As rabbis have increased thier web presence, the discourse about halacha and contemporary religious issues has started to move online, too. Shulem Deen, editor of unpious.com, discusses the history of Orthodox Rabbi-run blogs, thier impact on Modern Orthodoxy, and the Ultra-Orthodox response:
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Showing posts with label rabbis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rabbis. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2014
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A New Proposal: Gay Marriage, Orthodox Style
Okay, so Yenta the matchmaker he's not. But, as Hodel says in that famous Fiddler scene, "Well, somebody has to arrange the matches," and with 11 marriages and one recent engagement of couples he set up, Rabbi Arele Harel has been doing just that. The unions facilitated by Rabbi Harel, a teacher at a yeshiva in Elon Moreh in Israel, are traditionally structured; each of these cross-marriages is a "union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." What makes these couples unique is that they are all made up of Orthodox, gay men and lesbian women who see this novel type of relationship as their chance to experience the companionship, family, and the chance to have a normal place within the community.
Before we proceed, I'll give you all a chance to silently voice your cynicism.
Okay, that was good. Now we can move on. Don't worry, though, you're not alone. People all over the spectrum have been doing the same since this Ha'aretz article was published. On the religious side, this has been expressed largely through the familiar method of ignoring it altogether. One, more progressive Haredi blog did post the piece, but—if the commenters are any indication—the readers simply didn't know what to make of the idea, with one asking "Is this real?" and another exclaiming that this sounds like Chelm, a town that in old Jewish humor was always finding foolish solutions to problems.
Liberal Jewish outlets instinctively reacted with disparagements that seem to stem more from objections to the halachic prohibition of same-sex intimacy in general than to this specific solution. Jewcy editor, Jason diamond, noting that this arrangement involves celibacy for both spouses, writes "I suppose this [type of marriage] is just a bizarre interpretation" of a philosophy that it is a great mitzvah "for a gay person to enter into a straight marriage, as it shows even greater respect for Halacha... Either way, we don’t get it." In the wider gay and lesbian community, one blog that aims, it's header states, to "discuss and promote all things GLBTQ" actually denounces the men and women entering into these marriages, calling this a "very sad day for the Israeli gay and lesbian community," and writing, "shame on those individuals involving themselves in these twisted concoctions of marital arrangements."
My own initial reaction was no different. When I first heard about this cross-marriage idea from a friend, I honestly thought it was some weird joke, or at least a really bad idea. So much of the isolation and emotional distress experienced by gays and lesbians in our community is a result of their having to lead "double lives," compartmentalizing their Jewish and homosexual identities, lying, and often limiting their contact with others in the community so that major aspects of their identities do not become revealed. However, once I realized that this was really being done, and, more importantly, as an earnest attempt to address part of the problem faced by Orthodox homosexuals, I began to actually think about the idea.
If nothing else, what Rabbi Harel has been doing is momentous because, to my knowledge, it is the first rabbinical initiative that extends beyond academic statements of principal (although those are important, as well) to actually create real change in the way gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews—who are already overcoming immense challenges in order to be fully shomrei halacha (observant of the letter of the law)—to interact with the community.
As far as my reservations? Well, the issues behind them are still quite real. However, when you look at those issues in their broad and painfully complex context, and consider the other existing or theoretical options for the men and women who would opt for this type of marriage, it becomes clear that for now, while this is at best an okay solution, it still is at least an okay solution.
It is true that in this arrangement the husbands and wives would still need to hide a major part of their identities from their communities. However, entering into a cross-marriage would likely lessen greatly the identity conflict, estrangement, and isolation, currently associated with that secrecy, especially as they relate to to the couples’ families.
