Earlier this week, Nechemya Weberman, described as “a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist” and “a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community,” was convicted of repeated child sexual abuse against a girl who was sent to him for help. Even more disturbing is the repression and intimidation against the community’s own female population:
The verdict represented the first time Mr. Hynes’ office has won a conviction of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg for child sexual abuse.
The case also offered a glimpse of the Satmar community’s shadowy efforts to enforce rigid codes of behavior — particularly for young girls — by allowing so-called modesty committees to intimidate girls for wearing revealing clothing or using cellphones, and requiring parents to send children judged to be breaking rules to religious counselors, many of whom are not licensed and charge high fees.
And the, from the same community in Williamsburg, NY: violence against a rabbi.
An outspoken advocate for child sexual abuse victims in the Satmar Hasidic community was injured by a chemical he believed to be bleach that was thrown in his face as he walked down the street in his Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood on Tuesday.
The advocate, Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, who runs a Web site and telephone call-in line that publicizes claims of sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community, said in an interview at the hospital where he was treated that he was walking on Roebling Street about noon when a man came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“He has a cup of bleach,” Rabbi Rosenberg said, adding that he recognized the man. “And then he says ‘whoops’ and throws it in my face and walks off.”
These incidents are why I tend to favor that local police and presiding governmental authorities always take cases of sexual and physical abuse. Communities policing themselves never seems to work, and indeed seems to encourage both cover-ups and silence.
