"Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor."

Abusers must be reported. It is a “hilul hashem,” a moral desecration, of God’s name and of the Ten Commandments, for a Jewish individual not to report suspicions of abuse or immoral and illegal behavior.

MY PERSONAL THANKS TO THESE WHO SPEAK OUT, EVEN AT THEIR OWN PERIL (OFTEN MALIGNED AND SLANDERED) - AND TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT ABUSE OF ANY KIND IN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY:

JEWISH WOMEN INTERNATIONAL (I am proud to be affiliated with this organization)

THE UNORTHODOX JEW

JEWISH SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ABUSE

THE AWARENESS CENTER

JSAFE

AGUNAH INTERNATIONAL

CANADIAN AWARENESS OF ABUSE IN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

When Scandal Hits Home
By Gary Rosenblatt
Hadassah Magazine

Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16).

How does a Jewish journalist respond when his personal preference to protect, if not praise, the Jewish community conflicts with his professional instinct to pursue a major investigative story? Thirty years into my newspaper career, I was confronted with that dilemma most profoundly when, in early 2000, I learned that a prominent Orthodox rabbinical youth leader was alleged to have been abusing teens in his charge for some three decades. The complaints were not new, but they had gone nowhere over the years as rabbis and other officials of the leading youth organization dismissed, challenged or ignored them. As I began speaking to former victims-more than two dozen over a period of several months-I became increasingly convinced that it was my job, as a Jew and a journalist, to expose the situation.

Seeking rabbinic guidance, I called a prominent rabbi who is an expert in the area of lashon hara, or speaking negatively about another person, a biblical prohibition that poses a serious impediment to a journalist seeking to balance the profession with halakha, or Jewish law. The rabbi's advice was satisfying personally and professionally, renewing my faith in the wisdom of our sages.

He explained that the key factor in such matters is to protect the innocent from harm. If there was any way I could make certain that the rabbi I was investigating would be removed from all contact with potential victims without publishing the article, I should do so, so as not to embarrass him publicly. If, on the other hand, I was certain that the only way he would be removed from his post was through exposure, then I was not only permitted to publish but commanded to do so, the scholar told me.

In the ensuing weeks, I became even more certain that no meaningful changes would be made by the organization in question unless the situation became public knowledge. In June 2000, my lengthy expose was published; the next day the rabbi was forced to resign. The organization where he had worked established a blue-ribbon panel to review the situation and its subsequent report was far more detailed and damaging then mine. This past June the rabbi was found guilty by a New Jersey jury of sexually abusing two teenage girls in the mid-1990's-he was their principal at a yeshiva at the time-and he was due to be sentenced in early last month, facing as much as 20 years in jail.

End of story? Many in the community would hope so, but unfortunately, in some ways, the story is just beginning.

No segment of our society is immune from cases of abuse. The question is how it deals with them-by protecting the innocents or the accused? Anyone who has followed the horrors of the Catholic Church's scandal and the case of the rabbi must recognize that while the scope of the problem of clergy abuse in the Catholic and Jewish communities is vastly different -and this point cannot be overemphasized - the fact remains that the institutional mindset in dealing with the crisis has been remarkably similar. Both the Church and the rabbinic and Jewish lay leaders involved covered up the facts, sympathized with the accused, rejected the accusers, took corrective measures only under pressure, and lashed out at the press as the source of the problem.

Yes, improvements are now being made in the Jewish community to give parents greater involvement in youth groups and make both counselors and youngsters more aware of the potential problems of abuse. But no system has been put in place that would significantly ease the stigma of coming forward to charge an abuser or to deal with such perpetrators centrally and authoritatively if and when allegations are made. And no one has fully assessed the role of our Jewish newspapers in dealing with painful communal problems-when to hold back, when to go forward.

What is encouraging is that rabbinic scholars over the centuries have had much to say about these matters and their good judgment speaks to us today.

But are we listening?

Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of The Jewish Week of New York.