In a study of gay Jewish men of various affiliations (Coyle & Rafalin, 2000), when describing their experience disclosing their sexual identity to their parents and the negative reactions they received:
For gay and lesbian Orthodox men and women, marrying one another affords them the opportunity to actually build Jewish homes, with grandchildren for their parents to spoil and to show off, wallet-sized, to their friends. With family continuity anxieties extracted from the process, disclosing their homosexuality their respective parents becomes an entirely different endeavor. Couples in cross-marriage arrangements could likely share their sexual identity with their families and maintain strong relationships with them, reducing their identity conflict and helping to retain their vital support network.
Another thing that these marriages represent for their entrants is a place card. One of the drawbacks of the Orthodox community’s being so family-oriented is that most settings for acting or interacting in the community are dependent on traditional family roles. For example, women make friends and socialize as mothers in carpool, PTA, and playgrounds (and usually talk about their kids). Outside of school, boys—especially in the more Haredi communities—interface with the community as sons, in father-son learning programs or even simply having a place to sit in shul. In certain communities a man can’t daven for the amud (lead the prayers) if he’s not married.
In communities like that, being forced to live single can mean, in effect, having to stand along the community margins for one’s entire life. These marriages allow homosexual Orthodox individuals to form families and finally join (albeit with some concealment) their own communities.
Of course, the men and women like entering cross-marriages would not be looking to create families simply to ingratiate themselves with critical parents or as some sort of subterfuge for them to infiltrate our communities. Raising children is a universal human instinct, irrespective of one’s sexual identity. Providence did dictate that the act of procreation be coupled with the drive for copulation (heterosexual, of course). A happy confluence for humanity, no doubt; however that does not mean that those who don’t desire the latter won’t desire the former. Marriage for them is a chance to have what so many others take for granted: a real family, with deep conjugal—if not sexual—companionship and children who are biologically their own.
These points seem even more compelling when you consider the other options that homosexual Orthodox men and women face. If you were a young Orthodox man with yiras shomayim (awe of G-d) who deeply cares about keeping orthodox halacha, and also has same-sex only attraction, how would you choose to go through life?
"EVERYTHING BUT"
You could take the approach that G-d would not give a mitzvah that a person by his or her nature can only observe with excessive hardship, and stick with the other 612. However, if your religious identity is more prominent than your sexual identity and you are committed to uncompromising adherence to halachah (in its normative Orthodox interpretation) then you will probably see in that approach a flawed mindset and an unacceptable (or at least guilt-inducing) halachic concession.
So you will have to choose an option that does not involve intimate relationships with men. Until now there have been two: get married or stay alone. Either way, however, if choose to stay within the Orthodox community—to which you feel you belong, and within which lie many of the requisites for your religious and spiritual advancement—you will almost certainly need to conceal your homosexuality (don’t forget, not critiquing Orthodoxy, critiquing the marriage plan!).
MARRY
If you are terrified enough by the risk exposure and by communal and family pressure toward conformity, you might be compelled to follow the other bochurim (young, single men) into the “shidduch (matchmaking) scene,” and try your hand at a relationship with a woman. You might even do well in the dating process, which involves no physical contact, and—lasting, as it does for some, for only 2-3 months—will not pose much of a threat to your concealment. However, once you were engaged you would probably begin to realize what a serious mess you’ve gotten yourself and some poor, oblivious girl into, but you’d have little escape.
You might be able to stand the inner struggle behind the duplicity; between a desperate desire to fit in and be what your wife and family expect you to be; your inner yearning to show your true, full self to those same people; and your hopeful determination not to hurt anyone. Maybe you’ll be able to live with that for 20 years before you give up on the charade and dispel the illusions of the family you’ve built. Maybe you’ll talk straight with your kallah (bride) on your wedding night, and letting her know just what not to expect, and leaving her holding the bag. Or, you might just buckle under the pressure, like many have before you, despair of the battle and “cast your cares on the L-rd.”
