Faits en 2016 : La vidéo constatant ces actes a été tournée et est visible aux USA
Undercover video of Hasidic
principal handling boy prompts sex abuse probe
BY URIEL HEILMAN MAY
3, 2016 5:25 PM
A screenshot from an 11-minute video showing an older
man handling a young boy.
NEW YORK (JTA) – The story is an all-too-familiar horror
tale: An adult in a position of power – in this case a Hasidic school principal
– is accused of sexually abusing a child in his care.
But one thing
makes this episode very different: The encounter was captured on a hidden
camera and posted online this week for all to see.
Difficult to
watch, the 11-minute clip offers a rare glimpse of what an incident of
this sort actually looks like rather than as it may be refracted through
memory days, weeks or years later in court, in the media or in the privacy
of a therapy session.
The video, which
is now being probed by police, was first widely circulated Saturday night on
the messaging service WhatsApp and later posted on Facebook in an abridged form
before being removed by administrators. It shows an older, bearded Hasidic man taking
his seat in a small office and then pulling a young boy with peyos sidecurls
between his legs.
Over the course of
several minutes, the bespectacled man wearing a black hat caresses the boy,
jerks him back and forth, and appears to kiss him repeatedly and rub against
him. At one point the boy tries to escape the man’s clutches but is grabbed
back. Both remain fully clothed throughout the encounter. A volume of
Deuteronomy, a book of Psalms and other religious tomes lie on the nearby desk.
Filmed from an
overhead camera without audio, the video shows neither the man’s nor the boy’s
unobstructed faces. The boy, who has a closely shaved head under his black
velvet yarmulke, looks to be anywhere from 5 to 9 years old.
Activists say the
man is a principal at the main yeshiva in Kiryas
Joel, a Satmar
village located within the Town of Monroe in New York’s Orange County. The K-12
yeshiva, United Talmudical Academy, has some 6,000 students, according to
school resource websites. A message left by JTA with administrators at the
school on Tuesday was not returned.
State police are
investigating the incident, according to the Journal
News, the local
paper that first reported the incident.
Christopher Borek,
the chief assistant district attorney for Orange County, said his office had
received a copy of the video but declined to say whether or not the incident is
under investigation.
“I can tell you
that in general our office treats all allegations of sexual abuse of children
as extremely serious,” Borek told JTA, noting that a designated unit handles
such allegations. “We never comment on investigations even to confirm if the
investigation is ongoing or not unless or until charges are filed.”
The encounter at
the Kiryas Joel yeshiva allegedly took place before last Yom Kippur and was
filmed by someone who planted the hidden camera because he believed kids at the
yeshiva were being subjected to inappropriate behavior.
Boorey Deutsch, an
activist against sexual abuse in the haredi Orthodox community who shared the
video on Facebook, said the person who made the video – whom Deutsch declined
to identify — decided to go public with it because local authorities in Kiryas
Joel who were shown the recording declined to take any action.
After posting a
36-second clip from the video, which got some 27,000 views before being removed
by Facebook, Deutsch was inundated with comments by supporters as well
as those who questioned whether the video indeed shows any sexual abuse.
Skeptics said it could be an innocent encounter between an administrator
showing affection for a student who required either special attention or discipline.
Deutsch vehemently
disagrees.
“Some people said:
‘That’s how he showed love and dedication to the children for many years.’ But
you do not show dedication and love to a child by kissing him in the face and
pulling him into your body. This is inappropriate,” Deutsch told JTA. “There are
still thousands of kids under his hands. He can do it again because nobody is
taking action — again. It’s our job to stand up. If nobody else will stand up,
I will stand up. I will make it happen.”
Deutsch, who grew
up in the Satmar neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is a well-known figure
in the Hasidic community. His wife was the person who, beginning at age 12, was
sexually abused for three years by Nechemya
Weberman, an
unlicensed Satmar therapist. Weberman was convicted in 2012 on 59 counts of
sexual abuse, including oral sex, and sentenced to 103 years in prison.
Throughout the trial and after the verdict, Weberman’s supporters decried
Deutsch’s wife as a “slut” and made her and Deutsch the targets of vitriolic
attacks.
Deutsch said many
haredi Orthodox boys who are subjected to encounters like the one portrayed in
the video only realize their inappropriateness years later, if at all.
“Some people are
still in the box and they don’t want to say it’s sexual,” he said.
Nuchem
Rosenberg, an
outspoken Hasidic advocate against sexual abuse who operates a hotline for the
Hasidic community, says he has fielded 20-30 phone calls in the last few days
from women in Kiryas Joel yeshiva worried about their children attending the yeshiva
where the incident allegedly took place.
