attention victims
June 8, 2007
To all of you out there,
Some of you have posted here and on mentalblog and various other blogs. Anonymous, fearful, angry, but unable to bring yourselves to confront either what happened, or your accusers, or perhaps, yourselves. One thing that nobody seems to deny, no matter what they think of Avremel’s specific case, no matter whether they’ve gone through the same thing, is that molestation goes on in the frum/charedi yeahiva system, and the Yeshivas, Rebbe’s, and communal leaders are not doing enough to stop it. So what I’d like are testimonials. Your story, in as much graphic detail s possible. Leave out or put in whichever identifying details you’re comfortable with. W ewill then personally create a packet which will be delivered to every Yeshiva, beis din, newspaper (Jewish and Non), and shul that we can think of, and find. What’s lacking in all of this is the outrage from the community that would be the catalyst for real change.
You can’t change what happened to you, but you can do something to prevent it from happening to other innocents.
We love you dearly,
Concerned Citizens of SEVENFATCOW
Entry Filed under: Ruckus. .
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1.
mohammed | June 8, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I am an unconcerned citizen of sfc and I disassociate myself from this post.
2.
HSD | June 8, 2007 at 6:26 pm
In 1982 I was an 11 year old camper in Gan Yisroel Montreal.One shabbos afternoon I was walking alone in the woods between the shul and the baseball field and I accidentally saw an older waiter with his pants around his ankles standing behind a tree and masturbating.
I tried to quietly walk away but he noticed me and ran up to me and told me to feel his balls.I said I dont want to feel your balls.Then he pinned my throat against a tree with his arm and said if I dont feel his balls he would kill me.
As an 11 year old I was naive and had no idea what sex was, but I did realize that I was violated.So I naturally did what I thought was the right thing and went back to my bunk and informed my counselor of what happened.I thought he would surely believe me, especially since I had red and purple marks on my neck from being thrown against a tree.
Not only did the counselor not believe me but he made fun of me,and threatened to throw me out of camp if I made up stories or told “loshon horah” about anyone.
Since my counselor who was supposed to protect me was not helping,I decided on a primitive form of street justice.I was going to let everyone in the camp know what this waiter did to me by embarrassing him in public.For the next few days, every time I saw the waiter in the lunchroom I would shout out “hey, do you want me to feel your balls”. He looked at his friends and started laughing nervously.I knew I was getting under his skin so i continued.”yeah, dont you want me to feel your balls again like you told me to do on shabbos”
The end result…..I was considered a danger to the camp and I was kicked out.
A few years later I saw this waiter again outside 770 wearing a hat and jacket.He recognized me too and walked the other way.But I was finally able to find out his name.I stored it in the back of my mind.
A few years after that, as an adult I heard his name mentioned in a conversation about child predators.I was told when he lived in Long Beach california he had raped many little boys.Entire families were destroyed by this pervert.There is a victim who is still institutionalized as an adult due to the trauma he faced by being raped.This victims family was torn apart after not being able to deal with the stress of the incident, and the parents eventually divorced.
In hindsight, I wish that my counselor and the staff of gan israel montreal would have done more to stop this pervert before he victimized others.I was only forced to touch his balls, but unfortunately other kids were forced at knifepoint to have anal sex with him.
Last I heard, this pervert was married with 4 children and living in Beit Shemesh Israel.
His name is ben sherman, yemach shemoh.
3.
anonymous lady | June 10, 2007 at 2:06 pm
do rabbis who seduced you as an adult fit this category or is that a separate category?
4.
shitalphin | June 10, 2007 at 4:24 pm
AL,
any and all misconduct should be brought to light and here’s as good a place as any.
5.
anonymous lady | June 10, 2007 at 5:33 pm
I am an adult so am partly to blame, but he spent months plotting to deceive me, first by creating a false female internet persona, to set me up with “her” “friend” and then by lying about his identity while developing a “relationship”. Though it isn’t molestation and not nearly as traumatic, it really disturbs me that creepy people like this are considered pillars of their community.
6.
Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain | June 10, 2007 at 6:17 pm
“Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who makes the forbidden things permissable.” — Sabbatai Zevi
A while back Yosef Leib [I believe it was] asked here on Cow if I, as a Sabbatian-Frankist leader, have sex with my followers. I answered him then that I do not, but that I did many years ago but have not since and, in fact, have remained celebate.
Given the discussions going on now of inappropriate sexual behavior on the part of rabbis, I feel I should give a fuller answer to what I think was then and is now a legitimate question.
About 25 years ago or more, when my followers all lived around me as a community, a young woman of 18-19 years of age and a young man of 20 were part of that community and lived under my roof, supported by me. They were both sexually active before coming to live with me.
