HALB’s Board of Directors Misled Parents About Their Investigation of Yoseph Ungar (Updated 8/31/22- 8:20pm) (see update at end of post)

Guest post by Ariella Kay of Zaakah

The Allegation

Parents expect schools to protect their children from molesters. So, imagine the shock and horror for parents of Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) when they learned that Rabbi Yoseph Ungar, HALB’s first grade boys teacher, was named in a lawsuit for allegedly molesting a six-year-old student. 

The former student, Daniel Weiss (who has chosen to disclose his real name rather than using a John Doe pseudonym), is suing HALB (and those who were board members at the time) for alleged negligence which resulted in Weiss being molested by Rabbi Ungar. 

The complaint reads:

In or around the Fall of 2002, plaintiff went into the closet in Ungar’s
classroom to get a book while the other students were outside for recess. While he was in the closet, plaintiff saw that there was candy and took some for himself. 

Ungar approached plaintiff from behind, questioned him about taking the candy, and then said something to the effect of “You have to do something to get the candy^.” Ungar then closed the closet door behind him and cajoled and otherwise required plaintiff to orally copulate him until Ungar ejaculated into Plaintiff’s mouth. Plaintiff spit the semen on the floor and began to cry.

Ungar proceeded to comfort Plaintiff and apologize, and promised to not do it again, as he wiped the semen off the floor. 

But according to the lawsuit it did happen again. In fact, it happened some twenty times. 

HALB’s Initial Communication to Parents

Within a week of being served in July 2021, HALB sent parents an email informing them:

• Of the allegation, 
• That they had placed Rabbi Ungar on administrative leave, and 
• That HALB was retaining the Morgan Lewis Firm as an “outside, independent counsel” to investigate the allegations.

HALB’s Unjustified Exoneration of Rabbi Ungar

Four months later, in November of 2021, the school sent another email letting people know the investigation found the allegations were “not substantiated” and Ungar would be returning to the classroom after Chanukah, and he did.

But there had never been an independent investigation. The investigation (whose flaws will be detailed shortly) was conducted by the very same law firm employed by HALB to defend itself against Daniel Weiss’ lawsuit. That was a blatant conflict of interest. Defense attorneys have a vested interest in refuting allegations and limiting a client’s financial exposure and reputational risk. It is not surprising that they also had a vested interest in whitewashing the allegations against Ungar.

Their letter said that the allegations were “unsubstantiated.” That is a weasel word; it avoids saying that either the charges were proven or disproven. That is not a surprising outcome for a shoddy investigation. For example, they did not reach out to their full alumni, especially alumni who were in Rabbi Ungar’s classes in the past. That is where you would expect to find other survivors of such abuse. 

There is a great deal more we don’t know about the so-called investigation because no report was shared with the parents. A properly conducted investigation would include a full report and best practice is for the report to detail the steps and the findings and to share it with the affected community. Only the identities of survivors and some witnesses would be redacted.

HALB Knew Better

HALB knew better because in 2018 they proudly reported on their Facebook page that they underwent safety training with Dr. Shira Berkovits, PhD and JD, Director of Sacred Spaces, one of the premier organizations in this area. The training covered how to properly report and handle cases of abuse, no matter how long ago they occurred. You can see the original post by clicking here :

Sacred Spaces provides Jewish institutions with the professional services necessary to develop robust policies and training to prevent opportunities for abuse and guide them responsibly should abuse occur. Their training materials are perfect for handling cases of abuse such as this one. 

HALB appears to have only followed some of Berkovits’s expertise while ignoring other parts. For example, independent investigations always must be concluded with the production of a report featuring the findings. Many institutions have done these, including clients of Morgan Lewis Firm. However, HALB has no such report to back up why they were bringing Yoseph Ungar back. We know this because the parents confirmed it. When parents asked the administration for a copy of the report, HALB wouldn’t provide a clear answer on whether it existed. 

HALB Intentionally Mislead Parents

As mentioned earlier the supposed independent investigation was conducted by the Morgan Lewis Firm. But as you can see here, on August 5, 2021 HALB’s attorney in Weiss v. Hebrew Academy of Long Beach lawsuit was also Morgan Lewis. 

It wasn’t just the same firm defending the school in court and exonerating Ungar to parents. It was the same attorney, Martha B. Stolley who appears on the legal docket and claimed the charges were “unsubstantiated.” 

Responses from Parents

Overall, HALB’s parents accepted the school’s decision to reinstate Ungar for several reasons, all based on fallacies.

