Haredi Serial Sexual Abuser, After 11 Years of Abuse is Finally Charged – Israel

CHARGES FILED AGAINST HAREDI MAN WHO SYSTEMATICALLY ABUSED CHILDREN OVER 11 YEARS

Posted on October 14, 2018

After years of abusing young boys and girls in Bnai Brak, Modi’in Elit and Jerusalem, a 32-year-old Kollel student has been charged for his crimes, according to the ‘Bchedri Charedim’ news site. The case was built on various types of evidence, including security footage, DNA tests, and the testimony of witnesses and victims, as well as confessions by the suspect to several of the accusations. He also confessed to additional crimes other than those mentioned in the indictment, but no further evidence has been found to corroborate those events.

The investigation began after an attack on an eight-year-old girl in Bnei Brak around last Purim. After the attack, the girl told her parents, and her father tracked down security footage of the suspect, who was taken in for questioning. However, as it was impossible to identify the suspect conclusively from the tape, he was released after giving a DNA sample and fingerprints. It can take months for DNA kits to be tested at the police lab, but when the sample was finally checked, it matched two other open abuse cases: the sexual abuse of a five-year-old boy in April 2007 and abuse of a six-year-old girl in May 2014. In July 2017, the suspect was brought in for further questioning, where he confessed to three more crimes. However, evidence was found for only two of the incidents; one in Modi’in Elit in September 2007 and one in Bnei Brak in May 2014.

Two weeks later, Tel Aviv District Attorney Sarit Aronov filed an indictment against the accused for three of the allegations. She also requested that the man be kept in custody until the end of the proceedings, on the grounds that he continued to pose a danger to the public because he operated systematically and, according to his own testimony, continued to abuse children even after seeking treatment.

The incident in April 2007 took place in Jerusalem. A five-year-old boy went outside to play on a Shabbat afternoon. The suspect caught the boy in the stairwell of his apartment building where he abused the boy and left behind DNA evidence. He warned the boy not to tell anyone about what had happened and disappeared from the scene. The boy’s parents filed charges and the boy gave police a detailed description of the suspect.

Five months later, the suspect abused a six-year-old girl in Modi’in Elit. The girl was playing outside of her apartment building when the suspect found her and led her to the building’s storage units, where he savagely abused her. Again, the girl’s parents filed a complaint with the police. The mother told officers that the suspect had returned to the building several days after the attack with a flimsy cover story at which point the girl identified the man to her parents. Her father then followed the suspect and was able to identify him as M from Bnei Brak. The police then followed up with a member of the local “Tznius police”, who was able to confirm the suspect’s identity and told police he had sent the man to seek treatment. The suspect confirmed that he had been ordered by one of the city’s Rabbis to seek treatment at the “Shalom Banechah” organization and to write an apology letter to the victim.

In May 2014, the suspect attacked a seven-year-old girl in Bnei Brak. The girl was walking home when the suspect saw her and began to follow her. The girl went up to her third-floor apartment to find the house empty. She walked down the stairs, where the suspect waiting for her. He asked her name, told her that she smelled nice and inquired about the shampoo that she used. He then took her behind the building and abused her, and told her not to tell anyone before fleeing. The girl’s mother told investigators that she had seen the man leaving the building. The father successfully identified the man, confronted him, and told him to seek treatment. The suspect said that he then approached a Rabbi in the city who ordered him to start drug therapy, which was confirmed by medical documents. When the case reached police years later, the Rabbi gave testimony which was crucial to the indictment.

Four days later, the man abused another six-year-old girl outside her apartment building, after which he dressed her and gave her a one shekel coin as a reparation. DNA taken from the girl’s clothes confirmed the man’s identity, and her parents told investigators that the girl had told them immediately about the attack, and had shown them the coin.

The last attack took place in 2018. A girl and her younger sister were waiting for their mother at the entrance to their building when the man approached the older sister and told her she was sweet. He then began abusing her, but she cried loudly and resisted being undressed. When the man heard the girl’s mother coming down the stairs, he told the girl he was sorry and ran away. The mother found security footage of the man, from which her daughters were able to identify him. A family member of the suspect also confirmed his identity from the footage and told investigators that he had indeed been in Bnei Brak at the time of the attack. The suspect also confessed to the last allegations.

YAFFED, Haredim, Education, The Rights of the Children to an Education?

Haredi Communities and the Right to Education

To our readers: We are publishing this on behalf of one of our contributors. We have not edited, except to change the spacing to work within this format. We have not published the entire Abstract but ask that you support the author, read and review.

