Ultra-Orthodox Jews Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse

Abuse victims and their families have been expelled from religious schools and synagogues, shunned by fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews and targeted for harassment intended to destroy their businesses. Some victims’ families have been offered money, ostensibly to help pay for therapy for the victims, but also to stop pursuing charges, victims and victims’ advocates said.

“Try living for one day with all the pain I am living with,” Mr. Jungreis, spent and distraught, said recently outside his new apartment on Williamsburg’s outskirts. “Did anybody in the Hasidic community in these two years, in Borough Park, in Flatbush, ever come up and look my son in the eye and tell him a good word? Did anybody take the courage to show him mercy in the street?”

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Posted in * Culture-Watch, Children, Education, Ethics / Moral Theology, Law & Legal Issues, Marriage & Family, Religion & Culture, Sexuality, Theology

One comment on “Ultra-Orthodox Jews Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse

  1. Pageantmaster Ù† says:

    [blockquote]“They are more afraid of the outside world than the deviants within their own community,” Dr. Heilman said. “The deviants threaten individuals here or there, but the outside world threatens everyone and the entire structure of their world.”[/blockquote]
    How is that any different from bishops and a church that refuses to hold its Presiding Bishop to account for knowingly enabling an abuser of children to be placed with access to a Nevada church’s young people and choristers?