Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein and Rabbi Zvi Gluck on Sexual Abuse Hosted by David Lichtenstein

so our next guest is RAB n eisenstein this is actually a continuation of an interview that we had with him that we did not get a chance to play and he's going to speak about reporting molesters to the police so let's go back to our interview what is your opinion about the the the you know in America there's been a lot to do about molestation does somebody go to the police or do they go to a RV and Ravid con has been very outspoken he says he's sat on he's seen many cases I personally I had a boy Buy in my house where the boy committed suicide he was molested and a year later he committed suicide and he he spoke about it by the shabas table rather unemotionally the next year I heard he overdosed and he died and he says ranam don't have a clue as to the damage so you know they come out by the good and they say we're going to make a Bez of ranim well it's years later it doesn't exist so it's like there's a fire burning and they're saying well G you should go ask there's going to be a best and I mean if somebody's dying that's not the add UD you take so David says it's these people are they never do one they they repeat offenders right he said nobody eats one potato chip these people then there's no such a thing as a molester who does it once he says you know it's true you pick up the phone you call the police and he says they should be put in jail for life because they're recidivist what's your opinion about that so first of all there's a written TR from written to the grandal cone I I saw the Chua I'm a familiar with the Chua and CH the chuv is being misquoted well I saw the chuva bav I I I didn't see a quote I saw the TR and and he quotes it on the Raj he quotes the Raj Shin but the people misquoting the truven and besides truva I have the SCH of hearing firsthand from R unfortunately this issue came up not once and not twice well Yos holds that there has to be a very strong umer to accuse a person like you say to put him in jail for the rest of his life unless you know 100% that there has not just has in the this basis otherwise we know there cases of of uh unfortunate cases that people went to jail people went to jail and uh and found out afterwards that the whole thing was a mistake delicate issue let me respond in in in I spoke to um a very prominent doctor who deals with this and he says contrary to popular opinion when somebody goes to the authority they're for the most part disinterested and unless the police find strong evidence they don't they're not even interested in taking the case because they're lazy so it's not like somebody says oh I heard a rumor you go to the police and a SWAT team comes down and arrests the person he says you go to the police if you're lucky you'll get them interested if they're interested they launch an investigation if they find strong evidence they'll arrest the person so he said the entire concept that is like in the movies a SWAT team waiting for phone call let's go attack the person he said it's a myth it's not true okay assuming what this person saying is true this is Dr wburg prominent I can't argue with him because I I really don't have any any firsthand information but just let me just let me just comment on one of the things you just said that if the police let's say then the police get involved let's say if we're everything they got involved and the police feel that there's a strong case that then they'll deal with it and put the person in jail who are the police to decide whether there's a strong case who should who should decide but who should decide police have the to fulfill what the requirement of should be the the police see a Jew when the police see a Jew coming and they can have a chance you you know better than me you're living in America when when they can cap a Jew and put him in jail there's no there's no racism there's no anti-Semitism in in these matters they they don't look at it in that regard here it's very apolitical I I hope you're saying is true but again again it there was there was a basin set up there was a basin set up in and I I was in in up in in the east coast I was even asked to to join the Bas for certain cases a few cases I was involved with and reluctantly I accepted to do it under certain conditions however the accusers refuse to come to the bason they refuse to come to B they refuse to cooperate if the Bas would of the side that there's more than according to the according to the requirements of the P his is in his cha yeah I know but he meant more he told me he has to be it's it's not just and again I mean would be very problematic very but it's but wait but you have a sh who says the the the says that and and it only happens toim for the most part so ifim are what chance do we have again I did not say that I said it's problematic there's to be they be done by and afterwards there should be experienced who know how to deal with this situation I want to ask you you're you're being why are you being mmir on the life of the ROI why aren't we looking out to be Mahir and the hatah of the N knowing a few facts one 99% of these cases children don't accuse adults of molesting them it's just foreign and psychologists will tell you a child does not come to his father and say so and so did that to me my red be it's just strange a child doesn't do that child and not so in the vast majority it's true the vast majority of molesters have multiple cases I mean this fellow mandz had I know I personally know to had hundreds of children he molested why aren't we being M you know they came to and they