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Test of Faith: Haredi Communities and the Right to Education

Shmuel Levin*

*Honours Thesis to Monash University, Wellington Rd, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia

ABSTRACT

Ultra-orthodox Jewish (‘Haredi’) communities shun any outside influence or external
media and maintain traditional customs, dress codes, and strict gender roles. These
communities also believe that mainstream education threatens their traditional values
and therefore provide little to no education for their children. This article explores
whether Haredi communities in the USA should be permitted to deny their children
an education. It argues that international law recognizes the rights of both parents and
children, and accordingly does not permit parents to deny completely their children’s
rights. However, the US Supreme Court has not recognized that children have a right
to education and the USA has failed to ratify major international instruments which
protect the rights of children. Accordingly, in the USA, parents are permitted to deny
their children an education unless the state can demonstrate that it has a compelling
interest of its own for intervening. As such, the right of Haredi children to an education
remains insufficiently protected.

I. INTRODUCTION: HAREDI COMMUNITIES AND EDUCATION

1. Haredi Communities

Haredi Jewish communities emerged in response to the Enlightenment in Europe to-
wards the end of the 18th century. As European Jews were no longer forced to live in ghettos and permitted to join mainstream society, many began to adapt to the society around them. In response, ‘an extremely conservative, anti-secular, isolationist expression of Judaism’ emerged (Weiss). This Haredi community consisted primarily
of two groups: the Hasidic community – ‘a pietist movement that spread through
the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe during the eighteenth century’ – and the
Misnagdic opposition who believed that Hasidism was a corruption of traditional
Judaism (Weiss; Jochnowitz, 1968).

Following the rise of communism in the Soviet Union and the Holocaust, large
numbers of Haredi Jews fled Eastern Europe to other parts of the world
(Wertheimer, 2014). The largest Haredi communities can be found in New York
and in Israel, and there are smaller communities in other countries including Australia, Canada, the UK, France, and Russia. In New York alone, there was an esti-
mated 336,000 Haredi Jews in 2011. Haredi populations also have high birth rates, VC

The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

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Article

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Yeshiva Camp and Alcohol Use – A Community Ignoring a Problem and a Rabbi Taking Action

Dear Reader:

We are publishing this Letter to the Editor of Yeshiva World News because we think it is information that needs attention. We do not know if the writer of the letter reads our site, nor was it sent to us by him. He does state that he sent it to several publications that took no interest in his concerns; something we find both reprehensible and endemic of the society in which this problem is being ignored.

This problem cannot go away if it is not actively and openly discussed and addressed. We commend the author’s courage.

LM

The Alcohol-Drinking At Yeshiva Camps Is Out of Control And Being Ignored

Dear YWN readership.

I regret saying this, but my letter was sent to 4 Jewish publications before the summer, and unfortunately, it was ignored. I have since updated it to reflect new information (from as recent as last night), and humbly request it be published for the sake of saving lives.

Parents sending their boys to summer camps in the Catskills may think their boys are safe, but they aren’t.

No, I am not referring to pedophilia. That problem has Boruch Hashem been dealt with by organizations such as Amudim and the Gedolim behind them who devote their lives to helping the victims.

The topic I want to address is alcohol-drinking in camps. But not just any camps. I am referring to the elite “yeshiva / learning” camps. I have decided to leave the names of these camps out and hope that this letter alone will hopefully awaken the masses.

Please don’t start telling me that this is a minor percentage, because it’s not. This is a roaring problem that is largely being ignored and not being taken seriously by the people running these camps. I humbly question why the Roshei Yeshiva of these boys allow them to go to any of these camps as it’s no secret regarding the alcohol consumption at these camps. In fact, I have had many conversations with leading Roshei Yeshiva about this, and they just shrug their shoulders.

Just last night a bunch of these camps joined together to go to a well known amusement park. The day was capped off with a concert and a band with singing and dancing. I don’t think your readership needs to see the footage of the drunk boys staggering all over the place, so I’ll hold that for round two – If immediate action isn’t taken.

What are these camp owners waiting for? Do we need a few boys to die of alcohol poisoning before people boycott these camps? Why is the “zero tolerance for a smartphone” enforced but the drinking epidemic being ignored?

I should add (not that it makes any difference) that I am not referring to drinking beer. I am talking about bottles of hard liquor that the boys have stashed away.

I am demanding that the camps take action before I and others like myself take appropriate action to ensure the problem is dealt with another way. We will make sure your camps are (legally) exposed and blacklisted by every single family in America.

Thank you for publishing my letter, and I am sorry for being so harsh, but the reality demands this.

Have a wonderful and safe summer.

