Examining the abuse-control system

On one hand, the mainstreamrabbinic organizations have established in-house panels to handle casesof suspected sexual misconduct and other ethics violations by theirmembers. On the other hand, Judaism is highly decentralized, whichmeans individual congregations are largely free to decide how to policethemselves in this area.

Consequently there is no guaranteethat misconduct cases arising at the synagogue level will find theirway to the ethics committees' dockets. Even so, several sources saidthey were confident that serious cases would probably be brought to theattention of denominational-level officials, or the police ifnecessary.

Whether or not that is actuallythe case, reactions varied widely to the notion of congregants decidinga sexual misconduct case involving their own rabbi.

That uncomfortable prospect wasone of several examined by JTA in this three-month-long investigationof policies that have been drawn up over the past several years to reinin rogue rabbis and others who sexually exploit congregants, studentsor others.

Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vicepresident of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, saidalthough shul-goers would probably be too lenient when asked to judgetheir own rabbi, "they generally understand what must be done."

Psychotherapist and authorCharlotte Rolnick Schwab, who believes that most aspects of Judaism'sinternal adjudication system are dysfunctional, said the prospect of acongregation deciding a rabbi's professional fate is especiallytroubling.

"The problem of dealing withrabbi-perpetrators of sexual abuse is compounded by the fact thatindividual synagogues have sole power over hiring and firing theirrabbis," Schwab wrote in her 2002 book "Sex, Lies, and Rabbis: Breakinga Sacred Trust." The book continued: "The rabbinic organizations cansuspend them from membership, can recommend that they resign. They canalso recommend that the synagogues fire them for cause. It is shockingthat many of these synagogues, even in the face of several womenaccusing the rabbi, vote to keep him on."

That said, controversies stemmingfrom allegations of rabbinic abuse are not always clear-cut. They aresometimes complex, shaded with ambiguities and subject to varyinginterpretations.

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

Early the following month, theR.A.'s ethics committee, which had investigated the case, summarizedits findings in a letter to Shalman that was obtained by the Forward.The letter said in part: "It is painfully clear that you have violatedseveral principles of rabbinic conduct which have caused harm tocertain of the women counseled or taught by you."

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

The committe, echoing the board'sdecision, decided that as a condition of his continued employment atShaarey Zedek, Shalman must undergo therapy with an R.A.-approvedpractitioner and report regularly to a rabbinical mentor. It alsoprohibited him from teaching or counseling women on an individual basiswithout the permission of the ethics committee.

On Aug. 19, 1999, four monthsafter the R.A. decision was handed down, the membership of TempleShaarey Zedek voted 232 to 87 to keep Shalman. The text of a motionissued in conjunction with the vote clearing Shalman to remain on thepulpit said in part, as reported in the media, that Shalman had beenunjustly victimized by "anonymous allegations and subsequent rumors"after having tried to comfort those "in need of such assistance."

Contacted in late December by JTA,Meyers of the R.A. said Shalman had fulfilled all the requirementsmandated by the organization's ethics committee. The case was declaredclosed in July 2001 and Shalman was "restored to full rabbinic statusin the Rabbinical Assembly," according to an R.A. document provided byShalman. When contacted, he declined comment on his case.

Rabbis are not the only religiousauthority figures who may be accused of victimizing congregants.Cantors, among others, have committed sexually abusive acts, asindicated by several cases, high-profile and otherwise.

In one instance, a woman who wasinterviewed by JTA, reported being sexually assaulted by her cantorseveral years ago in a parking lot following a communal event. Thewoman, who asked that neither her name nor the name of her assailant beused, said she initially did not report the incident to the policeafter being advised by an acquaintance "to keep it quiet, and keep itin the community."

But as word of the incidentspread, the woman said she and her son were soon ostracized by membersof the religious community that had once embraced them. They became thetargets of a harassment campaign, according to the woman, that includedpointed intimations that she and her son might not be Jewish.

"They destroyed my sonspiritually," said the woman, now in her mid-40s, her voice breaking."They ripped the heart of Jerusalem from him and I had to watch it."