1. They believed that the school had exercised proper due diligence in evaluating and then dismissing the allegation. Though as was pointed out, no such proper investigation was conducted.
2. Some people insisted Ungar “could never have done this” because they “knew him” personally from the community or from their and their children’s interactions with him in school. They did not realize and had not been educated to the fact that child molesters can be otherwise socially presentable or even downright nice people in their everyday interactions. Almost every child molester knows to molest in private rooms, or as alleged in this case, in a closet. 
3. They found the allegation so shocking, so outside their experience and thus discounted the allegation. Such allegations are shocking, particularly when they hit close to home. But the statistical fact is that most allegations are true, and it is false allegations that are exceptionally rare. Lawyers usually vet cases before they risk lost time and expenses since they work on contingency. So false allegations where a lawsuit is filed are even rarer.
4. Another fact lingered over this specific allegation. It was common knowledge in the community that when Daniel was a teenager he was convicted of theft. There was chatter in the parent body and the larger community which used this fact to claim that Daniel Weiss was dishonest and thus lying or perhaps that he was crazy. But this line of reasoning has several problems. For one, acting out as a teen can be the result of abuse rather than disproving abuse. Additionally, acting out as a teen does not mean one continues that path. Daniel Weiss is now a 26-year-old man, ten years removed from that theft and conviction. He is now a responsible adult. His very sense of responsibility to protect others from abuse is one of his motives for filing his lawsuit in spite of how excruciating it is to have to disclose the prurient details of his abuse.

The Plot Thickens When a Second Victim Comes Forward

We only know about the deficiency of outreach to alumni because independent of the HALB investigation, another alleged survivor of abuse by Ungar shared his story with Rabbi Yosef Blau, Senior Mashgiach Ruchani at YU’s Yitzchak Elchanan seminary. 

This happened after Ungar finished his HALB teaching year and was getting ready to take on a summer job at Camp Kaylie, which is operated by Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services.

No other rabbi in the Modern Orthodox world is as active in confronting the problem of child sexual abuse. For over 20 years he is the one who wrote the most about it, spoke about it the most, has the most contacts with others dealing with this problem. As such he is also someone who is in regular contact with survivors of abuse. Over the years he has spoken to hundreds of survivors, maybe even over a thousand. So, it is not that surprising that the second known alleged victim of Ungar ended up speaking to Rabbi Blau.

Rabbi Blau shared this information with Camp Kaylie through a private communication in June 2022. Camp Kaylie ignored the private communication and Ungar was still listed on their site as staff for the upcoming session. This is not that surprising for a camp run by Ohel which has a long history of covering up abuse and is now embroiled in a half a dozen lawsuits from alleged survivors of abuse at Ohel. 

Rabbi Blau had hoped to spare Camp Kaylie’s administrators from embarrassment and wanted to give them the opportunity to discreetly remove Ungar from working with children. But he attached even more importance to protecting children. So, he proceeded to issue the following public statement online:

The public release of the letter led Camp Kaylie to announce Ungar would not be working at Kaylie. So, the immediate risk to campers was averted. This was somewhat embarrassing for Kaylie, but they could claim that they relied on HALB’s initial report and could make believe they had responded promptly when notified by Rabbi Blau. Of course, the reality is that they only responded when Rabbi Blau’s letter went public. 

Rabbi Blau’s letter could not be ignored by HALB. HALB administrators are either graduates of, or current and former board members of Yeshiva University. HALB also produces a significant chunk of graduates who attend Yeshiva University and Stern College. Rabbi Blau is well known and respected by three generations of those graduates.

HALB administrators panicked. They sent the following email to parents on motzei Shabbat, June 25^th 2022, one day after Rabbi Blau’s letter to Kaylie went online.

How would they explain to parents that their “outside, independent counsel” failed to mention a second victim existing?

The short answer is because there was no investigation. If it was thorough and they would have followed Sacred Spaces protocols of conducting a broad canvass of alumni, John Doe victim #2 would have been included in the original findings.

HALB used their Sacred Spaces training as PR but didn’t follow through to use that training.  They ignored the Sacred Spaces’ Child Safety First Report which states: 

In hindsight everyone wonders how the institution could have neglected to protect the child, but the institution, which was waiting for clear signs of abuse and reluctant to report “mere indicators,” simply did not understand what it was seeing or the responsibility it had to report. Policies must be clear that if there is a reasonable suspicion of abuse, it should be reported to the authorities, and staff members should never be discouraged from filing a report — a policy that is law in 17 states.