Yeshaya Dovid Braunstein – Lakewood

Rabbi Menachem Chinn, Charged With Sexual Assault of a Child

A Jewish teacher and youth group director is being held in central New Jersey for the alleged sexual assault of a 12-year-old boy.

Rabbi Menachem Chinn was arrested April 18 and charged with assaulting the boy at the teacher’s home in Marlboro in 2012. A judge ordered that Chinn remain in custody following an April 26 detention hearing held in Mercer County Superior Court.

Chinn is a teacher at Shalom Torah Academy in Morganville, New Jersey, and director of the Twin Rivers chapter of the National Council of Synagogue Youth, the New Jersey Jewish News reported.

Chinn is charged with one count each of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

NCSY, the youth movement affiliated with the Orthodox Union, immediately placed Chinn on leave pending the results of the investigation, NJJN reported. In a statement, NCSY wrote that it was “shocked” to learn of the arrest.

“The safety and well-being of NCSY participants is the organization’s utmost priority at all times,” according to the statement.

Parents of youth group members were notified of his arrest, an OU spokesperson told NJJN, and an interim adviser was to be appointed in his place.

Read more: http://forward.com/fast-forward/370657/new-jersey-rabbi-charged-with-sexual-assault-of-12-year-old-boy/

 

A School for Special Needs Children and a Rabbi without a Conscience – Indefensible

Rabbi Osher Eisemann, 60, of Lakewood, pleaded not guilty in Superior Court in Middlesex County to charges including theft, money laundering, corporate misconduct and misuses of government funds. Authorities say Eisemann used public tuition fund for his school, the School For Children with Hidden Intelligence, for personal use. (Alex Napoliello | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2017/04/lakewood_rabbi_pleads_not_guilty_to_stealing_publi.html

Lakewood rabbi pleads not guilty to stealing public funds from special needs school

Alex Napoliello | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

NEW BRUNSWICK — A Lakewood rabbi who runs a school for children with developmental disabilities pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of stealing public funds for personal use.

Osher Eisemann, 60, the founder and director of the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence in Lakewood, is accused of using a private fundraising nonprofit for the school to launder $630,000 in public tuition funds.

He was indicted last month on charges including theft, money laundering, corporate misconduct and misuses of government funds.

Eisemann, through his attorney, pleaded not guilty to all charges before Superior Court Judge Benjamin Bucca in Middlesex County.

Deputy Attorney General Anthony Robinson told Bucca the state has offered a plea deal that would require a prison sentence of five years in exchange for Eisemann admitting to a second-degree charge of theft by unlawful taking. As part of the plea deal, Eisemann would also pay restitution, Robinson said.

Eisemann, of Lakewood, faces up to 15 years in state prison on the charges.

An attorney representing Eisemann, Lee Vartan, declined to comment after the brief court hearing. However, Vartan maintained his client’s innocence in a previous statement given to NJ Advance Media.

“Rabbi Eisemann has never taken any SCHI funds for his personal use, and we strongly deny that there was any ill intent in the use of SCHI funds,” Vartan said in the statement. “We look forward to the complete exoneration of both SCHI and Rabbi Eisemann in this investigation.”

In Lakewood, new scrutiny on ‘business as usual’ | Di Ionno

Schools, zoning, poverty rate pose questions about town powers

SCHI receives $1.8 million a month in public tuition from the Lakewood School District to teach students with special needs. Authorities said Eisemann took $430,000 of that money for a personal business venture, the clothing company TAZ Apparel, LLC.

Authorities said Eisemann also laundered an additional $200,000 of the funds in a scheme “intended to make it appear that he was repaying debts he owed to the school using personal funds.”

SCHI officials previously called the attorney general’s investigation “baseless” and said the school has a long history of providing a “superior level of services to meet the unique needs of severely-disabled, medically fragile, and socially-emotionally challenged children and youth adults.”

An attorney representing SCHI, Robert Rabinowitz, declined to comment after Monday’s arraignment.

Attorney General spokesman Peter Aseltine said the arraignment was held in Middlesex County because three of the districts that send children to SCHI are in the county: Highland Park, Edison and Monroe.

Eisemann is scheduled to be back in court on June 12.

Velvel Butman, Shmuel Butman – Father Protecting Son? Defrocked and Deadbeat

Jewish leader’s son is a ‘deadbeat dad’ who refuses to pay child support

Originally Published in the NYPost April 2, 2010

The son of the head of the city’s powerful Chabad Jewish organization is an unemployed deadbeat dad who refuses to give his wife a divorce or pay child support, court papers reveal.

Velvel Butman — whose father, Shmuel Butman, lights the giant menorah in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza, Times Square each year during Hanukkah — has been battling the court, and his own community, since he first refused to give his long-suffering wife a divorce five years ago, documents and sources say.

