Yet I am concerned that non-Haredim now are “piling on” against Haredim over that latter community’s responses and failures as regards issues of sexual harassment and abuse. There is an element of self-righteousness, even smugness, in some Modern (now often called Centrist Orthodox to differentiate from Open Orthodox but will be called Modern Orthodoxy in this article) attacks on Haredim that is highly improper. Those among the smug now forget that Modern (now called Centrist) Orthodoxy also “dropped the ball” when that community was tested. Just as Hollywood dropped its ball.
Not to mention the Catholic church. Of particular concern, some Modern Orthodox see this Walder mess as a “Manna from Heaven” opportunity to cut the Chief Rabbinate of Israel down a notch amid the Chief Rabbinate’s efforts to maintain and preserve halakhic conversion standards in the face of an onslaught from anti-Orthodox agitators like the Knesset’s Avigdor Liberman and Yulia Malinovsky.
This is not “whataboutism,” as if to say “Well, the Catholics, Hollywood, and Modern Orthodox mishandled it, so now the Haredim get a free pass to blow it with impunity, too.” Instead, this is about all manifesting some humility as we all move forward and learn for the future.
Twenty years ago, yeshiva high school students came forth with terrible reports about Baruch Lanner, the then-iconic leader of the Orthodox Union’s NCSY teen group. Their complaints reached the highest moral authorities in Modern Orthodoxy at Yeshiva University and at the Orthodox Union, including Rav Yosef Blau and Rav Mordechai Willig. Yet their cries and laments were not adequately believed and validated. Among other leaders in Modern Orthodoxy, some told them “This is ‘He Said / She Said,’ so we cannot help you.” Some told them they were spreading evil speech and gossip. Many of these teens felt so abandoned that they left Orthodox Judaism — forever. They and their future lineages are lost to us forever. Their bloods cry out from the earth.
The secular authorities sentenced Lanner to seven years, doing a much better job of ferreting for facts and meting justice. I remember this period all too well because I counseled some of Lanner’s victims. At that time, I was not yet publishing regularly here but was blogging, and I came under withering criticism from certain people in Modern Orthodox organizational authority who stood with Lanner.
Years later, others came to Yeshiva University’s highest ranks to report horrible narratives about two religious authority figures at M.T.A., the Manhattan yeshiva high school sponsored by Yeshiva University. They, too, essentially were blown off. Police were not notified. Truly, the accusations were so egregious that they seemed not believable. Moreover, the two accused rabbis enjoyed wonderful reputations, one as religious-studies principal and one as a rabbinic faculty member who doubled as rabbi at a local prominent synagogue. The complaints reached YU’s highest ranks. Today there is a multi-million-dollar lawsuit pending. As a musmakh of RIETS (ordained by Yeshiva University), I am rooting for the plaintiffs even though no amount of damages can restore the innocence rtobbed from them.
These failures were not Modern Orthodoxy’s only missteps in this area these past twenty years. The public record is clear that the Modern Orthodox / Centrist Rabbinical Council of America mishandled the Barry Freundel matter. I will not publish more on that here, but there is much, much more that can be published about those leadership failures. I just cannot justify publishing it here and now. Likewise, Yeshiva University High School of Los Angeles exposed its girls to Meir Pogrow and never has made that right.
For a century there was open talk of Hollywood “casting couches” and the power that Hollywood moguls wielded over women desperately seeking movie careers. As recently as 2012, when she stood on stage to accept best actress award at the Oscars, Meryl Streep praised Harvey Weinstein as “God” — and all the assemblage cheered and clapped like seals. Those days are over, and that “God” will not have a second coming for at least the next 23 years. Hollywood finally has learned. Modern Orthodoxy has learned. The Catholic church has had to struggle even more deeply for reasons beyond this discussion. And now, sadly but inevitably, the Haredi community’s turn has come to confront the same matter. It is not a time for Modern Orthodox triumphalism nor to pile on against the Haredi community.
