Whitewashing the Meisels Seminaries and Their Principals

Daniel Eidensohn indulged in another selective leak on April Fools Day to claim all is well in the seminaries. This is part of his continuing effort in partnership with Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz to undo the harm to the seminaries’ reputation from the earlier Chicago Special Beis Din (CBD) rulings that Elimelech Meisels sexually assaulted students at seminaries he owned, and worse, that other staff ignored open flirtation, obvious grooming, late night solo excursions with students, and even complaints by parents of sexual assaults.

The Special Beis Din of Chicago (CBD) made a mistake when they agreed to join an enlarged Beis Din (rabbinical court) together with the Israeli Beis Din and added on a seventh dayan (judge), Rabbi Eliyahu Brudny. They did it because the two Haredi rabbis in Chicago (Shmuel Feurst and Zev Cohen) were under pressure from five Agudath Israel of America members of the Moetzes (Council of Torah Sages). Led by Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Levin of Chicago the Moetzes rabbis(Aron Feldman, Yaakov Perlow, Aaron Schechter, and Malkiel Kotler) signed a letter rejecting the conclusions of the CBD instead insisting all was now well at those seminaries.

The enlarged beis din’s majority was guided by a Haredi “sixth Shulchan Aruch” that no scandal can ever be allowed to close up institutions that provides jobs to people from choshuv (important) families. Under this perversion of commonsense and halacha (Jewish law), the reputations and jobs of important families overrode the safety and well-being of students. The CBD was willing to have the seminaries fail unless they completely removed Meisel’s influence, fired Mrs. Ullman, and demoted or censured other staff. They got Touro College (and its subsidiary, Hebrew Theological College) to suspend accreditation until those goals were realized. But then they acquiesced to joining an enlarged (aka joint) beis din.

Saving the seminaries was hard because Meisels was not willing to surrender his ongoing financial interest unless he could get enough money. He could not get enough money unless the seminaries could credibly recruit students. That is hard if you admit all the seminary administrators were abuse enablers. Hence the need to whitewash. This led to the tortured joint psak which acknowledged some problems including abuse and staff shortcomings requiring remedial measures while denying the full extent of the staff enabling.

A while back, Daniel Eidensohn released a text of the psak (minus explanation notes and two dissents) in Hebrew and offered an overly-cheery summary which ignored the criticisms of some staff. I translated the psak and pointed out numerous problems including the fact that seminaries were still not out of Meisels’ control and staff were reprimanded and had their authority reduced, especially Hindy Ullman.

Agudath Israel Lay President Gedaliah Weinberger hosting NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner after sexting scandal (aka Carlos Danger) (Aug. 2013)

Now we are again assured by Eidensohn that the seminaries are sold to Rabbi Gedaliah Weinberger “a prominent member of Agudas Yisroel.” For the record, he is “prominent” because he is wealthy, not because he has any educational credentials. He was Chair of Agudah’s lay board until 2013. He did Agudah’s dirty work of maintaining connections with mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner after an ugly sexting scandal, because Jews owed him “hakkaros hatov” (gratitude) and “the other candidates are not much better then him in terms of behaviors.” He sounds like is the perfect man to replace Elimelech Meisels.

Alleged Abuser Meisels Still Claims Control of Peninim of America, Inc

In a Friday (12/12/14)  submission to the court hearing the allegations that Elimelech Meisels sexually abused students, Andrew T. Miltenberg, the  attorney for Meisels, claimed that the Internet threat to expose plaintiff identities was the doing of:

Persons whose agenda includes undermining Rabbi Meisels’ defense of this matter and causing him further embarrassment, all as part of the continued campaign to seize control of Defendant Peninim of America, Inc. This is not mere conjecture; we are presently gathering evidence of efforts to threaten Rabbi Meisels into giving up his assets in connection with the allegations in this lawsuit and we suspect the leaking of the details of the allegation are part of this.

The IBD Changes the Rules So They Still Won’t Find Fault

The 3 Israeli Rabbis (3IRs) of the Israeli Beis Din (IBD) have now changed the rules to duck the criticism that they stacked their earlier sessions. At one of those sessions they exonerated all the staff in the Meisels seminaries of any complicity in his sexual abuse of students. Yet they accepted Chicago’s finding that Meisels was guilty of multiple instances of “unwanted physical contact of a sexual nature.” Like Yankie Yarmush, the asbestos abatement businessman, they were trying to enclose and contain the damage.

They were hell-bent on protecting the good name of the seminaries so they interrogated the alleged culprits without any testimony of victims or others. Instead they relied on a guardian/representative (apitropos), Rabbi Aharon Feldman (RAF), even though no one has ever offered written proof that any witnesses delegated him. RAF, by his own admission, never spoke to any complaining students from the seminaries. RAF was even excused from attending a good part of the session. Back then they had no trouble relying on loosey-goosey procedures for “representing” witnesses.

Thanks to all the leaks, especially by Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn, their bizarre misconduct has been exposed. The IBD is now sending a totally different message to potential witnesses. We will hear you if you show up in Israel. No agents, no phone calls, no letters, no signed affidavits, no submitted videos, no Skype, no independent investigators, no preliminary work. Nothing will satisfy us unless you shlep to Israel on our terms to face a line-up of three hostile dayanim (judges) and the multiple toanim (jewish law representatives) chosen by each of the accused. This is the ultimate set-up.

Did Bobov Cover Up Molesting at Shalvah, Its Boys Camp?

From my archives of 8/27/12, two years ago

Reporter Mary Murphy

I say there was a cover up based on earlier reports which were confirmed by Mary Murphy’s report on WPIX 11.

Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn used his blog Daas Torah to disparage her report as,

A fluff piece on alleged abuse at Camp Shalva. . .   An embarrassingly poor job of reporting which serves primarily to convey rumors and hearsay.

WPIX 11 reporter Mary Murphy said she interviewed the father of one camper, who spoke to his son who was in the camp. The father shared this communication from a camper.

Boys are saying they were tickled on their legs and you know what that means. . . . . . The kids were warned that morning that they should not be talking to each other about the incident.

Police Investigating Oberlander @ Bobov Camp Shalva

This is shocking. If true, there was a cover up. If true, the reason the police had no allegations of molesting is because the boys were intimidated into lying to the police. If true, the police may have been quite competent but they were stymied by the same forces that routinely protect ultra orthodox molesters. If true, Jewish children are being endangered because a molester is not being prosecuted.  If true, this news report is not a fluff piece. If true, the only fluff is the Shalvah party line that tranquility reigns and the kids were safe that night.

I keep saying, “If true,” because Rabbi Eidensohn bases his dismissal of the story on the premise that Mary Murphy is a dumb, sloppy or dishonest reporter. He doesn’t explicitly say it but why else would he dismiss a report that documents molesting and a cover-up.

I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. She is a professional with 30 years experience in NYC who has won 18 Emmy awards for reporting. Someone in her position does not take the risk of fabricating a story. In fact we can safely assume

Israeli Beis Din Acted with No Representation of Victims, Chicago, or Torah Umesorah

Rabbi Aharon Feldman

According to this morning’s post on Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn’s Daas Torah blog, “Seminary Scandal: Clarifying Rav Aharon Feldman’s role” (8/10/14)  Rabbi Aharon Feldman writes:

Although I signed on the shtar beyrurin (arbitration agreement) as the official to’en (legal advocate for a party), I was never appointed by anyone to represent him nor did I ever intend to supply you with substantiation of any claims for the simple reason that I did not have this information. My role in this affair was merely to serve as a liason between the Chicago Beis Din and Torah Umesorah who asked me to do this.