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Child Sex In The Holy City
Harmony Grant
Worse, they still like and excuse it today.
The leftist Jewish blogosphere buzzed recently with an eyewitness account from Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg of child molestation in gay bathhouses in Jerusalem. This report has been circulated on popular Jewish blogs, including jewschool ("Mishegaas," Nov. 12) and failedmessiah ("For Marvin Schick: Mikva Man-on-Boy Abuse," Nov. 10).
Jewish blog Chaptzem was first to post scans of Rosenberg's eyewitness reports (in Yiddish and Hebrew). He tells of seeing 7- and 8-year-old boys sexually abused in the sauna of a mikvah, a bathhouse where Orthodox Jews undergo ritual purification (http://chaptzem.blogspot.com/2005/08/mikvah-expert-nuchem-rosenberg-blasts.html).
Rabbi Rosenberg, who is a world-traveling mikvah expert, expressed horror and grief at the sight. He said when he went to the religious authorities in Jerusalem they refused to act, saying the bathhouse pedophiles give them money to subsidize mikvahs.
"If this place would be in America," wrote Rosenberg, "all the participants would be in jail, and even according to the laws of the Zionist government, such a place would be closed down. But here, in the holy city of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), in beis zupnik, the mikvah remains open and everything is permissible."
Most Jewish readers who commented on the failedmessiah post accept the authority of Rosenberg's account. One wrote, "While what he writes seems extreme, it matches what many abuse victims claim."
While dredging the web to research this topic, I stumbled on dozens of comments and even entire blogs written by Orthodox Jews about childhood sexual abuse.
In the eighties, Orthodox Rabbi Ephraim Byrks was accused of sexually molesting women, boys, and girls in Canada. He was sheltered and defended by his Orthodox community in Winnipeg, and in 1990 he accepted a position as principal of a Jewish day school in Montreal and from there went to New York and started another Torah school.
In 1993, one of Byrks' victims, 17-year-old Daniel Levin, killed himself. After a documentary (Unorthodox Conduct, 2004, Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) was produced about the suicide, the child-molesting rabbi was forced out of work in the education field.
But within two years, Byrks was back as principal of a Russian elementary boys' yeshiva in Brooklyn, and later started another Talmud boys' school in Queens. In 2001, the New York Post published an article by Douglas Montero exposing Byrks as a child molester ("Queens Yeshiva Boss is a Molester: Boy's Mom," March 31, 2001). Yet "Once again," says the Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA), "there wasn't a tremendous reaction within the Rabbinical or Jewish community."
Today, Byrks lives as a private citizen and the cases against him remain open, according to JCASA. For a quarter of a century, he was involved in the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and he currently serves on the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, a committee responsible for important decisions for the Jewish community.
Is it possible that Orthodox rabbis like Byrks excuse their abuse of children with verses from the Talmud? It's more than possible; it's almost a certainty.
One Jewish blogger (http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2006/11/mail-about-mikvaos.html) posted an email that attests, "I personally know of many many boys who were molested in mikva'os.
I am in close contact with an ex-chassidishe young adult who, over time, was raped by at least 10 men; among them, rebbeim, often in mikvaos."
JCASA also reports on another rabbi, Moshe Eiseman, who was first credibly accused of child molestation 15 years ago yet remains an authority in the Orthodox community in Philadelphia ("Call to Action," Sept. 3, 2006).
The allegations have been confirmed with numerous victims, reports the Awareness Center. Yet Eiseman remains employed by Ner Israel (a prominent Talmud school in Baltimore) and lives on their campus with access to children.
None of the Jewish bloggers express approval or acceptance for rabbis who rape kids. Most express horror and call for these men to be reported to the authorities. These writers represent the larger Jewish community which is led like sheep by evil leaders. Most Jews don't even know that their own sacred Talmud sanctions child abuse.
But it does. Rabbinic Judaism is an evil vine dripping with poisonous fruit, "full of all uncleanness," as Jesus said. And today-in the forms of Zionism, leftist Jewish activism, and Talmudic Judaism-it entangles the lives of 14 million Jews, 1.3 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians.
Today, evangelical Christians donate millions per year to the state of Israel-most of which is entrusted to the care of rabbinic authorities. Would Christians give so generously if they knew how untrustworthy are the recipients of their gifts? Of course not.
But their ignorance is not easily excused. Both evangelicals and Jews are notorious for closing their minds to the slightest criticism of Jewish leadership-a willful blindness that has enabled Jewish leaders to attain tremendous power. For such partiality, the church will be held accountable, both here and in the hereafter. We will have to answer to God if we subsidize Jerusalem mikvahs where small boys are raped, instead of preaching the sin-reproving gospel that could save Jewish souls.
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Harmony Grant is a staff writer for the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative watchdog group.
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