said why are you so in he said I'm not being I'm being neish why are we not being but why aren't being knowing that it's the and the children very often commit suicide and we have people like Yan Hartz who says 75% of kids who go off the Derk is because they were molested and he's an expert in this 75 why aren't we being on the children's lives why are we being there's a of my well that's what the police for let the police investigate again I don't know if if if the the community has to give over to the police and you go you know every court case it's a you know you go to court in America I don't know of israels they better it's like going to Las Vegas now we're gonna interview Rabbi who as director of amudim has the most hands-on experience of anybody in the United States with Orthodox children who've experienced some type of abuse we have on the phone with us from Brooklyn New York one of the great young asan of Our Generation the founder of amudim Welcome Shalom Alim how are youav hasem could you tell us what does amudim do uh that's the magic question amudim does Crisis Intervention and case management in situations where people really have nowhere to turn we have a primary focus on helping victims of sexual abuse and those suffering from addiction as well as of other services that we help people with as well and and start at the beginning how did you get into how did how did a moodum come about uh so this really goes back to when I was 19 years old and two of my close friends uh passed away one of them committed suicide and one overdosed on drugs and at that point I started getting involved involed you know as an individual helping people obviously being my Father's son meant I was born into this business barem and after many years of doing things at hoc about uh little bit over a year and a half ago to uh close friends Mishi wolson and Mendy Klein sat me down and said it's time to do something more formally this business of just running around is not uh conducive to what we're trying to accomplish in Claus Ro and they basically pushed me against the W to start on M him and and so tell me how did you start it what does it do what's this what are its systems that you have in place how many employees give us some make it three-dimensional okay fine um so how it started was initially with the three people uh really just finding a way to manage cases of kids at risk victims of abuse and drug addicts and alcoholics um from there we expanded we currently have a full-time staff of nine five of which are case managers and what we do is we provide this everything but the direct service for victims addicts and families so just to make it simply stated if somebody comes to us that unfortunately their child was molested so we will help them find an appropriate therapist to deal with the child we will help the family find therapists to deal with them our case managers will be involved with them every step of the way when there's law enforcement involved we're going to help them communicate and do things in a very simple fashion where the victims don't have to relive the trauma of going over the abuse time and time again if they then require specialty impatient treatment will help them find the appropriate program for that so we'll really be there from when the person realizes that they need help and do a holistic approach to help the entire family get through this traumatic episode so that they can heal appropriately so let me ask you a few questions we have had differing raban there was there was the letter signed by 100 raban David K called it the ran allowing people to go directly to the police and then we're going to have on after you RAB eisenstein fromr who says that it's USA to go to the police and we had Reb danil newat who was sort of someplace in the middle he was concerned about that the letter did not seem to have um many um guidelines but it seemed to be a card blanch so I'm not asking you a halic opinion but experientially how damaging is is child molestation um do you agree with these ranim not on again not on a halic basis but just from a life experience basis what in your opinion what has been your experience dealing with these cases I mean I I'll answer it with a small metaphor as a paramedic in hatal I draw on shabas for what we call right right CL that I know of personally Lu that amudim has dealt with has unfortunately 41 tragic deaths under the age of 30 since this past rashash Shana of which 17 of them we know for a fact were victims of sexual abuse So when you say deaths were these suicides murders like what does that mean 17 death in drug overdoses children since rashash Shana and now we're in tubish fat right so right so it's around six months or so right five months 17 suicides in five months because of sexual abuse that I know of so to answer your question is I'm not a RV I don't pasin but if somebody steals money from somebody else people have no problem running and saying go to the police but this is murder 17 deaths months suicides and how large of a community do you deal with so I mean on a regular basis I would say about 30 to 40% of the people coming to us for help are from the New York metro area and the rest of it are now spread out throughout the country and even AR isal Switzerland England I mean we're getting calls from all over now I'm curious is is that number of suicide deaths because of is that something um endemic to the orthod Ox Community to the because there's such a stigma attached or is that sort of executive of the general population the answer is I don't know as far as the suicide rates but the chief medical examiner of New York had asked