REMAIN ALONE
If that vision doesn’t entice you then your only option is to remain alone for life, doubly isolated by the secret that you bear. The challenges that you face would be so trying that, Rabbi Chaim Rapoport comments in his Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View
(2004), they would put any judgmental heterosexual Jew in their place. Rapoport challenges readers to ask themselves:
Clearly, these options hold no hope for homosexual, Orthodox men and women. Rabbi Harel’s cross-marriages do have drawbacks, and some precautions--such as waiting a minimum number of years before having children to see if the match is viable--might be prudent. Nevertheless, this approach offers a chance for some level of love and inclusion that participants might never otherwise get.
Of course, we can’t hope to address the lack of tenable choices entirely through clever contrivances or work-arounds. Meaningful, long-term solutions must include systemic changes throughout the communal context. However, change on that level will never occur until the dilemma of homosexual Torah observant Jews is recognized as a legitimate, serious, and widespread problem. Leaders in our community must open dialogue, both amongst themselves and with gay and lesbian frum men and women, to hear their perspective and learn from their suggestions. We must, as a community, learn to move beyond instinctive reactions to recognize that, while there are homosexual groups who are highly resentful of religion, there are also earnest men and women in our own shuls and batei midrash who fight to suppress their drives only to be suppressed themselves by the very system for which they’ve sacrificed.
The process will be slow, assumptions will have to be abandoned, and sensibilities will likely be upset. We won’t know where we’re going or agree on how to get there, but one thing we do know: our own sons and daughters are dealing with struggles that our community can ease, and we are doing nothing about it.
Even so, large scale change is a worthy ambition, but we cannot use that goal for the future to duck the work for right now. Cross-marriages are not the solution. But for right now, I'm afraid they're the best we've got.
PLEASE NOTE: This essay is not intended to represent, in any way, psak halacha.
REFERENCES
Coyle, A. & Rafalin, D. (2000). Jewish gay men’s accounts of negotiating cultural, religious, and sexual identity: A qualitative study.Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 12(4) 21-48
Rapoport, C. (2004) Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View. London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell.
Rabbi Harel takes the world stage, discussing the upcoming launch of his online match-making service in Time Magazine. (article and video)
Initial Reactions
Before we proceed, I'll give you all a chance to silently voice your cynicism.
Okay, that was good. Now we can move on. Don't worry, though, you're not alone. People all over the spectrum have been doing the same since this Ha'aretz article was published. On the religious side, this has been expressed largely through the familiar method of ignoring it altogether. One, more progressive Haredi blog did post the piece, but—if the commenters are any indication—the readers simply didn't know what to make of the idea, with one asking "Is this real?" and another exclaiming that this sounds like Chelm, a town that in old Jewish humor was always finding foolish solutions to problems.
Liberal Jewish outlets instinctively reacted with disparagements that seem to stem more from objections to the halachic prohibition of same-sex intimacy in general than to this specific solution. Jewcy editor, Jason diamond, noting that this arrangement involves celibacy for both spouses, writes "I suppose this [type of marriage] is just a bizarre interpretation" of a philosophy that it is a great mitzvah "for a gay person to enter into a straight marriage, as it shows even greater respect for Halacha... Either way, we don’t get it." In the wider gay and lesbian community, one blog that aims, it's header states, to "discuss and promote all things GLBTQ" actually denounces the men and women entering into these marriages, calling this a "very sad day for the Israeli gay and lesbian community," and writing, "shame on those individuals involving themselves in these twisted concoctions of marital arrangements."
On Further Reflection
My own initial reaction was no different. When I first heard about this cross-marriage idea from a friend, I honestly thought it was some weird joke, or at least a really bad idea. So much of the isolation and emotional distress experienced by gays and lesbians in our community is a result of their having to lead "double lives," compartmentalizing their Jewish and homosexual identities, lying, and often limiting their contact with others in the community so that major aspects of their identities do not become revealed. However, once I realized that this was really being done, and, more importantly, as an earnest attempt to address part of the problem faced by Orthodox homosexuals, I began to actually think about the idea.
If nothing else, what Rabbi Harel has been doing is momentous because, to my knowledge, it is the first rabbinical initiative that extends beyond academic statements of principal (although those are important, as well) to actually create real change in the way gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews—who are already overcoming immense challenges in order to be fully shomrei halacha (observant of the letter of the law)—to interact with the community.
