

Since October, at least four men living in Brooklyn's Hasidic enclaves have been charged with sexually abusing children, ranging in age from 7 to 15.

"In the past few months, communication between the community and law enforcement has improved, there is more sharing of information," said a law enforcement source who works with the Brooklyn Jewish community.

One of Orthodox Judaism's biggest political champions, Hikind is hosting a forum today where mental health experts and rabbinical leaders will openly address the problem.

The purpose is "to say to victims of sexual abuse, 'We are sorry we didn't see your pain,'" Hikind said.

Even with recent progress, investigators say it is tough to navigate the closed culture.

Just as the "stop snitching" mantra hides crimes in the hip-hop world, a similar code of silence keeps Hasidic families from talking to cops.

They fear being branded a moser - a violator of religious law that forbids Jews from informing on each other.

"If the family goes to the police, the family is worried that they can't send their kids to yeshivas, they worry that they can't marry off their daughters, they worry that they will be known as traitors," said one police source.

"The only way to stop it, is to stop people that offend, and that is to go through the criminal justice system," the source said.

During a recent interview with The News, Ickovits said he asked the teen to help him up the stairs of his home, where he did nothing wrong.

"She helped me. She came in, and I told her goodbye and she ran away," said Ickovits, who uses a walker. "She gave me a kiss and I gave her a kiss and she ran home."

Ickovits also said he handed the girl cash in exchange for helping him up the stairs.

Some in the community have said it was cruel to lock up Ickovits, a stroke survivor in frail health, but the victim's mom has ignored them.

"Everybody has a responsibility to come forward and speak up when they know that a child is being hurt," the mother said.

[The Bobster]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_c...s_court_o.html

Daughter of Orthodox rabbi tells court of father's sexual abuse
BY Scott Shifrel
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, March 3rd 2009, 12:03 AM


Rabbi Israel Weingarten listens as his daughter testifies during his federal trial for allegedly sexually abusing her starting when she was 9.


The 27-year-old daughter of an Orthodox rabbi tearfully described in Brooklyn Federal Court the day 18 years ago when her father began sexually abusing her.

"I felt alone, scared, confused," the woman said as her gray-bearded father sat on the other side of the cavernous courtroom shaking his head.

She said her mother was heating chicken soup and the family was gathering in the kitchen when her father, Israel Weingarten, called the girl to a bedroom and assaulted her.

She said she felt "confusion, deafening silence" after the initial incident, which she says was followed by years of abuse.

Wearing a bright orange scarf and a pants suit, the woman said music, books and long dresses were forbidden in the home and the tight-knit community she has now left.

Weingarten, defending himself against charges that he brought his eldest daughter between homes in Belgium and New York for sex, wore the traditional black leggings and long jacket of a Satmar as he gave a rambling and bizarre opening statement.

"I'm not used to talk to people like you," he said in heavily accented English. He praised his daughter, but said she changed after an alleged affair with a neighbor.

And he repeatedly tried to show that religious Jews are not that different, once even parting his jacket and exposing leggings he said are similar to those worn by George Washington.

"You see these pants, it remind you of something?" he said holding his jacket open during what was surely one of the strangest sights seen in a federal courtroom. "I'm not that much different when it comes to our forefathers ... the only thing is, we didn't want to change."

The testimony continues Tuesday, to be followed by Weingarten's eldest son and his ex-wife.

[The Bobster]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_c...er_claims.html

Rabbi Israel Weingarten's daughter claims mother was sexual abuser in trial
BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, March 9th 2009, 9:33 PM


Rabbi Israel Weingarten cross examines his daughter Chaneh, during his molestation trial on Monday in Brooklyn.


A federal judge refused Monday to allow a rabbi charged with molesting his daughter to turn the courtroom into the "Jerry Springer" show.

The defendant, Israel Weingarten, who is acting as his own attorney, called two grown daughters Monday to testify that it was their mother who was the child molester, not him.

When Weingarten said he planned to call three more children, ages 13 to 18, to take the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court, the judge had enough.

