Wayward Clergy: Is it Rampant or an Aberration?

NEW YORK (JTA) -- How extensive is the problem of clergy sex abuse in the Jewish community?

It depends which criteria are used as a yardstick.

One possible gauge is the volume ofabuse complaints that have been adjudicated by the ethics panels of themajor religious denominations.

Judging by the tiny caseload, theproblem appears to be negligible -- unless, of course, wrongdoing byrabbis and other clergymen is underreported, as some observers maintain.

Rabbi Richard Hirsh, executive vicepresident of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, countedthree or four investigations into rabbinic sexual misconduct since the300-member organization adopted a new code of ethics in 1999. The codeis again being revised.

Hirsh would identify neither the transgressions nor the transgressors.

"We're not allowed to discuss anydetails," he explained, although in one instance, he added, theassociation's ethics committee merely admonished the accused rabbi to"be careful next time."

Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vicepresident of the Conservative movement's 1,600-member RabbinicalAssembly, said in the 17 years he has held his current post, only threerabbis have been asked to leave the R.A. or left on their own due to"inappropriate behavior" of a sexual nature. This year, one rabbi wasexpelled.

In addition, the R.A. insisted that "several" other rabbis found to have engaged in "seductive behavior" undergo therapy.

Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vicepresident of the Rabbinical Council of America, a primarily modernOrthodoxy organization, said the RCA has ruled on so few sexualmisconduct complaints over the past 10 years that the number is notstatistically significant.

The Union for Reform Judaism, whichhas 900 member congregations, sees no "particular need" to keep recordson the numbers or dispositions of sexual misconduct cases, according toits president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.

"I don't happen to believe there'sany evidence of an epidemic of rabbinic sexual abuse," Yoffie said. "Ifyou are asking, am I aware of there being some significant numbers ofpeople, my answer is no. We have to keep it in perspective."

The Awareness Center, acontroversial Baltimore-based Jewish clearinghouse of clergy sex abuseinformation, lists on its Web site scores of Jewish clergy who arealleged to be sexual predators. Some of them have been convicted ofcrimes, but some have not even been charged.

Although authoritative statisticsquantifying the problem appear to be nonexistent, "some experts"estimate that "between 18 and 39 percent of Jewish clergy are involvedin sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and/or sexual misconduct --the same percentage as non-Jewish clergy," according to the 2002 book"Sex, Lies, and Rabbis: Breaking a Sacred Trust" written bypsychotherapist Charlotte Rolnick Schwab.

"All denominations are involved," Schwab wrote.

In her book, she said quantitativedata were drawn in part from a conversation with the Rev. MarieFortune, director of the FaithTrust Institute, a Seattle-basednonprofit organization that fights sexual and domestic violence.

Schwab in her book added: "The large number of cases I, alone, have in my files bears out this estimate."

Contacted later, Fortune said: "Tomy knowledge there are no definitive statistics in any of our faithgroups that quantify the problem, and what we have instead areanecdotes and in some places numbers of complaints brought in thatparticular jurisdiction."

Fortune said her "best guess, basedon anecdote and experience," is that 10-15 percent of all clergy havebeen involved in some form of sexual impropriety.