me a while ago how can they try to explain that every time that someone Jewish dies young the family wants them to write aneurism on the death certificate when they do statistics how how is it possible that so many people in a small community all have aneurysms so you know the answer is statistics are statistics that are never real because it's hard to answer sexual abuse we know affects all the communities equally from now is it split between um men boys and girls equally um I mean what we're seeing is different than what the national statistics are but the answer is yeah I mean we're dealing with boys that are being molested girls being molested on the suicides uh it's pretty much I think it might be one or two more boys than girls but it's it's pretty much the same the numbers are so when Ravid con said that they have a din of AI you would you would say that the statistics certainly seem to support his opinion they support his opinion 100% And I would even say that even those that are alive you know that that that aren't dead are dead inside until they get help so there's there's so I mean dealing with victims of abuse and trying to get them to heal is the most difficult part of what we deal with because literally we have people that are 35 40 years old that are completely empty and dead from what happened to them when they were 9 10 11 and 12 now is this because and I know you're not a psychologist but is this because in our community kadha and tahara and snas are so accentuated and is there perhaps more damage because of that or is this just a human condition so it's funny I actually discussed this exact question with David PTZ many times um we don't believe so you know we believe that it's just something that's really it's a problem everywhere however we do find it you know the one area that we are having a big issue with especially now that there are organizations doing awareness and programming and I must bring this up is that everybody's always talking about the rabbi the bus driver the coach that's the Molester unfortunately over 90% of the cases that we deal with occur in the person's own home so while we're so busy with awareness in programming we're forgetting that most of the people that this is happening to we not really reaching out to and trying to get them the help that they need so why aren't ranam speaking more about this well unfortunately the one that uh has been batting for our side for a long time left us this week you know I don't know I wish we had more it's a good question w a very good question I mean I'm sure you I'm sure you knew Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald I peripherally so he was one of the first people that came out publicly on this topic and and went up against everybody um are you seeing attitudes changing among raban 100% but in a very very interesting way whereas five years ago ranam would close their eyes and as if it didn't happen they're already starting to have the conversation they're still not where they need to be but I I can say that we're light years ahead of where we were when I first started getting involved in abuse issues but we still have a long long way to go but there's definitely a change of attitude and acceptance that these problems really exist now rovid con was I in my opinion when he spoke he said the ranim who don't pass in this way are not aware they're ignorant they don't understand the damage they don't understand the trauma nor do they understand the lifethreatening situations it creates so he was really on the four front of this I mean not only that but I use it as a as an educational message there are many times that we have people come to us with cases and we're starting to help them and the family says oh our RV doesn't want us to do ABC and D so we'll take that as an opportunity to sit with those Rabon and bring in a detective and a therapist and someone from the DA's office and slowly but surely educate the ranim for them to realize a what the damage is psychologically be what the legal process really is I mean it's just not simply true that anyone can go to anyone and say you did this and have them arrested and destroy their life so so talk about that because you're GNA have Rabbi um eisenstein in a few minutes get on the phone and speak about anybody could destroy anybody's life and that the police are all vicious anti-semites and they're looking for the opportunity to hang a je by his toenails could you talk about that a little um it couldn't be further from the truth I mean I am a chaplain with a few Police Department I'm a liais on here locally in New York City I deal with the prison system it's just not true I mean it's nice to say that because people like to make Mars out of the few bigname cases I can speak specifically about abuse because that's the topic we're talking about when a victim comes forward and says something happened to them and let's assume it's in therapy where the therapist is a mandated reporter and the therapist reports it the detectives that come to interview this victim are not from the local police station these are specialized detectives from a unit if the child is under a certain age the child abuse Squad if they're over a certain age they call it sexual Vic you know this the sex crimes unit depending on which city or county you're in or Special Victims Unit they don't want to stigmatize young kids and these detectives are investigators they do forensic investigations they have lines of questioning and they know what they're looking for and they know how difficult it is to really deal with this and they know how to feel through what could be real what can't