The Rooster Has Come Home to Roost and Oholei Torah Defends Against Allegations

In 2016 we covered the Newsweek story about the Ultra-Orthodox community and the sexual abuse allegations against a Rabbi at one of the more prestigious schools, Oholei Torah of Brooklyn. At the time, it did not get much coverage beyond Newsweek which ran a comprehensive piece on multiple allegations against the rabbi featured in the story and Oholei Torah.

It should come as no surprise, these stories are tricky to write and the circulation of them gets shut down fairly quickly.

In a lawsuit by an anonymous Plaintiff who had the courage to finally seek justice, a Motion to Dismiss has been filed by Defendant claiming, among other things, that there were insufficient facts pleaded and that Oholai Torah did not have a duty to the Plaintiff such that negligence can be found.

We leave it to the reader to decide for yourself if you could possibly come to the conclusion that the Defendant seeks in its pleadings, namely that a school cannot have a duty of care inferred upon it.

We hope that the judge does not allow the Defendant off this easily. But in Kings County one never knows.

More importantly we ask this: is it plausible to consider that this will be the defense strategy of every institution, religious or otherwise, faced with accusations of failure to provide a safe learning institution such that sexual abuse could occur on its premises?

And, if that is the defense strategy, perhaps parents need to consider this when choosing the institutes of learning for their children. Perhaps parents need to demand contracts get signed in the private school setting wherein the school is paid privately and by virtue of that payment has a duty of care to its students.

[EXCERPTED]

Child Abuse Allegations Plague the Hasidic Community

BY ELIJAH WOLFSON ON 03/03/16 AT 6:12 AM EST

“Twelve-year-old Ozer Simon hadn’t grown up Hasidic, but after his parents divorced, his mom became a baal teshuva, a secular Jew who has “returned” to religious ways, and enrolled him at a yeshiva. He immediately fell behind because the other kids had been studying Hebrew since they were toddlers, so when Rabbi Joseph Reizes, a new teacher recently arrived from Brooklyn, offered to tutor the child, his mother jumped at the opportunity.

But when she asked Simon how his first lesson went, she could tell “something was really wrong.” Simon told her the rabbi hadn’t taught him anything; instead, he’d asked the boy to lie down and take a nap. When he did, the older man lay down on top of him. The next school day, Simon’s mother went to Rabbi Avrohom Korf, principal of the boy’s school, and told him what had happened. “I said to him, ‘If Reizes continues to teach here, I’m going to go to the newspaper. Or whatever it takes,'” she recalls. “The next thing I know, the guy is gone.”“

…..

“When contacted by Newsweek, the child whose parents brought the complaint to the school in 1996 didn’t want to speak about it publicly, but other students from that class say Reizes long had a reputation for inappropriate behavior. Bibi Morozow, 31 years old and now living in Florida, says a relative was molested by Reizes while attending Oholei Torah in the 1990s. (When reached by Newsweek on the phone, the relative declined to be interviewed.) “Reizes was always touchy; he’d put kids in his lap,” says one student who asked to remain anonymous because he feared being shunned by his community.“

…..

“Oholei Torah conducts its seven-plus daily hours of religious lessons mostly in Yiddish. According to more than a dozen former students across three decades, it provides almost no lessons in science, math, English grammar or history. (The school did not respond to queries about its curriculum.) Many of these students go home to an apartment with no television, no Internet, no newspapers and no books except religious texts. Many will not gain the basic knowledge of how to navigate the world until they are married off around age 18, like how to write a check, how to order General Tso’s chicken or even what sex is. When you’re a child in this environment, you don’t question the fact that you can’t identify your own state on a map. And when you are molested, you don’t ask questions about that either.“

Whack-a-Mole and the Game of Following After Unregulated Yeshivas and Keeping Kids Safe from Sexual Abuse

Engaging with yeshivas on safeguarding is ‘like playing whack-a-mole’

Commissioner for Hackney tells Child Sexual Abuse inquiry of inability to enforce safeguarding for Charedi students and it being ‘impossible’ to map unregulated schools

 

The commissioner charged with engaging yeshivas on child safeguarding has said it is “like playing whack-a-mole” because they up sticks and move once detected.

Independent Child Safeguarding Commissioner of City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership Jim Gamble, a former senior policeman from Northern Ireland, made the comments under oath to public prosecutor Fiona Scolding.

Gamble, who has spent seven years trying to engage yeshivas, was giving evidence via Zoom at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday, with Orthodox Jewish leaders set to respond on Wednesday.

Posters Blaming Corona on Wigs Made from Non-Jewish Hair – School’s In Session in Ramat Beit Shemesh

Some of the students at a haredi boys school in Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, just west of Jerusalem, where classes are still being held, March 18, 2020. (Sam Sokol/JTA)

‘We’re not scared’: Some ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are ignoring virus rules

With several leading rabbis reluctant to comply with Health Ministry orders to shut down schools and yeshivas, many students believe they are not at risk from coronavirus pandemic

As I walked away, I noticed posters on the side of the building blaming the coronavirus pandemic on Orthodox women wearing wigs made from non-Jewish hair.

Dear Israel – Why in a Democracy Hit with a Pandemic are Rabbis Allowed to Dictate the Law? Close Yeshivas and Prosecute.

Highlights from Ha’Aretz in Israel – Covid-19 and Potential for Human Killing Machines…

To read the Ha’Aretz Article in its entirety, click here.

LIVE UPDATES:

■ 433 Israelis have so far tested positive for the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, with the vast majority of cases mild and 12 recoveries. Six patients are in serious condition. In the West Bank, 44 cases have been diagnosed so far, the majority of them in Bethlehem. Another 3,900 Palestinians have been placed in quarantine.

