Baltimore Jewish Times editor Phil Jacobs writes:
A rabbi friend called me the other day to wish me a Happy New Year.
He then told me that he thought that I was being too critical of the Orthodox rabbis.
“They did sign that document,” he said, referring to the April 11, 2007 condemnation of child molestation.
I told him that since April 11, 2007, little or nothing has changed.
There are still children facing the dangers of life-changing acts of molestation. The use of drugs and alcohol seems to be on the rise, and the connection between molestation survivors and the need to abuse drugs is becoming more and more linked.
And here they are on the threshold of a new year, just saying words out of a Makzor. They are Millie Vanillie in black hats, just lip-synching their prayers, nothing more.
Why is that a rabbi can still live at our area yeshiva even though the college “leadership” knows that he is a concern? And they even know who his victims were. Happy New Year.
And why is that a young woman in Israel continues to speak publicly and urgently about the abuses of her father back here in Baltimore. Yet to discount her, they call her “crazy?” Who is crazy, the molester or the survivor?
Two women I know molested by a rabbi in this town are too afraid to use their names. This rabbi hires legal counsel for protection. Happy New Year.