"Your 13-year-old son is going to testify about sexual abuse by your wife?" Judge John Gleeson asked.

Weingarten replied that the boy would testify to physical abuse by his mother.

"I'm not going to permit it," Gleeson snapped.

Earlier the judge had allowed Weingarten's daughters Chayeh, 23, and Chaneh, 20, to testify that their mother had sexually abused their older sister, who claims she was repeatedly sodomized by her father starting in 1990 when she was 9 and continuing until she was 18.

Chayeh Weingarten testified her mother had sexually abused the victim and that she was warned by the victim that the Mafia would get her if she came forward.

The defendant is charged with transporting his daughter across international borders for the purpose of committing sexual crimes against her.

In her closing argument, prosecutor Rachel Nash asked the jury to consider the humiliation and embarrassment the victim endured by speaking publicly of the abuse.

The rabbi and his wife are divorced and he has claimed that she fabricated the abuse allegations as part of the bitter breakup.

[spoon!]

Kikes are usually the biggest spreaders of filth as well as being the worst kind of filth themselves! On the plus side, German research indicates that kikes make a good alternative energy source!

[The Bobster]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_c...uilty_of_.html

Rabbi Israel Weingarten found guilty of molesting daughter
BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, March 11th 2009, 9:21 PM


Rabbi Israel Weingarten


A Hasidic rabbi who defended himself against charges of molesting his daughter over a seven-year period was convicted on all counts Wednesday by a jury in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The victim, now 27, was escorted into the courtroom by U.S. marshals for the verdict, and sat in the front row opposite six siblings, ages 13 to 23, who support their father Israel Weingarten.

Showing no emotion after he was found guilty of transporting the victim to Belgium, Israel and New York to commit sex crimes against her, Weingarten complained to the judge that he did not have time to prepare for the trial.

Weingarten faces up to 50 years in prison when he's sentenced by Judge John Gleeson on April 3.

The victim dresses in modern clothes, wears makeup and has left the Satmar sect. She agreed to speak to reporters and was asked how she felt being cross-examined on the witness stand by her father.

"Like being molested again," she said. "He thought he still had power over me. I think it was cruel to do that to me."

"I wish he wasn't my father."

The victim was adamant about being in the courtroom for the verdict. "I've been waiting my whole life for this," she said. "I didn't think the day would come when there would be justice, and I had to see it with my own eyes."

The mother and a brother of the victim testified on her behalf, with the mother saying she caught the pair in bed once and the brother saying their father had brainwashed them. They were not in court Wednesday, but the other six of Weingarten's children lashed out at the victim, their mother and the government.

"My sister? I didn't look at her. She's not even human," said Yakev Weingarten, 18.

Another sibling, Chayeh, who testified that her mother molested the victim, said they will hire a lawyer to appeal the conviction.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell called the verdict "an important vindication for victims who have the courage not only to survive the ordeal of sexual abuse, but to come forward despite outside pressure."

[The Bobster]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_c...nced_to_3.html

Hasidic rabbi Israel Weingarten, convicted of daughter's sex molest, sentenced to 30 years
BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, May 9th 2009, 4:00 AM

Remorseless to the end, a Hasidic rabbi convicted of molesting his daughter was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison.

Israel Weingarten, 59, represented himself against charges that he molested his daughter beginning in 1990 when she was 9 until she reached the age of 18.

Federal Judge John Gleeson said the rabbi chose to defend himself in order to cross-examine the victim in an attempt to control her again. "You seemed to enjoy yourself in a perverse sort of way," Gleeson said. "It's hard to make a crime like this worse, but you did." The judge said he will never forget the victim, now 27, begging him from the witness stand to order Weingarten never to speak her name again. "If I live to 100, that's an image I will take to my grave," Gleeson said.

[Dale VanderMeer]

Don't forget these freaks:

Jewish homo pedophiles:

[podblanc]play18516[/podblanc]

and

YouTube - Pedophile Rabbi David Kaye RAW VIDEO

YouTube - Pedophile Rabbi David Kaye RAW VIDEO