11:02 P.M. Chief rabbi says hospital synagogues will be closed amid difficulty to maintain social distancing

10:47 P.M. Nine Israeli soldiers contract COVID-19, over 5,000 placed in quarantine

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that nine soldiers have tested positive for the coronavirus, with 5,630 soldiers in mandatory service as well as career soldiers placed in quarantine.

Most of the confirmed patients in the army have returned from vacations abroad, with some of them coming into contact with people who were also diagnosed with the virus. (Yaniv Kubovich)

9:40 Prominent rabbi instructs to continue Torah studies in violation of Health Ministry directives

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the spiritual leader of the United Torah Judaism party, ordered the ultra-Orthodox community to continue Torah studies in Haredi educational institutions despite the new Health Ministry directives forbidding it. (Aaron Rabinowitz) 

2:43 P.M. Police investigating quarantine violations, fake news

The police have until now investigated 86 people for quarantine violations and 21 people suspected of spreading fake news. In addition, the police issued 21 closure orders to business that kept operating despite directives, including event venues and gym.

12:34 P.M. Virus can persist in air for hours, study finds

The highly contagious novel coronavirus that has exploded into a global pandemic can remain viable and infectious in droplets in the air for hours and on surfaces up to days, according to a new study that should offer guidance to help people avoid contracting the respiratory illness called COVID-19.

Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, attempted to mimic the virus deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects. (Reuters) Read the full report here

7:40 A.M. Health Ministry announces 90 new cases

427 Israelis have so far tested positive for the novel coronavirus, up 27 percent from the previous tally of 337 cases, as testing for the disease expands.

7:38 A.M. Police make arrests for violating public health orders

The Israel Police arrested tne [sic] suspects who held a wedding with 150 guests in a synagogue in Beit Shemesh, violating the prohibition on gatherings larger than 10. (Josh Breiner)

Torah Umesorah – Putting Children, The Elderly, the Compromised At Risk AND Knowingly – Stop Supporting Them!

Torah Umesorah: Yeshivos And Day Schools Should Remain Open Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic

NEW YORK (VINnews) — The Torah Umesorah Vaad Roshei Yeshiva has released the following statement:

 

We have been asked, in light of the pandemic spread of the terrible coronavirus, whether yeshivos and day schools should close down until the danger of infection has passed.

It is our opinion, at least as of now, and at least in cities or municipalities where public and private schools are not required to close, that yeshivos and day schools should remain open. The koach haTorah generated by tinokos shel bais rabban is inestimable, and is urgently needed in times like these.

The general consensus among health officials at this time appears to be that schools may remain open, as evidenced by the fact that most local health authorities have not at this point ordered the wholesale closing of schools, neither public schools nor private schools. We do not think that yeshivos and day schools need to hold themselves to a different standard than that determined appropriate for neighboring public or private schools.

To continue reading click here.

 

ADDITIONAL READING:

Torah Umesorah: Yeshivos And Day Schools Should Remain Open Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic

Dr. Stuart Ditchek and Agudath Yisroel – Heroic Move to Advocate Yeshiva Closures Amid Covid-19 –

This Orthodox Brooklyn doctor saw the truth about coronavirus weeks ago

On Wednesday evening last week, Dr. Stuart Ditchek convened an unprecedented meeting. At a synagogue in Midwood, Brooklyn, he gathered 170 rabbis, yeshiva principals and administrators (some streaming in via Zoom) to ask them to make a difficult, but necessary, decision: close their doors immediately to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

Ditchek, a pediatrician and an Orthodox Jew who is well known in South Brooklyn’s Orthodox communities, has been working at the grassroots level over the past weeks, trying to urge yeshivas and synagogues to help “flatten the curve” of new infections, giving hospitals more space and resources to treat patients with coronavirus and other serious illnesses.

At the meeting, Ditchek presented the evidence in a slide deck: The infection rate is high. Children under 10 are not dying, but they are transmitting the disease. Limiting interaction of all kinds, immediately, will make an enormous difference compared with waiting even a few days, given the exponential rate of new infections every day.

“It was well received by about half of the room,” Ditchek said in a phone interview Sunday morning, in between seeing patients and speaking to rabbis calling for his advice. “It was not so well received by the other half.”

As the coronavirus has spread across the United States, it hit the Orthodox community early and hard. A synagogue, Yeshiva University and several schools in suburban Westchester County were among the first institutions in the country to close their doors in response to the virus.

Yet the Orthodox community has grappled in recent days about whether to push for full-scale closures of schools and shuls across the country. Many organizations — some persuaded by Ditchek, working around the clock — have closed. On Sunday afternoon, Agudath Israel of America, the largest Orthodox umbrella organization, reversed itself and started urging communities to shutter their synagogues and schools. There are still some holdouts, however, and Ditchek hasn’t given up on them.

 

Couple Sues in Quebec, Canada to Compel Province to Ensure Children are Educated

From The Monte Scoop

Couple in Quebec Sue to Obtain for Others, What They Themselves Were Denied, an Education!

‘They aren’t seeking money. They want a declaratory judgment which, if they win, would force the province to take steps to ensure children who attend private religious schools are taught the provincial curriculum.

Yohanen Lowen, who first launched the legal action, alleges that, when he finished school at 18, he could barely add or subtract, couldn’t read and write in English or French and was left unequipped to find work outside his community.”

Hasidic couple’s lawsuit against Quebec could change what’s taught at religious schools