Belz Tel Aviv Abuse Defendants
They called it Belzen-Bergen for its reign of terror of physical abuse, psychological abuse, and sexual abuse.
I rarely hesitate, but just this once, I will pass on the details reported in Yediot Achronot.
וּרְאִיתֶם אתו וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת כָּל מִצְות ה’ וַעֲשיתֶם אתָם וְלא תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם זנִים אַחֲרֵיהֶם
In a strange inversion of religious tradition, tzizit (ritual fringes), which are supposed to remind one of all the commandments are used by these jerks to cover their faces, to conceal and get others to forget all the rules of civicivilization they are accused of violating.
As always, the greater question is how could this go on for so long and hurt so many kids with no one noticing, with no one breaking into this torture chamber and shutting it down.
The answers, I suspect, include too much concern with enforcing authority and not enough with listening to children, too much concern for the reputation of adults, especially leaders, and not enough concern for the dignity and rights of children.
The defendant charged with both sexual and physical abuse is Avraham Mordechai Rosenfeld, age 49. The other defendants charged only with physical abuse are: Yisrael Haim Shapira, 65, Haim Fishgrond, 69, Moshe Hirsch, 39, Menachem Alberstein, 63, and Avraham Pinchas Deytsch, 53.
FRUM FOLLIES by Yerachmiel Lopin 
may they all rot in gehennom,
but that does not rehabilitate the kids.
Is this relatd to story 2-3 years ago in yerushalaym??
was made out to be efshar nutty parents,
perhaps two cult things not related??
c
is this the same chamula of several years ago
several parents of that area were actively posting on FM, frustrated, claiming cult abuse?
As far as I know there is no relationship. Nor did I ever see any convincing evidence of a cult based ring of pedophiles in that other case.
YL, referring back to your first comment, you used the word “cretins”. That indicates a real physical disorder which causes very low IQ.
You might be using cretin metaphorically,
but still it doesn’t work, as that term applies to sechel.
We are dealing with perverts here.
Cretin used loosely is evil, but in fact it is an endocrine disorder originating from the thyroid gland if I remember my 8th grade lecture.
Dumb is dumb, evil is evil, not to confuse the two,
please.
I changed cretins to “jerks.”
The picture above is striking. Using their tzitzis to hide their faces gives literal meaning to the idea of hiding behind one’s display of religious piety.
The whole indictment is sickening and it is heartbreaking for the children who were terrorized, tortured and abused.
In Israel it seems we have a new story everyday!
This is already old news we have a new story with a father of eleven in Jerusalem abusing his two daughters for years and no one spoke up!
The social worker did not tell the authorities to stop it!
What is going on!
How do you protect the kids?
Rav Yaakov Horowitz wanted to speak in Har Nof about the topic. He was stopped by convicted molester Weinstein who was afraid that Rav Horowitz would besmirch his name and warn people about him!
Yona Weinberg was quoted as saying that he was convicted of molesting “only” two children and should be forgiven and he is not a serial molester as people think!
There is too much cover up all across the board!
Thank goodness for your site and it is an oasis in the desert!
Weinberg attempted to stop him but the court did not accept his request and the speech went on.
“Yona Weinberg waws quoted as saying that that he was convicted of molesting “only” two childen and should be forgiven”???
OMG, In any situation 2 is 2 many, but his own daughters? He should face the worst possible eventuality, I tend to get too hawkish so i will not make suggestions,
HOWEVER, about 2 years ago a similar story, father Rabbi, two daughters, there was a gag order on the press, but i am almost certain that Nuchem named him, perhaps something like “price” ???
These stories go underground no follow up.
What happened to that menuval, could it possibly be this same one? Now, that is a ridiculous assumption, that only one charedi in E”Y” is capable of molesting his own daughters,
Whatever happened to the one 2 yrs ago,
why the gag order, i think that he was tightly connected to a chashuv “important” rabbi,
i love that “chashuv” phrase, it covers a multitude of sins.
Very frustrating that often we don’t hear the end of these cases, unless we individually dig very hard, and probably nothing.
“only two daughters”??? am i only one outraged at that statement?
I’ll post here a comment I posted on Facebook when I first saw the piece from Yediot:
The real news in this story is that former pupils of these men spoke to police; that’s what led to the indictments. How fully these complainants will follow through, and how the community will react to them — not just the Belzer Hasidim but the rest of the haredi leadership that rules in B’nei B’rak — remains to be seen. But until pretty recently these accusations would never even have surfaced. And all my experience with sex abuse cover-ups — as writer, as lawyer, as advocate — tells me that the breakdown of silence is irreversible. Once the unmentionable enters public discourse, it stays there. And some sort of healing, however belated, uneven and slow, is likely to begin.
Since I’m a religious Jew myself, I want to add my view that it’s a great mistake for well-meaning members of the Orthodox community to try to detach Orthodoxy from the discussion of child abuse, to insist that crimes like those alleged here have nothing to do with religion. It’s true that child abuse is found in every sort of society. But as I argue in my book, a religious culture in which abusers are protected, victims are silenced or punished, and even public references to crimes of abuse are systematically suppressed, has abusive elements bound up in the warp and woof of it. Does that invalidate everything about a religious tradition? Obviously not. But it does preclude any attempt to slice off long-running patterns of child abuse from a culture that is, in fact, inseparable from those patterns, that enabled them, that gave them shape, that guaranteed them a long life. Our job is to be ruthlessly honest about where our religion has failed — and then to cure every sickness we find. That’s how we MUST behave toward traditional Judaism, assuming we really care about it. If we act as apologists for an ideology that protects abusers (under whatever name), we’re morally no different from those who cover up the criminal acts themselves.
Look at that picture! Yes, that news image of the accused abusers literally hiding their faces in their tzitzith is classic. Let the rest of us in the religious community take it as a warning. Religion has no place where it conceals the truth — or blinds the believer. Those teachers used their religious garments to cover up themselves. Beware of similar gestures that cover up religion.
The details of this case are sickening. It wasn’t clear from the Yediot article, though, whether the Defendants other than Rosenfeld were arrested for participation or failure to stop or report Rosenfeld.