In recent months, reports have snowballed: Malka Leifer, Meshi-Zahav, Berland, Walder. There have been others, and there will be others. This seems an inevitable aspect of the outlier human condition. Even with Hollywood on ultra-high “#MeToo” alert, new cases continue to emerge. Even so, society has changed in a good way on this. Violators will be called out and will be punished.
The Haredi community has not been monolithic here. Haredim at Eichler’s book store in Brooklyn cleared Walder books off their shelves immediately. His Haredi newspaper publisher immediately canceled his column. His Haredi broadcaster immediately canceled his radio show. Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, religious Zionist chief rabbi of Tzfat, immediately convened a bet din (tribunal) that heard from 22 women who did not know each other but shared similar narratives. Walder was invited to appear but refused. On the other hand, other Haredi figures have surged forward to defend Walder.
In other words, amid a horribly convoluted scandal, a community of disparate human beings have reflected all the confusion and dichotomies of understanding that such a scandal causes. It turns out that, beneath the Haredi garb, they are human beings just like the rest of us. But we already knew that from “Shtisel.”
Part of the challenge in confronting the unbelievable is that, in truth, Orthodox Judaism does promote a more truly sincere modest lifestyle. In America, the Somalian anti-Semite Ilhan Omar wears her hair all covered as a sign of Muslim religious piety and sexual modesty, but the whole country knows she cavorted in a very open adulterous relationship with her campaign’s communications professional while he was married and she was married. It ended only when the cheated spouses went public. Omar and the adulterous male both divorced and now are married to each other. She still covers her hair to manifest her sexual modesty.
By contrast, Judaism has a tradition of deeper marital fidelity and modesty. School children learn that Bilaam, the evil prophet hired by the Moabites to see evil in the Jews, could not help but exclaim “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob!” He was overwhelmed by the modesty of the way the encamped Jewish nation conducted themselves. To take them down, the evil prophet counseled King Balak to import Midianite women to seduce the Jewish camp and blemish the national morality. (Num. 23-25).
The Talmud teaches that Jews simply are not suspect of certain immoralities that may prevail among certain non-Jewish communities. The Torah summons us to a higher calling. Thus, we are warned not to emulate the ways of the Egyptians among whom we lived nor the ways of the Canaanites whom we next will encounter. Thus, two Jewish men sharing a hotel room with one bed are not suspect. Two Jewish men jointly occupying an apartment or house certainly are not suspect. A Jewish man with his wife in town is not suspect. Therefore, it is particularly hard, beyond shocking, when certain stereotypes are broken.
Modern Orthodox and Centrist Orthodox Jews should not self-righteously now pile on “the Haredim.” We simply got awakened earlier. The Haredim are processing it now.
It was a travesty that many attended a memorial for Walder at which some lauded him. Amid a COVID era, it would have been acceptable and elegant for the funeral to have been private. No one can expect a eulogy to be aimed at criticizing a deceased, but the eulogy for Abraham Lincoln does differ from that for John Wilkes Booth. He was deserving of a Willy Loman burial — nuclear family, a neighbor or two. But the larger turnout in Bnei Brak would be mind-boggling if it was not reminiscent of the public assemblages in the same streets when COVID lockdown was in full force.
Back in 2018, President Donald Trump held a very moving meeting in the White House, attended by parents of children at the Parkland High School where there had been a terrible mass shooting. Serially, parents were invited to share their emotions with the President. I would love for Chief Rabbi Lau of Israel to convene a meeting with the 22 women who testified before Rav Shmuel Eliyahu’s panel. The meeting can be as public or private as the participants choose, and each victim should have the opportunity to share her narrative with Chief Rabbi Lau. A full day after the meeting, the Chief Rabbi then would issue a formal statement stemming from that meeting. It would be a meaningful opportunity for the Chief Rabbi to validate the suffering and experiences of the victims and to signal the Haredi community that the awakening has come, just as it finally came to Hollywood, to the Catholic church, to Modern and Centrist Orthodoxy, and to secular Israeli society.