be real and even more so even if something is real will the victim be believable enough that an arrest should even be warranted because maybe if you make the arrest and then the victim doesn't come through it's going to fall apart anyway then this goes to the if they do feel there's enough information it goes to the district attorney's office again this is an investigative process and the District Attorney's offic has both psychologists and the adaas that are assigned to sex crimes are again specially trained both in being lawyers of course and in being forensic investigators to know what to ask and to really go through it tooth and nail they told me a staggering number less than 15% of all reported cases of sexual abuse actually lead to an arrest less than 15% less than 15% of reports actually lead to an arrest that's a in number that's crazy and of that on the national level less than 10% of that 15 actually lead to a conviction so 10 out of 15 mean you're talking about really 1% of one and a half percent of all cases reported lead to a conviction correct that's a frighteningly low number but again but remember that most of these cases occur in the home and family members won't report on family members and if you're in a small minority community and you know let's say it's a a clergy member or a teacher you know I can tell you cases that will make you here stand up I mean I don't know how far I can go with this but I had a I said the story publicly a few years ago a 14-year-old 13 and a halfy old boy was actually molested in a mikah in a prominent Shu and I found out about this about a year and a half two years later the boy was learning nus at that point ran away uh was already on the road to be not from long story short I had reached out to the RV cuz I found out that the r made this boy apologize to the older fellow that molested him and I went to the r and I said what's wrong with you and he says what do you mean if the boy thinks he did something wrong then he'll never go to the police so we needed him to apologize so this young man shouldn't go to jail it's a sick it's just I mean you know it's the it's the he of everything Tyra it's like the he of yashar it's the he of EMS it's the he of Justice it's that it's the opposite of everything we're taught from Al and on the he of the Gans this RV RV should be defract should give him a job in the sanitation department n even that's tuov at least they do a good job so who are there any particular abonim that quote unquote are particularly unsensitive or sort of lead the charge against you know Aras in our community they read the par of Aras by Min there's no stronger statement of this from the from our from our from our right are the who are against it are who against what we're taught are they are they K in the Tyra do you have RAB like that so again it's hard to you know the answer is I'm sure there are but the way they view it is is they come out with these you know they come out with these great ter so at the end of the day said it best we spoke at an event together and he gets up and he says I personally believe everybody should go to the police but because I know that people are going to want to go to a RV so that they can look good in their community's eyes I'll tell you go to a RV but I'm going to add to that if the RV doesn't pasin go to the police this is p you go to another of and another of and another of you find the r that says you can go on a Case by casee basis you know the ranam always will tell you the same thing and this is what they tell us and my staff on a regular basis of course this if it's really true then the person should go but how do we know it's true you can destroy a guy's life over a false accusation and and you're taking a chance and when I try to explain to these rabim that these young children you know in certain especially children below a certain age they don't know to make this stuff up this is not like a kid who's you know saying I want to get back at you and you have proof people don't lie about being abuse victims it's such an emotionally terrifying and traumatic thing that it's not something they lie about and and I tell it to these Rabon men we have you know whether it's David pelowitz or Barry harowitz or Dr Zimmerman or any of the doctors or when you hear David Mandel speak I mean everybody involved in this field says the same thing and the Rabon I don't know I mean listen we're we're hoping we're going to see change faster than we are we're just not there yet do you find in any particular Community less less embrac towards the reality of what they go through so I would say in the I'm going to use this word I you know I have to say this I'm saying this lais this is not you know I'm called a self-hating Jew often enough I'm used to it already but in the ultra Ultra Orthodox and in theisha communities where things are very tightnit and you know focused around the figurehead and around a certain culture of support we'll call it we have the most difficult times breaking through to deal with these issues and we're trying I mean we are trying I sat with a this past week and over over a case I mean we were discussing a case and he looks at me and he goes I know this is a big problem we just we don't have a good solution and I looked at him I said again I'm not a pisc but if a person is doing this shouldn't they be you know shouldn't they be arrested shouldn't they at the very least be made media people can protect themselves I mean something you know if a guy walks into a school with a loaded gun nobody would think twice about killing the person but here we're talking about thank you so much