Meir Pogrow, the justly-condemned sexual predator, is my older brother. He is roughly nine years my senior. I share my story because I hope to launch a movement that will raise from the ashes of this tragedy a new hope for all victims of child abuse — whether or not the specific abuse is a crime in a given jurisdiction, or whether the victim is a minor or a young adult vulnerable to abuse by a perpetrator who holds a position of authority.
I identify with my brother’s victims, because I was — perhaps — his first. He first abused me approximately 30 years ago, in my boyhood years. My brother did not attack me sexually. Rather, over a period of roughly 10 years, he subjected me to severe physical, verbal and emotional abuse. He is short, but he was strong. He would lift me above his head, my whole body parallel to the floor, just let go, and walk away as I crashed to the floor.
I was 17 the last time my brother physically abused me. I had finally grown strong enough to defend myself. He chased me and tried to hit me, but I deflected him. When I thought he had quit trying to hurt me, I dropped my guard. He then stared me in the eyes with a gruesome expression. My arms were at my sides when he punched me, breaking my nose and giving me a concussion. The next day he told me — gleefully — that he broke my nose intentionally. He also explained that I deserved it, because I did not spend enough time studying Torah during my time off from yeshiva.
In my journey of recovery from my brother’s abuses, what has been most difficult to overcome is not the impact of the physical pain — what is most enduring is the psychological trauma and manipulation that he used in order to groom me for the physical pain.
It is this psychological torment that he inflicted that makes me identify so strongly with his later victims. Numerous victims of his torment have spoken out on Facebook. I suspect that it was on me that he first exercised those psychological abuses.
My brother’s carnage is massive, and it spans multiple continents, but it is tragically far from the only carnage. Abuse by faculty in the yeshiva school system has occurred for decades; yet today there remains no system-wide enforceable plan to protect children. Far too many administrators are enablers — at a minimum due to failures to act on complaints brought to their attention — in many of the crimes committed by faculty in yeshivas across the globe.
My brother taught at YULA, a Los Angeles yeshiva, in the 1990s. On Facebook, in a comment replying to a post about my brother, one YULA alumna stated, “But I clearly remember discussing him with other staff members and no one taking us seriously.”
In a separate comment, that same alumna wrote, “I do clearly remember discussing my discomfort about him to another teacher, possibly the principal after a discussion that he instigated about masturbation.”
The YULA administration should issue a public statement to either discredit this former student’s version of events, or confirm that it dismissed Meir immediately after they verified her complaints, and that it did everything in its power to ensure my brother was never allowed in a classroom again.
After leaving YULA, Meir joined the faculty at Michlalah, a school for young women in Israel.
Numerous Michlalah alumnae I met during my time as a student at Queens College in New York told me that my brother was verbally abusive, and that he fostered a cult-like mentality. His groupies were known as “Pogs.”
My brother was not the only perpetrator of abuses I experienced as a child. I was a victim of severe physical and emotional abuse in Yeshiva Bais Mikroh in Monsey, at the hands of Rabbi Gavriel Bodenheimer, among others. Bodenheimer and other faculty abused me — and many other children — more than two decades ago, as fellow faculty and my schoolmates looked on. Bodenheimer has since pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child. He is also subject to the typical restrictions imposed on sex offenders.
How could Bodenheimer have remained principal at Bais Mikroh until 2015?
I believe that on a per-capita basis, the magnitude of the cover-ups of sexual, physical, emotional and verbal abuses in the yeshiva system is on par with that of the Catholic Church.
A prominent rabbi and educator living in Beit Shemesh has been accused of misusing his authority and position for his sexual gratification.
An ad hoc rabbinical court of senior rabbis in Israel and the US issued a warning instructing women to avoid all contact with Rabbi Meir Pogrow, the founder of a website and study program called Master Torah, designed to aid the study of religious texts and retain the knowledge acquired.
According to the Master Torah website, Pogrow has rabbinical ordination from several authorities, including from the Chief Rabbinate, and is qualified as a rabbinical judge.
He has taught at Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles, the Michlala seminary in Jerusalem, and was head of the Kollel (program for married yeshiva students) of Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem and Austin, Texas.
Following the publication of the rabbinical court ruling, Tamara Schoor, Pogrow’s former student, welcomed the decision but said the ruling had been “a long-time coming” and that the rabbinical court “should have addressed this a long time ago, but better late than never.”
Schoor told the press she met Pogrow at the age of 15 when “the process of grooming and manipulation began.”
She was introduced by a camp counselor who had been in contact with Pogrow while she was at Michlala, and was told the rabbi would be able to help her regarding questions about Judaism and religious faith.
Schoor would meet with Pogrow in New York at his mother’s house and he built up a mentor relationship with her over several years.
When Schoor came to Israel to study at Michlala at the age of 18, she made contact with Pogrow again, and would often meet with him at his home in Beit Shemesh, where she was also a frequent guest for Shabbat.
“Over the course of my year of religious study in Israel, he carefully broke down my personal boundaries, creating a high level of dependence and isolation, ensuring I was fully reliant on him for spiritual guidance, love and support,” she said. “Alone in a foreign country, he became my mentor, role model and family. A brilliant manipulator, he was able to convince me that his sole intention was to care for and empower me and my every action.”
Schoor said it took years for her to recognize and accept the insidious mind games, betrayal of trust and carefully orchestrated destruction of her innocence.
“It was only when I became aware of the existence of other victims that I was determined to take action and prevent additional abuse. I began a campaign of phone calls and emails, reaching out to anyone I could identify in the hopes of finding additional victims to speak out with and a safe and reliable method of publicizing it anonymously.
“But at every turn a door closed: victims afraid to be exposed, rabbis finding excuses not to address it, organizations lying to protect themselves and much more.”