Rabbis, Informers and Paedophiles

I am informed by the ‘Jewish Daily Forward’ of 25th May 2011 that the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical authorities have established two rulings on the issue of jews going to secular authorities about cases of paedophilia within the ultra-Orthodox community. (1) Now the issue of paedophilia inside the ultra-Orthodox has always been something of an open secret that while the mainstream media is content to attack Catholic priests for similar vile activities it simply ignores the problem when jews are involved.

The first ruling by Rav Shalom Elyashiv states that frum jews with a ‘reasonable suspicion’ of paedophilic abuse inside the community can go to the secular authorities and that does not count as being an ‘informer’ in halakhah (jewish religious law). The second clarifying ruling by Rav Shlomo Gottesman clarifies Elyashiv’s ruling to define what ‘reasonable suspicion’ in fact is as Elyashiv hadn’t - predictably enough - qualified his meaning enough to enable it to be put into practice.

The qualified ruling is essentially no change at all from the current halakhic status quo in ultra-orthodoxy with the jew who suspects that paedophilic abuse is going forced to ‘consult’ a rabbi ‘with experience in these matters’. Rav Gottesman doesn’t define what he means by ‘experience in these matters’, but I must admit I am unsure as to whether he means a rabbi who happens to be a ‘reformed paedophile’ or one who specialises in the halakhah surrounding deviant sexuality.

He probably means the latter, but I think it speaks volumes that he could within reason mean the former as each jew supposedly possesses a ‘special soul’ that is born within a ‘special body’. So, taking a matter to those who aren’t born with a ‘special soul’ born in a ‘special body’ is rather galling for a jew to say the least. Hence jews don’t tend to go to secular authorities and even often try (sometimes successfully) to manipulate them to their advantage. (2)

This is one of the problems that philo-Semites have long struggled with in that Judaism explicitly believes in the superiority of the jew over the gentile and that said superiority is innate. It isn’t even remotely arguable that is not the case, because the halakhah on the subject and the rabbinic literature make this very clear. However, it doesn’t stop them trying to say that Judaism is a ‘universalist religion’! (3)

One symptom of this idea of superiority of the jew over the non-jew can be found in the idea of the ‘informer’ in Judaism, which simply means a jew who goes to secular authorities without permission to report anything to them. Usually, the example given by jews to justify this particular part of the halakhah and its rabbinic commentary is that of the jew who goes to the secular authorities lying about the jews and causing said authorities to swoop down on the jewish community. The implied assumption there, of course, is that what all the jews who have gone to the secular communities without permission have done so to report imagined crimes and libels against their fellow jews.

This disgust is still evident in modern secular jews when they discuss the motives of ‘fellow jews’ who have turned against their people. (4) This is almost certainly in part due to the fact that Judaism conceives of the past, present and future being essentially the same. (5)

However, as the famous Rabbi Solomon Luria himself implicitly tells us the ‘informer’ did often have good reason to go to the secular authorities as, for example, the jewish authorities regularly disregarded the ‘law of the land’ (6) which they claimed the halakhah tells them they should - note not must - obey and imposed death penalties by sanctioned mob lynching. (7) It is also quite probable that the rabbinical authorities in this case didn’t want the secular authorities investigating their financial dealings either as that would almost certainly lead to reprisals for things like tax evasion and lead to the confiscation of the wealth they had accumulated as part of their holy industry.

So then is it any wonder that rabbinical authorities like Meir of Lublin demanded that ‘informers’ be hunted down and killed by their fellow jews? (8)

What does this mean for ultra-orthodox paedophiles?

It means that Rav Elyashiv’s ruling with Rav Gottesman’s ‘clarification’ is essentially a free licence to rape children precisely because the ruling refuses to get secular authorities involved because they aren’t jewish. What is particularly galling about it is the fact that ultra-orthodoxy is notorious for helping sexual criminals within its own ranks escape justice and I remember read some years ago an account by a child of a notable ultra-orthodox halakhic authority to the effect that when she was a few years old her father began raping her on a regular basis and the rest of the ultra-orthodox community knew all about, but said nothing because her father was a great halakhic authority and was at the apex of a supposedly glittering career.

In essence then ultra-orthodoxy is telling the world in general that its jews are permitted to be paedophiles just so long as they don’t annoy specific rabbis - who ‘have experience in such matters’ - and then only if the threat to the community of discovery outweighs the problem of having non-jews investigate the inner workings of community will an ultra-orthodox rabbi who ‘has experience in such matters’ - go to the gentile police.

So, we may reasonably say that ultra-Orthodoxy knowingly gives aid and succour to jewish paedophiles and with these two rulings will continue to do so. After all a jew is allowed to tell ‘white lies’! (9)

Don’t let your children be around ultra-Orthodox jews!

References

(1) http://forward.com/articles/138131/

(2) An excellent detailed case study of this maybe be found in Jonathon Frankel, 1997, ‘The Damascus Affair: “Ritual Murder,” Politics and the Jews in 1840’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York

(3) Morris Kertzer, Lawrence Hoffman, 1996, ‘What is a Jew?’, 5th Edition, Simon & Schuster: New York, p. 114

(4) Gavin Langmuir, 1984, ‘Thomas of Monmouth: Detector of Ritual Murder’, Speculum, Vol. 59, pp. 830-832

(5) Moshe Davis, 1978, ‘I am a Jew’, 1st Edition, Mowbray: Oxford, pp. 132-134

(6) Solomon Luria, 1859, ‘Sheelot u-Teshubot Maharshal’, 11

(7) Paul Kriwaczek, 2006, ‘Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation’, 2nd Edition, Phoenix: London, p. 140

(8) Myer Lew, 1944, ‘The Jews of Poland: Their Political, Economic, Social and Communal Life in the Sixteenth Century as reflected in the Works of Rabbi Moses Isserls’, 1st Edition, Edward Goldston: London, pp. 128-129

(9) Davis, Op. Cit., p. 71