“When they saw
this video, they are totally under shock,” said Rosenberg, who in 2012 was
attacked with bleach by a Hasidic assailant angered by Rosenberg’s activism.
“These women said, ‘Is this where we are sending our children to learn and get
holy and learn the word of God?’”
Naftuli Moster, an
advocate for state
intervention in haredi schools to compel them to offer state-mandated,
grade-appropriate English and math, also has been caught up in the firestorm
over the video. He was interviewed by a local TV station about the video, and
was involved beforehand in discussions about how to release it publicly.
Even for those who
argue that this is not a case of sexual abuse, it’s impossible to say the
school administrator’s behavior is in any way acceptable, Moster told JTA.
“There’s
definitely a certain type of abuse taking place. He’s definitely doing
something wrong. Maybe decades ago people used to do this in small yeshiva
settings and thought it was OK,” Moster said. “But he’s pinning this kid
between his legs. He’s holding him by the neck at one point. He seems to be
kissing him. The kid is visibly scared.
“Whatever it is,
it’s just wrong,” Moster said. “He has to go.”
AUGUST
31, 2010
Suffering
In Silence: Child Sexual Abuse In Kiryas Joel
Shlomo Weiss grew up in Kiryas Joel, a
rural Orthodox-Jewish town, and says that he was sexually abused starting at
the age of 7, adding that the abuse was regularly covered up by others in the
close-knit community.
(08/31/10) KIRYAS JOEL - Shlomo Weiss grew up in Kiryas Joel, a
rural Orthodox-Jewish town, and says that he was sexually abused starting at
the age of 7, adding that the abuse was regularly covered up by others in the
close-knit community.
Now 36 years old and living in Brooklyn, Weiss says that in a horrifying twist, his abuser was the one man who should've been protecting him -- his father.
It would be nine long years before Weiss would seek help, revealing his secret to his school teachers and to the head rabbi at the Nitra Yeshiva in Mount Kisco, where he was studying.
Instead of calling police, however, Weiss says he was sent to study in Europe and then pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 19. Meanwhile, Weiss' father remained free, working as a school bus driver.
Weiss recently visited the Westchester campus of his yeshiva to demand answers. His former teacher admitted to remembering his story, but said their community is resistant to outside involvement when handling sex abuse cases.
"For them, it's easier not to acknowledge a problem exists," Weiss says.
Advocates say Weiss' story is much more common than people might think.
"I don't think there's any community on Earth that has this percentage of people victimized," says Ben Hirsch, of Survivors for Justice.
Hirsch's Manhattan-based group is dedicated to helping ultra-Orthodox Jewish victims of sexual abuse. Hirsch believes there are thousands of them, yet their cases seldom end up in court because a rabbi's permission is needed to call police.
Over the past 30 years, there has been only one Hassidic man from Kiryas Joel who was convicted of a sex crime. Most pedophiles, however, are simply expelled out of the community, Hirsch says.
However, Ari Felberman, the public relations director for Kiryas Joel, denies all allegations of covering up sexual abuse cases.
Now 36 years old and living in Brooklyn, Weiss says that in a horrifying twist, his abuser was the one man who should've been protecting him -- his father.
It would be nine long years before Weiss would seek help, revealing his secret to his school teachers and to the head rabbi at the Nitra Yeshiva in Mount Kisco, where he was studying.
Instead of calling police, however, Weiss says he was sent to study in Europe and then pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 19. Meanwhile, Weiss' father remained free, working as a school bus driver.
Weiss recently visited the Westchester campus of his yeshiva to demand answers. His former teacher admitted to remembering his story, but said their community is resistant to outside involvement when handling sex abuse cases.
"For them, it's easier not to acknowledge a problem exists," Weiss says.
Advocates say Weiss' story is much more common than people might think.
"I don't think there's any community on Earth that has this percentage of people victimized," says Ben Hirsch, of Survivors for Justice.
Hirsch's Manhattan-based group is dedicated to helping ultra-Orthodox Jewish victims of sexual abuse. Hirsch believes there are thousands of them, yet their cases seldom end up in court because a rabbi's permission is needed to call police.
Over the past 30 years, there has been only one Hassidic man from Kiryas Joel who was convicted of a sex crime. Most pedophiles, however, are simply expelled out of the community, Hirsch says.
However, Ari Felberman, the public relations director for Kiryas Joel, denies all allegations of covering up sexual abuse cases.
Following his
interview with News 12, Weiss confronted his father about the alleged abuse, to
which Joseph Weiss responded with silence and stormed away. Still, Shlomo Weiss
says the experience has left him a changed man. He hopes it will encourage
other victims to speak up.
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