Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt: Jewish Child Molester
In late May 2015 yet another sex scandal from the world of rabbinical Judaism hit the headlines in the jewish - and to an extent the mainstream - media. This time it is a little different in that it didn't actually involve sexual intercourse per se, but rather the distinctly paedophilic practices of Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt.
Rosenblatt was the rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center - an Orthodox Synagogue in the Bronx - and had - since 1985 - been conducting rather unusual jewish education sessions there. Rosenblatt likes to get naked and go with his purely male students into the showers and sauna. (1) Rosenblatt apparently believed that this behaviour had ‘educational benefits’ in his tutoring the boys in the intricacies of Judaism; instead it has left many of his students distinctly traumatized. (2)
To quote the New York Times:
'But last fall, decades after the first complaints, a man whom Rabbi Rosenblatt once took to the sauna learned that the rabbi had spoken to sixth graders at the school the man’s son attends.
The father posted an email to a Jewish discussion group with about 500 members, who turned out to include at least six veterans of the sauna sessions. Their accounts, along with others that have emerged, paint a disturbing picture. According to the boys involved, who now are grown, the rabbi openly gawked at a naked 12-year-old. He invited a 15-year-old over for intimate nighttime conversations, during which he frequently put his hand on the boy’s leg. He invited himself into a 17-year-old’s living room and tried repeatedly to persuade him to change into a bathrobe.' (3)
Now openly gawking at a 12-year-old boy's prepubescent genitalia, offering a 15-year-old boy 'intimate night time conversations' and trying to get a 17 year old boy to change into a bathrobe - in my admittedly white male heterosexual world - positively reeks of paedophilia and a desire to have sexual intercourse with young boys.
Whether Rosenblatt acted on these instincts is clearly not the issue; the issue is that he is behaving this way at all and further that the Orthodox community has aided, abetted and even defended this clearly paedophilic conduct! (4)
As the Jewish Daily Forward so aptly puts it; major jewish and rabbinic institutions knew all about Rosenblatt's behaviour, but they did absolutely nothing to stop it. In fact they defended him as a kind of visionary teacher of a sort. (5)
Indeed Rosenblatt is no lightweight in Orthodox Judaism as he married into rabbinic royalty, was considered for the position of Chief Rabbi of Britain a few years ago, was then a visiting scholar at Harvard and a frequent speaker at events specifically aimed at children and young people. (6)
The fact that he is quite clearly being protected from being accused of being a paedophile and his behaviour has been subject to private censure (but not public repudiation and nor has it ceased) suggests that the epidemic of child molestation (and a culture of defending it) that - as I have remarked many times - infests ultra-Orthodox Judaism and is also significant in its less stringent cousin: Orthodox Judaism.
Quite frankly anyone who thinks Rosenblatt's behaviour is acceptable in any way, shape or form is just sick.
Yet he shockingly initially kept his job as the rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center (7) despite initial claims he was going to ‘give it up’ (8) before quitting under significant legal pressure in February 2016. (9) Although as of this writing Rosenblatt still seems to be working and ‘educating’ at the Riverdale Jewish Center as he is listed as leading synagogue services. (10)
Rosenblatt had also branched out to other ventures as Yerachmiel Lopin at 'Frum Follies' pointed out in 2016:
'Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, advertises himself as someone who provides “Spiritual and Psychological Counseling.” This is on the site of Scarsdale Integrative Medicine whose motto is “East and West Medicine for the Balance of Your Life.”’ (11)
‘I have no idea why he thinks his doctorate in British literature qualifies him for this work. But then he has a peer in Riverdale, Simcha Weinberg, with a similarly nebulous professional self description as a spiritual counselor who specializes in married women. Weinberg also avoids getting into the question of why he stopped working at the Lincoln Square Synagogue.' (12)
Perhaps more amusingly Rosenblatt spends a lot of his brief biography at the 'Scarsdale Integrative Medicine' website avoiding the mention of any relevant qualifications in medicine. Instead he prefers to emphasize that rabbis around the world allegedly ask him for advice on a regular basis. (13) That is of course possible although relatively unlikely, but that said stranger things have happened as the case of jewish lesbian child molester Malka Leifer in Australia/Israel has demonstrated in recent years.
It is clear however given Rosenblatt's stressing that he has worked with people of 'all faith backgrounds' that he doesn't desire to abuse only jewish children, but rather any kind of child he can get his hands on.
Although 'Scarsdale Integrative Medicine' promptly denied that Rosenblatt ‘had ever worked’ there after media interest in why they were employing a serial homosexual jewish paedophile with a doctorate in British literature in a medical/therapeutic capacity began to grow. (14)
It appears - as before stated - that Rabbi Rosenblatt is back at the Riverdale Jewish Center in some kind of official capacity and that he’s probably still up to his old tricks and trying to spend as much time in the nude with naked male children as possible.
Simply put: keep your male children away from this guy.
References
(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/nyregion/fresh-debate-over-whether-a-rabbi-acted-inappropriately.html
(2) https://forward.com/opinion/309487/dont-blame-the-sauna-rabbi-blame-orthodox-mentality/
(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/nyregion/fresh-debate-over-whether-a-rabbi-acted-inappropriately.html
(4) https://forward.com/opinion/309487/dont-blame-the-sauna-rabbi-blame-orthodox-mentality/ also https://www.thejc.com/news/world/naked-sauna-session-rabbi-apologises-binut09s
(5) https://forward.com/opinion/309487/dont-blame-the-sauna-rabbi-blame-orthodox-mentality
(6) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/nyregion/fresh-debate-over-whether-a-rabbi-acted-inappropriately.html
(7) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/nyregion/rabbi-who-had-naked-chats-in-sauna-intends-to-keep-his-job-at-riverdale-jewish-center.html; https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/319247/sauna-rabbi-jonathan-rosenblatt-to-keep-riverdale-pulpit/
(8) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/nyregion/bronx-rabbi-is-negotiating-buyout-and-is-expected-to-step-down.html
(9) https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/nyregion/jonathan-rosenblatt-bronx-rabbi-who-had-sauna-chats-is-stepping-down.html; https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-lengthy-battle-sauna-rabbi-jonathan-rosenblatt-steps-down/
(10) https://www.sdcongregation.org/
(11) https://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/the-sauna-rabbi-is-now-a-spiritual-and-psychological-counselor/; confirmed by https://riverdalepress.com/stories/post-scandal-rabbi-finds-new-job-in-scarsdale,60235 and
(12) Ibid.
(13) https://www.scarsdaleintegrativemedicine.com/integrative-medicine-spiritual-counseling-rabbi-jonathan-rosenblatt-phd
(14) https://forward.com/news/347163/employer-of-disgraced-sauna-rabbi-denies-he-ever-worked-there/