Eventually the woman's Jewish bonafides - and those of her son - were confirmed by an Orthodox beit din,a rabbinic court, sitting in New York, which also advised her to reportthe sexual assault to the police.

"They did everything right," she said of the beit din.

Felony charges were filed againstthe cantor, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count, according toauthorities. He was given a one-year suspended sentence, three yearsprobation and was ordered to undergo domestic violence counseling.

Although procedures foradjudicating sexual misconduct complaints against cantors differ frommovement to movement, none of these cases are handled by thedenominational rabbinic organizations - unless perhaps the cantor isalso an ordained rabbi.

The Orthodox Union, which hasapproximately 450 member synagogues in North America, has behavioralstandards covering hundreds of organizational employees, but it has nocongregational ethics guidelines applying specifically to non-rabbinicclergymen, such as cantors.

"It's a big gap; I can't defendit," said Rabbi Mark Dratch, who chairs the Task Force on RabbinicImproprieties of the O.U.'s companion organization, the RabbinicalCouncil of America.

Conceding that such ajurisdictional loophole does exist, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executivevice president of the O.U., added in an e-mail that "the OU does nothave ‘jurisdiction' over cantors, or over non-rabbinic members ofindividual synagogues who may misbehave, but urges synagogue leadershipto educate itself about such matters and bring breaches of sexualconduct to legal authorities when appropriate, or to appropriate mentalhealth or social service agencies when necessary."

If not the O.U. or the RCA, it wasnot immediately apparent which Orthodox organization would in fact havejurisdiction over a sexual misconduct complaint involving a cantor.Orthodox cantorial organizations do exist, but their representativessaid they are not equipped to handle ethics complaints of this type.

As for the other denominationssurveyed, the Reform and Conservative movements have cantorialassociations that rule on ethics complaints against their members.

Over the past five years, fivecomplaints alleging sexual misconduct have been filed with theConservative movement's Cantors Assembly, resulting in the expulsion ofthree cantors from the organization. The Reform movement's AmericanConference of Cantors has received one complaint of sexual harassmentsince 2004. That complaint was investigated and found to be withoutmerit.

The Reconstructionist movementdoes not yet have a full-fledged cantorial association and, as aresult, most cantors working in that denomination's synagogues belongto either the Conservative or Reform cantorial groups, according to aReconstructionist spokesman.

Several of the denominationalcodes have specific deadlines for promptly dealing with accusations ofmisconduct, but they apparently are not always followed. In fact, RabbiRosalind Gold, chair of the ethics committee of the Reform movement'sCentral Conference of American Rabbis, identified procedural delays asone of the chief flaws in the system - a glitch in the CCAR mechanismthat was evident when JTA first investigated rabbinic sexual abuse in1996. The delays can penalize both victims of abuse and rabbis who areunjustly accused.

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

"Things just take too long," Goldsaid. "Trying to get nine rabbis together for a meeting is really hard.I've seen delays hurt both complainants and rabbis. It puts themthrough hell."

In the woman's case, the ethicscommittee-following its routine procedures- suspended its investigationafter it learned that there was litigation involving the rabbi and thecomplainant.

"We don't want our ethics processto be used as evidence in a court case," Gold explained. "It's notwritten in the code; it's been the practice since the code was put intoplace" in 1991. "It doesn't happen often, and usually it involves adivorcing couple with a rabbi spouse."

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

"If to investigate and get to thebottom of it is the right thing to do at any given point in time, it'sthe right thing to do at all points in time," Anderson said. "Tosuspend it because of a civil suit makes it the wrong thing. There's noright way to do the wrong thing."

Still, Gold defended the work of her ethics committee.

"There is no glory in it and a lotof grief," she said. "Our committee is really committed to findingrabbis who shouldn't be practicing. Our process isn't perfect, butthere's no old boys network anymore." But there is a potential downsideto the climate of increased vigilance now emerging in the Jewish world.

"Sometimes, somebody doesn't likethe rabbi and makes something up to get the rabbi fired," said SusanGrossman, a rabbi at Beth Shalom Congregation, a Conservative synagoguein Columbia, Md. Grossman cited the instance of a colleague who "woundup getting hauled in and fired" after innocently applying suntan lotionto children.

