Jewish Sexual Scandals: Being just like Catholics ain't all that great

A Whole bunch of people have been posting about the sexual scandals in the religious world lately. My family was discussiong it over dinner on Friday night. The Jewish Week is where I saw it. The Jewish Week also gets the credit for breaking and pursuing the Baruch Lanner story a while back. To the best of my knowledge no one in NCSY has yet stepped up and taken responsibility for covering his story up as much as they did, though there was some remorse on behalf of the beit din that addressed that case before.

Now there are also scandals surrounding the Chief Rabbi of Israel. This is getting out of hand. We are becoming a nation like all the others, and I am thinking specifically the Catholics. This is so embarassing.

I remember the old city of Jerusalem from my Yeshiva days. It was always a refuge for all sorts of people. Going back to the 1970's there was an incident with a certain Rabbi Fleer in Brooklyn (if memory serves me) who is now a rather popular lecturer in Jerusalem whose sins are pretty much forgotten, in favor his stories of Nachman of Bratslov. There were incidents with past rosh Yeshivas in various schools, there were the problems in Netiv Meir, the respected high school in Israel. See Naomi Regan's piece on this.

Matis Weinberg is also a popular lecturer in the Old City of Jerusalem. lots of people hang around him. I remember his lecturers always being advertised around the Old City. His book, Patterns in Time was also supposed to be a real intellectual journey. I am scared to hear about the stories that will come out in the future as more people learn that people are speaking out.

Matis Weinbers is related to the Ner Yisroel Weinbergs, and he is also closely related to Noach Weinberg, also a rather prominent figure in the old City. Noach Weinberg runs Aish Hatorah, which recently had a rather disparaging article about it in the academic Journal of Jewish Social Studies. Noach Weinberg must have a lot of clout, as he has been actively courting rich assimilated Jews. Prominent among them are Larry King and Kirk Douglas. I hope that he is not able to use all the Hollywood clout to cover up for his nephew (I think).

All this is just wrong. Anecdotally I have heard of this type of stuff being covered up all over Israel, from Har Nof to Meah Shearim.

Perhaps we need to start putting measures in to place to deal with this. The chilul Hashem is much worse now that this has happened then it would have been if we would have taken care of it way back when.