While the alleged abuse in this case is being brought years later, once it was brought to the school’s attention, they should have remembered their training from 2018. They shouldn’t have lied to parents about the relationship between the administration and Morgan Lewis firm. They could have kept Martha Stolley as legal counsel while hiring another third party to investigate the allegations. Having Stolley act as legal counsel and Task Force creates a conflict of interest. Morgan Lewis has a financial incentive to clear their client. Therefore, they aren’t going to do as thorough of a job of investigating allegations. This was avoidable. 

Next Steps

Parents of HALB students: if you’re reading this, I believe it’s because you care about what’s going on and want to protect your children. Here is what you can do:

• Ask HALB to provide a basis for why they put Yoseph Ungar back into the classroom. You have a right to know. 
• If they have another investigation, demand the school provide everyone a full detailed report of what the team discovered. Leave no stone unturned.
• Talk about this case the next time you get together with other parents. You want to have as many outspoken parents about this as possible. Even the ones whose kids aren’t entering 1^st grade.

Going forward, the school should do the following:

• Terminate their relationship with Morgan Lewis as head of the task force.
• Make sure their future 3rd party investigator is truly independent
• All members of the current HALB school board should step down from their post. This includes Richard Hagler (former Executive Director) Lance Hirt (Chairman), Mitch Kirschner (co-President), Adrianne Mittan (Executive Director), and Nathaniel Rogoff (co-President)

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UPDATE- posted by Asher Lovy of Zaakah on FaceBook 8/31/22, 8:13 pm ET)

***HALB Must Commit to a Transparent Investigative Process***

Following an egregious display of bad faith in the last investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Rabbi Yossi Ungar, HALB must demonstrate its commitment to the safety of its students by publicly committing to releasing a full, unedited report of its current investigation into new allegations against Ungar.

At the beginning of this year we were contacted by someone who alleged that he had been abused as a child by Rabbi Yossi Ungar, currently a rebbi at HALB. By that time Ungar had already been named in a Child Victims Act lawsuit filed against HALB for alleged coverup of abuse allegedly committed by Ungar against the plaintiff of that suit. Since this second alleged victim had contacted us after the Child Victims Act window had closed, we put him in touch with Rabbi Yosef Blau hoping that he could be of assistance.

Rabbi Blau spoke to the second alleged victim and following their conversations wrote a public letter to Camp Kaylie, where Ungar was also employed at the time, alerting them to the allegations he’d received and vouching for the person making the allegation. This letter (copied below) was also made available to the administration of HALB. In response, Camp Kaylie immediately fired Rabbi Ungar. HALB for its part, rather than take any action against Ungar despite this second allegation, opened a second investigation into the allegations against him.

There had been an earlier sham investigation conducted by HALB in which the committee in charge of determining whether Ungar would be retained or fired had HALB’s own attorney of record conduct the investigation into the allegations. It should go without saying that an institution having the attorney representing them against allegations that they covered up abuse committed by the person they’re investigating is a clear and unconscionable conflict of interests. Nevertheless, that’s what HALB did.

Unsurprisingly that initial investigation failed to substantiate the allegation and Ungar was allowed to remain at HALB. No report was released by the school or their defense attorney explaining the reasoning behind their decision, what investigative methods were used, or what steps they took to reach their decision.

When the second investigation was announced we were therefore understandably concerned about the legitimacy of the process given the bad faith with which HALB had previously acted in the first investigation. At the request of the second alleged victim we reached out to the firm conducting the second investigation and asked, among other things, if HALB had committed to releasing a report detailing the results of this second investigation to ensure transparency in the process.

We were informed by the firm that HALB had privately committed to releasing a summary report. When we asked if they’d make that commitment in public and in writing we were told by the firm that HALB refused. Summary reports are not written by the investigators. They are written by the clients – the institution under investigation – and can include or exclude any detail they want to. They can also contain outright falsehoods with no consequence.

Given HALB’s clear acts of bad faith during the last investigation, the two allegations against Rabbi Ungar, and the lawsuit alleging coverup, we feel that in order to ensure transparency in this process and ensure that a proper investigation is conducted, HALB’s administration, and Executive Director Richard Hagler in particular in his capacity as chair of the task force charged with investigating these allegations, must commit publicly, in writing, to releasing the full report as written by the investigators. Anything short of that cannot guarantee transparency and legitimacy in this process, especially given the egregious bad faith shown by HALB up to this point.

We urge you as concerned parents to reach out to HALB’s administration and demand that they demonstrate a commitment to the safety of students and children in the community by committing publicly and in writing to releasing the full report as written by the investigators, without modification.