As far as my reservations? Well, the issues behind them are still quite real. However, when you look at those issues in their broad and painfully complex context, and consider the other existing or theoretical options for the men and women who would opt for this type of marriage, it becomes clear that for now, while this is at best an okay solution, it still is at least an okay solution.
Hidden Identity
It is true that in this arrangement the husbands and wives would still need to hide a major part of their identities from their communities. However, entering into a cross-marriage would likely lessen greatly the identity conflict, estrangement, and isolation, currently associated with that secrecy, especially as they relate to to the couples’ families.
In a study of gay Jewish men of various affiliations (Coyle & Rafalin, 2000), when describing their experience disclosing their sexual identity to their parents and the negative reactions they received:
Half the participants said that their parents’ main concern related to the continuation of their family and of the Jewish people. They described parental concerns about their sons not marrying, not creating a Jewish home and a Jewish family and not providing them with grandchildren. [One participant] reported that because of this, in his parents’ eyes, as a gay man he was ‘‘a waste of manhood [ ] or a life (p. 34).This would seem no less true for women who, especially in the more Haredi communities, are raised to see their primary function as raising a family.
For gay and lesbian Orthodox men and women, marrying one another affords them the opportunity to actually build Jewish homes, with grandchildren for their parents to spoil and to show off, wallet-sized, to their friends. With family continuity anxieties extracted from the process, disclosing their homosexuality their respective parents becomes an entirely different endeavor. Couples in cross-marriage arrangements could likely share their sexual identity with their families and maintain strong relationships with them, reducing their identity conflict and helping to retain their vital support network.
A Seat at the Table
Another thing that these marriages represent for their entrants is a place card. One of the drawbacks of the Orthodox community’s being so family-oriented is that most settings for acting or interacting in the community are dependent on traditional family roles. For example, women make friends and socialize as mothers in carpool, PTA, and playgrounds (and usually talk about their kids). Outside of school, boys—especially in the more Haredi communities—interface with the community as sons, in father-son learning programs or even simply having a place to sit in shul. In certain communities a man can’t daven for the amud (lead the prayers) if he’s not married.
In communities like that, being forced to live single can mean, in effect, having to stand along the community margins for one’s entire life. These marriages allow homosexual Orthodox individuals to form families and finally join (albeit with some concealment) their own communities.
Family Life
Of course, the men and women like entering cross-marriages would not be looking to create families simply to ingratiate themselves with critical parents or as some sort of subterfuge for them to infiltrate our communities. Raising children is a universal human instinct, irrespective of one’s sexual identity. Providence did dictate that the act of procreation be coupled with the drive for copulation (heterosexual, of course). A happy confluence for humanity, no doubt; however that does not mean that those who don’t desire the latter won’t desire the former. Marriage for them is a chance to have what so many others take for granted: a real family, with deep conjugal—if not sexual—companionship and children who are biologically their own.
Other Options
These points seem even more compelling when you consider the other options that homosexual Orthodox men and women face. If you were a young Orthodox man with yiras shomayim (awe of G-d) who deeply cares about keeping orthodox halacha, and also has same-sex only attraction, how would you choose to go through life?
"EVERYTHING BUT"
You could take the approach that G-d would not give a mitzvah that a person by his or her nature can only observe with excessive hardship, and stick with the other 612. However, if your religious identity is more prominent than your sexual identity and you are committed to uncompromising adherence to halachah (in its normative Orthodox interpretation) then you will probably see in that approach a flawed mindset and an unacceptable (or at least guilt-inducing) halachic concession.
So you will have to choose an option that does not involve intimate relationships with men. Until now there have been two: get married or stay alone. Either way, however, if choose to stay within the Orthodox community—to which you feel you belong, and within which lie many of the requisites for your religious and spiritual advancement—you will almost certainly need to conceal your homosexuality (don’t forget, not critiquing Orthodoxy, critiquing the marriage plan!).