Velvel, a 49-year-old dad of eight, once worked for his father as an emissary of the Hasidic movement in Westchester County.

But Velvel was booted as a rabbi after a rabbinic court of Chabad Lubavitch ordered him to give his wife a Jewish divorce, called a get, and he refused.

“He strongly believes that a rabbi’s not supposed to get divorced. Yet he’s no longer technically a rabbi because he’s been defrocked,” said a rabbi who feared reprisal if his name were published.

A Brooklyn judge last week held Velvel in contempt for failing since 2013 to pay child support for his children. Six of them still live with his estranged wife, Rachel, who treks from their home in Crown Heights to her job at a day-care facility in Westchester to pay the bills.

Velvel has been on the hook for $2,000 a month in child support for the past four years but has paid only the first two months, court documents show.

Yet instead of working, he has been gallivanting to Israel and Uzbekistan, allegedly telling the court at one point, “I would have needed to get permission from a rabbinic panel if someone of my stature should be seen [working] in a Starbucks.’’

His father, Shmuel Butman, 73, heads New York’s Chabad Lubavitch.

The judge said Velvel has 60 days to pay $78,400 or he’ll be thrown in jail.

His wife is so desperate to be free of him that she even offered to forgive the child-support debt if he would just sign the divorce papers, sources said.

“[Velvel] has publicly stated that he would rather sit in jail than give his wife the money, and would rather sit in jail than give his wife the get,’’ a rabbinical source said.

Velvel lives with his 73-year-old dad.

“[Shmuel] is supporting his son financially, while his son claims that, given his father’s status, it is below his dignity to work here or there,” the source said.

But Rabbi Butman insisted on Sunday that his son has done no wrong.

“I’m his father, and he’s going to pay,” Shmuel Butman said, though he declined to say whether he would be footing the bill.

Velvel did not return a message. His lawyer declined comment.

Rachel Butman’s lawyer, Joel Yacoob, also declined to comment.

For More Information from the NYPost click here.

No CVA and $2.1M to Silence Allegations… Protecting Child Molesters

 

Report: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish School Promised $2.1 Million To Quiet Allegations It Protected A Child Molester

http://gothamist.com/2016/10/24/yeshiva_sexual_abuse_settlement.php

A prominent ultra-Orthodox Jewish school has reached secret settlements worth $2.1 million with two former students who accused their teacher of molesting them, the New York Post reports. The students were two of several who have accused the man, Rabbi Joel “Yehuda” Kolko, of sexually abusing them, dating back to the 1970s. Experts the tabloid consulted said that this is the first known settlement to come out of child molestation cases in the city’s Haredi Jewish enclaves.

The settlements came to light because the school, Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Kensington, allegedly failed to pay $1 million of the total promised, leading the alleged victims to sue.

The accusers’ lawsuits claimed that the yeshiva has received credible allegations that Kolko was molesting students going back 25 years, but allowed him to retain his role as an elementary school teacher and failed to report the allegations to the police. Rabbis at the school investigated claims of Kolko’s abuse in 1985 and found him innocent, according to a decision obtained by the blog Failed Messiah. In addition to five who sued, at least four other alleged victims have come forward since 2005, The Jewish Week reported, but their cases were beyond the statute of limitations for bringing civil or criminal suits. A lawyer for victims told New York magazine that as many as 20 people had contacted him saying Kolko had abused them.

Former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes reached a sweetheart plea deal with Kolko in 2012 related to the accusations of two alleged victims. The deal allowed Kolko to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment and avoid jail time. Hynes’s office claimed that the parents wouldn’t allow the boys to testify, but the parents said that was a lie, and that they were shocked by the deal.

Hynes’s office also dismissed claims of witness tampering by the yeshiva and its supporters, including threatening phone calls the father of an alleged victim said traced back to the school, and a lawyer for the school allegedly contacting the victim’s therapist and asking the therapist to pressure the family. The lawyer denied the claim, which the therapist memorialized in a sworn affidavit.

The settlements are a positive step for victims in ultra-Orthodox communities, where going to the secular authorities with claims against fellow Jews can be considered sinful, according to one authority on the subject.

“If word gets out, other schools will think twice if they hear about abuse,” Rabbi Yosef Blau, spiritual adviser to Yeshiva University and victim rights advocate, told the Post.

Victims seeking recourse in the criminal justice system currently must do so before the age of 23, or 21 if implicating an institution, according to New York’s statute of limitations. A bill currently before the state legislature seeks to extend the statute.

To read the article in its entirety click, here.