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Article Category: 2007 January

Reining in abuse Where does the buck stop?

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Article originally prepared on : 19 January 2007

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=6564&TM=33494.7

Reining in abuseWhere does the buck stop?

by Richard Greenberg
JTA News and Features

The rabbi in a midsized Pennsylvania city was eager to share his congregation's wrenching experience - but no names, please.

It's been nearly five years since the synagogue's cantor pleaded guilty to sexually molesting two girls he was preparing for bat mitzvah ceremonies. Sentenced to 15 to 30 months in prison, he is now on Pennsylvania's sexual offender list.

Still, the rabbi wanted the name of his synagogue and of the abuser, whose crimes are a matter of public record, kept confidential. "We are mindful of not causing additional trauma to those who suffered here," he wrote in an e-mail.

But, the rabbi wanted it known that measures have been instituted to guard against a repeat occurrence. For example, the synagogue now requires that another adult be present during private religious instruction.

In that respect, this synagogue typifies many Jewish institutions, which during the past several years have adopted new policies - or beefed up existing ones - aimed at cracking down on rogue rabbis and others in positions of trust who sexually exploit congregants, students or others.

But, Judaism is not a monolith, and that may have implications in the fight against clergy sexual abuse.

On one hand, the mainstream rabbinic organizations have established in-house panels to handle cases of suspected sexual misconduct and other ethics violations by their members. On the other hand, Judaism is highly decentralized, which means individual congregations are largely free to decide how to police themselves in this area.

Consequently,there is no guarantee that misconduct cases arising at the synagogue level will find their way to the ethics committees' dockets. Even so, several sources said they were confident that serious cases would probably be brought to the attention of denominational-level officials, or the police, if necessary.

Whether that is actually the case,reactions varied widely to the notion of congregants deciding a sexualmisconduct case involving their own rabbi.

Rabbi Joel Meyers,executive vice president of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, said although shul-goers would probably be too lenient when asked to judge their own rabbi, "they generally understand what must be done."

Psychotherapist and author Charlotte Rolnick Schwab, who believes that most aspects of Judaism's internal adjudication system are dysfunctional, said the prospect of a congregation deciding arabbi's professional fate is especially troubling.

"The problem of dealing with rabbi-perpetrators of sexual abuse is compounded by the fact that individual synagogues have sole power over hiring and firing their rabbis," Schwab wrote in her 2002 book, Sex, Lies, and Rabbis:Breaking a Sacred Trust. "The rabbinic organizations can suspend them from membership, can recommend that they resign. They can also recommend that the synagogues fire them for cause. It is shocking that many of these synagogues, even in the face of several women accusin gthe rabbi, vote to keep him on."

That said, controversies stemming from allegations of rabbinic abuse are not always clear-cut.They are sometimes complex, shaded with ambiguities and subject to varying interpretations.

In one case, for example, the board of the largest Conservative synagogue in western New York, Buffalo's Temple Shaarey Zedek, voted conditionally in March 1999 to keep its rabbi, A. Charles Shalman, after several female congregants reported that he had touched them inappropriately and had made sexuallysuggestive comments to them, according to press accounts.

Early the following month, the R.A.'s ethics committee, which had investigated the case, summarized its findings in a letter to Shalmanthat was obtained by the Forward. The letter said in part: "It ispainfully clear that you have violated several principles of rabbinic conduct which have caused harm to certain of the women counseled or taught by you."

The letter continued: "Normally, given the nature of the conduct, we would expect you to withdraw from your congregation." But the committee relented, the letter explained, after learning that the synagogue's board, in its March 1999 vote, had decided to permit Shalman to keep his post "under very strictly defined parameters."

The committee, echoing the board's decision,decided that as a condition of his continued employment at Shaarey Zedek, Shalman must undergo therapy with an R.A.-approved practitionerand report regularly to a rabbinical mentor. It also prohibited him from teaching or counseling women on an individual basis without the permission of the ethics committee.

On Aug. 19, 1999, four months after the R.A. decision was handed down, the membership of Temple Shaarey Zedek voted 232 to 87 to keep Shalman. The text of amotion issued in conjunction with the vote clearing Shalman to remain on the pulpit said, in part, as reported in the media, that Shalman had been unjustly victimized by "anonymous allegations and subsequent rumors" after having tried to comfort those "in need of such assistance."

Contacted in late December, Meyers of the R.A. said Shalman had fulfilled all the requirements mandated by the organization's ethics committee. The case was declared closed in July2001 and Shalman was "restored to full rabbinic status in the Rabbinical Assembly," according to an R.A. document provided by Shalman. He declined comment on his case.

Several of the denominational codes have specific deadlines for promptly dealing with accusations of misconduct, but they apparently are not always followed.In fact, Rabbi Rosalind Gold, chair of the ethics committee of the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis, identified procedural delays as one of the chief flaws in the system - a glitch in the CCAR mechanism that was evident when JTA first investigated rabbinic sexual abuse in 1996. The delays can penalize both victims of abuse and rabbis who are unjustly accused.