MARRY
If you are terrified enough by the risk exposure and by communal and family pressure toward conformity, you might be compelled to follow the other bochurim (young, single men) into the “shidduch (matchmaking) scene,” and try your hand at a relationship with a woman. You might even do well in the dating process, which involves no physical contact, and—lasting, as it does for some, for only 2-3 months—will not pose much of a threat to your concealment. However, once you were engaged you would probably begin to realize what a serious mess you’ve gotten yourself and some poor, oblivious girl into, but you’d have little escape.
You might be able to stand the inner struggle behind the duplicity; between a desperate desire to fit in and be what your wife and family expect you to be; your inner yearning to show your true, full self to those same people; and your hopeful determination not to hurt anyone. Maybe you’ll be able to live with that for 20 years before you give up on the charade and dispel the illusions of the family you’ve built. Maybe you’ll talk straight with your kallah (bride) on your wedding night, and letting her know just what not to expect, and leaving her holding the bag. Or, you might just buckle under the pressure, like many have before you, despair of the battle and “cast your cares on the L-rd.”
REMAIN ALONE
If that vision doesn’t entice you then your only option is to remain alone for life, doubly isolated by the secret that you bear. The challenges that you face would be so trying that, Rabbi Chaim Rapoport comments in his Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View
(2004), they would put any judgmental heterosexual Jew in their place. Rapoport challenges readers to ask themselves: "If I were to find myself in a situation whereby I would constantly be yearning to be in a loving relationship—of a type that includes physical intimacy—and the only sexual relationships I could reasonably have would be with a member of the same gender, would I live up to the Torah’s demands?" or "If I knew that there is never likely to be any way of experiencing sexual fulfillment in a halakhically permissible manner, and at the same time, I would almost constantly be exposed to sexual temptation [because of the way that the Orthodox community separates the genders from one another], would I have the fortitude to remain alone and celibate?" I venture to say that many a heterosexual person who confronts himself honestly with such questions would indeed be humbled (p. 71).
Discussion
Clearly, these options hold no hope for homosexual, Orthodox men and women. Rabbi Harel’s cross-marriages do have drawbacks, and some precautions--such as waiting a minimum number of years before having children to see if the match is viable--might be prudent. Nevertheless, this approach offers a chance for some level of love and inclusion that participants might never otherwise get.
Of course, we can’t hope to address the lack of tenable choices entirely through clever contrivances or work-arounds. Meaningful, long-term solutions must include systemic changes throughout the communal context. However, change on that level will never occur until the dilemma of homosexual Torah observant Jews is recognized as a legitimate, serious, and widespread problem. Leaders in our community must open dialogue, both amongst themselves and with gay and lesbian frum men and women, to hear their perspective and learn from their suggestions. We must, as a community, learn to move beyond instinctive reactions to recognize that, while there are homosexual groups who are highly resentful of religion, there are also earnest men and women in our own shuls and batei midrash who fight to suppress their drives only to be suppressed themselves by the very system for which they’ve sacrificed.
The process will be slow, assumptions will have to be abandoned, and sensibilities will likely be upset. We won’t know where we’re going or agree on how to get there, but one thing we do know: our own sons and daughters are dealing with struggles that our community can ease, and we are doing nothing about it.
Even so, large scale change is a worthy ambition, but we cannot use that goal for the future to duck the work for right now. Cross-marriages are not the solution. But for right now, I'm afraid they're the best we've got.
PLEASE NOTE: This essay is not intended to represent, in any way, psak halacha.
REFERENCES
Coyle, A. & Rafalin, D. (2000). Jewish gay men’s accounts of negotiating cultural, religious, and sexual identity: A qualitative study.Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 12(4) 21-48
Rapoport, C. (2004) Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View. London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell.