For about a year, we engaged in consensual antinomian sex, which was no secret to the other members of our community. In fact, the young woman would introduce herself as my “wife” to people. After about a year by mutual agreement, the antinomian sex stopped but the two continued living under my roof, supported by be. The young woman continued living in my home [without sex] for another 2 or three years; the young man continued living in my home [also without sex] for another 13 or 14 years. And for the past 20 years, at least, I have been intentionally celebate.
Did I enjoy our sexual experimentation? I would be a liar if I denied it. But was it done also for antinomian, Sabbatian reasons? Most certainly. Have I done or taught anything even remotely like it since? Absolutely not. On the contrary, I have remained celebate and come to a VERY different point-of-view about “redemption through sin” as a result of the experience — a point of view I have taught publically ever since both on and off the internet. In fact, here are several of my recorded talks on the subject that you can listen to at the Donmeh West website by clicking http://www.donmeh-west.com/special_topics.shtml
04-21-07 “Reb Yakov Leib on Redemption Through Sin” 9.15 MB
04-20-07 “The_Neo-Sabbatian_As_Sinner_But_Not_Criminal” 6.32 MB
02-03-06 “SIN & REDEMPTION IN NEO-SABBATIAN KABBALAH”) 5.87 MB
In summary, what I have come to is that the purpose of any act of redemption -through-sin [including but not limited to “forbidden” sex] is not for the purpose of the act itself, but for releasing the “holiness WITHIN the “evil.”
As a result, what I have taught and practiced over the past 25 years is that such “fulfilling of a mitzvah by violating it” is even more powerfully accomplished VIRTUALLY than LITERALLY — in what the Zohar calls “The Heart-Mind of Imagination” — where, it tells us, “God is known” — rather than through the physical action of the body. This also addresses the Zoharic injunction that “nothing shall be completely revealed so long as one is under the spell of the body” by totally removing bodily action from the violation of the mitzvah and, instead, doing it THEURGICALLY in the imagination rather than LITERALLY in actual fact.
Again, given the important direction the discussions on Cow have been taking — and given its Sabbatian-friendly focus, as well as my own — I feel that what I have discussed here is both appropriate and [I hope] instructive. Again, I give a much fuller discussion of these issues in the three recorded talks listed above, as well as many of my writings “Redemption Through Sin” and “The Limits of Antinomianism” on the Donmeh West website.
Yalhak
7.
anonymous lady | June 10, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I am leery of philosophies of muddled right and wrong, though I will visit those links. The rabbi (a very prominent chabad rabbi) who deceived me believed in that stuff and kept insisting he didn’t do anything wrong when I confronted him.
I would be interested in hearing the experience of the followers- was it redemptive and rewarding to them as well, or do they feel abused as do many, in other groups?
8.
shitalphin | June 10, 2007 at 9:30 pm
“I am an adult so am partly to blame” -AL
just like a therapist a rabbi having even consensual sex with somebody who has come to him for help should be considered unethical if not illegal.
9.
shitalphin | June 10, 2007 at 9:31 pm
yalhak,
i wasn’t addressing your case.
10.
chabadster | June 12, 2007 at 5:45 am
is there a plan of action to make this stop or just a bunch of lonley stoners who have run out of things to talk about and are seeking atention ?
or blog hits ?
11.
kisarita | June 12, 2007 at 10:27 am
exposure is the best way to make it stop
next step is through the criminal court system
people will do evil stuff only as long as they can get away with it
12.
kisarita | June 12, 2007 at 10:28 am
I like the plan to distribute to community institutions and I’d like to help with that when the project is done
we can also include a couple of articles about what the appropriate response SHOULD be
13.
anonymous lady | June 12, 2007 at 11:34 am
About going public-
Originally, I was going to tell THE WHOLE WORLD about that scuzzy rabbi (he begged me to keep quiet for the sake of his family and I told him to fuck off)except that I had a dream that I met him, his wife, and family at some type of shabaton, and I was playing with the toddler (in reality, I don’t know his kids’ age), and dropped the kid on the floor who had to be rushed to the hospital with a severe head injury. So I kept quiet.
but as I said, I was not actually molested so my situation is different.
14.
Yesod ben Yakov Leib | June 12, 2007 at 1:29 pm
comming forth can be as hurtfull or even more hurtfull than what happened,the violation of something so sacred leaves deep scars, for life,the pain may leave,the scar remains.Send our injured ones your healing balm Lord,that our scars might heal,and please give us the strength and wisdom to stop this evil that is commited against Your/our childrens souls,,,,,,,love yesod