Alex S. Kaufman writes March 11, 2026: Today is a big day—a day that I’ve anticipated for decades. Following the settlement of the lawsuit that I filed in October 2021 against Akiva Roth, the predator who abused me as a child, and against the East Brunswick Jewish Center (EBJC) and its former pulpit rabbi, Chaim Rogoff, who covered for him, I am revealing my identity and telling my story publicly for the first time.
My name is not John Doe. It is Alex Kaufman. And I am a survivor of child sex abuse and a cover-up that spans the Jewish experience.
My settlement represents a milestone in the world of child sex abuse cases because it includes concrete and meaningful restorative steps that EBJC—my childhood synagogue in East Brunswick, New Jersey—agreed to take to make that institution safer for children. Schools, camps and houses of worship can reduce the likelihood that a predator will target or thrive in their community by implementing simple, but often non-obvious, protective measures.