UPDATE: 8/17/2011
Rabbi Harel takes the world stage, discussing the upcoming launch of his online match-making service in Time Magazine. (article and video)
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Great Wedding Walkout: Litvish Appeal and the Fight Against Internalized Sephardi Racism
The Rosh Yeshiva walked down the aisle... and right out the door, dragging all of the chosson/chattan's (groom's) friends behind him and leaving the poor newlywed—pleading for him to let the boys stay—to cry alone. At issue: the Israeli rabbi's objection to the bride and groom conducting their wedding according to normative Sephardic halacha. No, this is not an Ashkenazi couple breaking from tradition; both bride and groom are from sephardi families, the groom's father even a rav of a Sephardi congregation. Not even the ruthless Rosh Yeshiva is Ashkenazi; he's a Sephardic man heading a school for Sephardic boys.
Not surprisingly, the Rabbis Yosef, champions of Sephardi halacha, responded quickly and forcefully. Rav Yitzchak Yosef headed straight over to the wedding to celebrate with the abandoned groom and his father, Rav Ovadia invited the groom's family to his Jerusalem home the next day. Rav Avraham Yosef, Chief Rabbi of Holon and Sephardi representative on the Chief Rabbinite Counsel, said in a radio interview that the rosh yeshiva is a "criminal," adding that he should be banished from the city and that it is assur to learn Torah from such a person.
Clearly, the issue here runs deeper than a rabbi being a jerk or supporting the unquestionable halachic basis for following the (legitimate) practices of one's forefathers. This event represents one of the fundamental struggles of Sephardi Jews living as a socio-religious minority group in today's Haredi Israel.
Tensions between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews are nothing new in Israel. Shas and the Education Ministry are still fighting to solve the problem of Sephardi girls sitting at home because they can't find Ashkenazi high schools that will take girls with their skin color. What this fiasco highlights is something more insidious than external Ashkenazi discrimination. It demonstrates Sephardi Jews who have so internalized the societal biases against them that they abandon halacha and human decency in an attempt to "overcome" what the see as their racial handicap.The most primitive stage is conformity, in which individuals hold negative attitudes and beliefs toward themselves and toward members of the same minority group, while holding appreciating attitudes and beliefs toward members of the dominant group. Individuals at this stage attempt to deny thier own racial/cultural heritage. However, as they encounter information or experiences that are inconsistent with the attitudes, held by the dominant culture they gradually move into the dissonance stage. Here they experience conflict: between thier self-depreciating and self-appreciating attitudes and beliefs, between group-depreciating and group-appreciating attitudes and beliefs toward members of the same minority, and between group-appreciating and group-depreciating attitudes toward members of the dominant group.
As the individual develops through the resistance and immersion stage, he or she comes to completely reject the dominant culture in favor of the beliefs and values of his or hew own race or culture, with increased regard for self and group coming together with group-depricating attitudes toward the majority culture. The introspection stage is where the individual is able to reassess his or her ethno-centric biases after recognizing how draining it is to devote such emotional intensity to and how unsatisfying it could be to hold resistance and immersion-stage views. Finally, by the integrative awareness stage, minority individuals have developed an inner sense of security and they own and appreciate unique aspects of both their own and the mainstream culture.
What Rav Ovadia et. al, are doing is more than just defending their culture. They are fighting to prevent their Sephardic followers from regressing in their cultural identity development to a stage of conformity. In Israel's current socio-religious climate, it is hard to be proud of being a Sephardi. So hard that even a learned man with his own yeshiva, who should know better--both from a halachic and a don't-be-a-jerk perspective--will still go to shameful lengths to try to be like the Ashkenaz. Thier fight is an important one, but time will tell if it can stand up to the force of Litvish appeal.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
RCA Issues Strong Resolution Condemning Child Abuse
The announcement, posted on RCA's website and circulated among community activists and professionals, cites the incidents "of high profile cases in which Orthodox rabbis have been indicted or convicted for child abuse or child endangerment" and acknowledges the devastation that abuse causes for victims and their families and the difficulties associated with victims' coming forward with reports. It reiterates RCA's position that it is "halakhically obligatory" to report abuse to law enforcement and that doing so does not violate the laws of mesirah (reporting crimes to the civil authorities) or arka’ot (adjudication in civil courts).