To guard against such episodes, itis important for denominational decision-makers to be flexible and usecommon 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 arabbi for the pulpit cover an enormous range in terms of severity."People keep looking for black-and-white solutions to thesesituations," said Meyers, "and that's not how human relations work.Each situation is different."

In general, policies on sexualimpropriety reflect the intentions of "people of good character andintegrity who seem to take the issue seriously," Dratch said. "Butsometimes even these people can mishandle cases."

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

Schwab, the psychotherapistauthor, said she recently conducted an informal poll of scores ofcongregants at Conservative and Reform synagogues in Palm Beach County,Fla., and found that none of them were aware of their congregations'policies on sexual misconduct.

Yet even when all parties arewell-informed and the system functions "optimally," it does not alwaysdispense justice, according to Reform Rabbi Drorah Setel, an anti-abusescholar and activist. She argued that when sex abuse victims filecomplaints against revered communal figures, they always run the riskof being vilified.

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

The situation might improve, Seteladded, if ethics panels had more lay people or more women, or ifvictims' advocates played a more prominent role in the proceedings -anything to redirect the therapeutic focus away from the rabbisthemselves. Several denominational policies, for example, encouragerabbis to seek moral rehabilitation through teshuvah, or heartfeltrepentance.

"The policies are silent onteshuvah for the congregation," Setel said. "What happens if thecongregation shuns the victim? Does the congregation have to doteshuvah? There's a whole process of reintegration into the communitythat is not even addressed."

Ironically, the role of teshuvahin sexual misconduct cases was raised recently by prominent ReformRabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, who himself had been found by the CCAR to bein violation of the organization's guidelines on "sexual ethics andsexual boundaries."

A former CCAR president, Zimmermanwas suspended for two years by the CCAR in 2000. He then resigned aspresident of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, butwent on to become executive vice president of birthright israel andthen vice president for Renaissance and Renewal of United JewishCommunities.

Zimmerman's post-suspension hires drew both criticism and praise. He no longer works for UJC.

The CCAR did not disclose fulldetails of the case involving Zimmerman, but several sourcesinterviewed around the time of his suspension said it is believed hehad what was characterized by one publication as an "extramaritalaffair" with a congregant 15 years earlier while he was the rabbi ofCentral Synagogue in New York.

In 2005, Zimmerman published anarticle in the CCAR Journal in which he reflected on his case and onhis efforts to rehabilitate himself with the help of CCAR-mandatedteshuvah "mentors." Praising some aspects of the teshuvah process andcriticizing others, Zimmerman wrote that his family "needed and failedto receive communal and collegial care and support."

Attempts to reach Zimmerman for comment were unsuccessful.

Despite these and other criticismsof the still-evolving mechanism for dealing with clergy sexualmisconduct, several sources said they see evidence that concern overthe 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," saidUnderwood, who has helped various faith groups formulate ethicspolicies, "is ‘What do we do to legally cover our asses?' What I'mhearing now is, ‘What do we do to keep congregations safe and rabbisand cantors healthy?"'

On a more practical level,workshops addressing the issue are becoming more commonplace across thedenominations. The O.U., for example, featured such a session at itsrecent biennial convention in Jerusalem. A special beit din has beencreated in Chicago to adjudicate cases of sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, denominational leadersare placing greater emphasis on education and prevention as effectivetools in combating the problem of sexual misconduct among clergymen andother trusted figures. The Union for Reform Judaism, for example, inits May 2005 leadership briefing advised board members of itscongregations to ensure the safety of congregants "and reduce your riskof liability" by considering rigorous background checks of employees.

In addition, several rabbinicalschool curriculums now include courses on sexual misconduct and how tosteer clear of it. Yeshiva University is one such school.

"I've seen it work," saidpsychologist David Pelcovitz, who teaches at Y.U. "I've had youngrabbis in the field call me and tell me how they've been able torecognize situations they wouldn't have known how to handle before.I've gotten several calls like that over the last couple years, and itfelt great."