In one recent case, awoman maintained that she had waited six months before receiving word that her complaints against a rabbi would be investigated, despite what she characterized as a two-week reporting requirement mandated by the CCAR. The rabbi vigorously denied the allegations against him.

"Things just take too long," admitted Gold, the retired rabbi of Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston. "Trying to get nine rabbis together for a meeting is really hard. I've seen delays hurt both complainants and rabbis. It puts them through hell."

That's not to say the committee rabbis don't take their roles very seriously, shesaid, noting that on the last conference call, one called in from Israel, another from Egypt.

In the woman's case, the ethics committee - following its routine procedures - suspended its investigation after it learned that there was litigation involving therabbi and the complainant.

"We don't want our ethics process to be used as evidence in a court case," Gold explained.

"We don't use the same criteria as the legal system does to find guilt or innocence," she said. "It really does muck things up when there's botha legal and an ethics investigation," she said. (She also noted that if the committee learned, for instance, of sexual abuse of a child, "we are responsible to report it, and we do.")

Regardless of the rationale behind the rule, Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota attorney who has handled hundreds of sex abuse cases against religious organizations, including at least one Jewish institution, said it is simply bad policy.

"Ifto investigate and get to the bottom of it is the right thing to do at any given point in time, it's the right thing to do at all points intime," Anderson said. "To suspend it because of a civil suit makes it the wrong thing. There's no right way to do the wrong thing."

Still,Gold defended the work of her ethics committee. "Our process isn't perfect, but there's no old boys network anymore," she said.

But there is a potential downside to the climate of increased vigilance now emerging in the Jewish world.

"Sometimes, somebody doesn't like the rabbi and makes something up to get the rabbi fired," said Rabbi Susan Grossman of Beth Shalom Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Columbia. Grossman cited the instance of a colleague who "wound up getting hauled in and fired" after innocently applying suntan lotion to children. That rabbi was later exonerated, she said.

To guard against such episodes, it is important for denominational decision-makers to be flexible and use common sense, said Meyers of the Rabbinical Assembly.

"You can't always find that in written ethics guidelines," he said, explaining that sexual misconduct "cannot be generalized."

Activities that might disqualify a rabbi for the pulpit cover an enormous range in terms of severity. "People keep looking for black-and-white solutions to these situations," said Meyers, "and that's not how human relations work. Each situation is different."

In general, policies onsexual impropriety reflect the intentions of "people of good character and integrity who seem to take the issue seriously," said Rabbi Mark Dratch, who chairs the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America's taskforce on rabbinic improprieties. "But sometimes even these people can mishandle cases."

The guidelines, he adds, are "only as good as the people involved in that particular case, and that's part of the problem. They're often not aware of the policies or they're not well-trained in this area."

Yet, even when all parties are well-informed and the system functions "optimally," it does not always dispense justice, according to Reform Rabbi Drorah Setel, an anti-abuse scholar and activist. She argued that when sex abuse victims file complaints against revered communal figures, they always run the risk of being vilified.

"To name the problem is to create the problem," Setel explained. "That's the mentality. Anger is directed at the victim rather than the perpetrator."

The situation might improve, Setel added, if ethics panels had more lay people or more women, or if victims' advocates played a more prominent role in the proceedings - anything to redirect the therapeutic focus away from therabbis themselves. Several denominational policies, for example, encourage rabbis to seek moral rehabilitation through teshuvah, or heartfelt repentance.

"The policies are silent on teshuvah for the congregation," Setel said. "What happens if the congregation shuns the victim? Does the congregation have to do teshuvah? There's a whole process of reintegration into the community that is not even addressed."

Despite these and other criticisms of the still-evolving mechanism for dealing with clergy sexual misconduct, several sources said they see evidence that concern over the problem is beginning to pay off.

Attorney Anne Underwood, for one, said she detects a change in the mind-set of institutional Judaism.

"What I don't hear anymore," said Underwood, who has helped various faith groups formulate ethics policies, "is 'What do we do to legally cover our asses?' What I'm hearing now is, 'What do we do to keep congregations safe and rabbis and cantors healthy?' "

Gross managrees. "I think things are becoming much more public. There's much more awareness in general among laity and clergy of what is inappropriate and how to recognize things that are inappropriate," she said.

Workshops addressing the issue are becoming more commonplace, and denominational leaders are placing greater emphasis on education and prevention as effective tools in combating the problem.

In addition, several rabbinical school curricula now include courses onsexual misconduct and how to steer clear of it. Yeshiva University is one such school.

"I've seen it work," said psychologist David Pelcovitz, who teaches at Yeshiva University. "I've had young rabbis inthe field call me and tell me how they've been able to recognize situations they wouldn't have known how to handle before. I've gotten several calls like that over the last couple years, and it felt great."

Washington Jewish Week contributed to this article.