The RCA resolves to publicly address future cases involving abuse in the Jewish community and to train members annually in "understanding and responding to issues of child abuse." It also calls on RCA members to prominently post information about abuse services in "all synagogues, schools, and Jewish community institutions serviced by its members" and to " address the issues of child abuse in their communities in at least one sermon, lecture or article within the next twelve months."
Some activists, while praising the statement, still note that it leaves out mention of adult victims. They caution that that omission might allow the community to view situations of community leaders sexually exploiting adult congregants or followers as consensual relationships rather than as the serious violations that they are. Such situations often result in serious consequences for their victims, including being shunned or threatened by the community and losing custody battles.
Nevertheless, this strong position and the specificity of the resolution are being applauded by community groups who see it as an important step toward increasing community awareness and responsibility on the issue of sexual abuse. It also sets the RCA widely apart from the Haredi Agudas Yisroel of America, whose executive vice president, Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, addressed the issue in general terms several months ago at their own convention, but have yet to take action or make any specific commitments.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Taking the Rabbis to Church: Learning a Lesson on Dealing with Abuse
WE MIGHT HOPE to be be frummer than the Pope, but we're certainly not infallible. And we might even stand to learn a thing or two from the European Catholic Church when it comes to soul searching.
As reports of sexual abuse by catholic clergy continue to sweep through Europe, so do the searches for answers. What is remarkable about these inquiries is their boldness—how deep they are willing to look for the causes of the abuses and how high up they are willing to look for who is responsible.
A German investigation that has come increasingly close to the pope has resulted in a senior church official’s acknowledgment that an archdiocese there, while the pope was its archbishop, made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case. In Austria, two leading archbishops’ calls for an “unflinching examination” of the roots of the problem of priests abusing children have brought them to question the very institution of priest celibacy and the issue of celibate priests’ “personality development.” As the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn stressed in a recent article, it is time to acknowledge that this examination “requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the church and of society as a whole.”
COMPARE THAT response to the one offered by the Orthodox leadership, and it begins to seem like some confession might be in order.
It has been nearly four months since Agudah's Chaim Dovid Zwiebel acknowledged to the press and before a packed convention hall that the way that sexual abuse is dealt with in the Charedi (so-called "Ultra-Orthodox") community must change. During that time, the lack of substantive action toward that end has all but confirmed what advocates had warned at the time: that those words were just that and nothing more.
As Survivors for Justice's Ben Hirsch points out, even the government seems to be more concerned about abuse in our community than our own leaders. Even as Governor Patterson approved $500,000 for Orthodox abuse victims, our rabbonim have remained silent.
IN AN AGE when our leaders are being bullied and mislead, standing up to a defensive and complacent public is a difficult task, especially when it pertains to such an ugly truth. But, those in the community who recognize the seriousness of this issue must demand more of our leaders, both our "sarei mei'ot," our shul rabbis and menahalim, and our "sarei alaphim," the gedolim and prominent leaders.
Parents must ask their principals why they haven't adopted the Torah U'Mesorah guidelines for dealing with reports of abuse in schools. (Unless, you happen to be dealing with the ONE school that has actually adopted them. Of course, these guidelines are only a small start, but they are something!) Congregants must ask their rabbonim what their protocols are for reporting abuse to the police and for supporting those who come forth and their families. If they have none, then why not?
We do not have to resort to angry finger-pointing. But we do, as individuals and as a community, have to make ourselves heard. We cannot continue throwing our hands up and hiding behind the gravity of the issue. Until the community and its leaders establish and uphold viable policies for dealing with the abuse in our midst, we will be left with a vacuum that will only continue to foster denial, secrecy, and the invalidation of reporters and victims.
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