Welcome to the Voice of Justice Blog

Friday, July 29, 2011

AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA - WAKE UP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

Agudath Israel of America and the Catholic league has opposed almost every attempt to pass laws that would better protect our children, from the 'Child Victims Act'' (Markey Bill) to a bill requiring religious and private schools to do background checks on all current employees and all potential hires.

                       SHAME OM YOU
                           
   
ARCHBISHOP DOLAN
                                              
                                  SHAME OM YOU

Agudath Israel of America has opposed almost every attempt to pass laws that would better protect ultra-Orthodox kids, from the Child Victims Act to a bill requiring religious and private schools to do background checks on all current employees and all potential hires.
But more than that, its attitude is that whatever is wrong or dangerous for haredi children comes from outside of the haredi community. There are no homegrown terrorists, so to speak, in Agudah's worldview.
Agudah and its Supreme Council of Torah Sages has arguably done more to harm ultra-Orthodox kids and the ultra-Orthodox community than all the outside problems, dangers and influences combined.
Remember a quote attributed to the Novominsker Rebbe, Rabbi Yakov Perlow, who now heads Agudah's Supreme Council of Torah Sages, said when victims and community activists were trying to stop Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, one of the most notorious pedophiles in the haredi community who had at that point allegedly molested hundreds of haredi kids over a quarter century.
"I'm in Borough Park and Rabbi Kolko is in Flatbush," the Novominsker Rebbe allegedly said, "it's a Flatbush problem."
This is not a man who cares about protecting children. Neither is Rabbi David Zwiebel, who does his bidding even though he seems to knows it is wrong, and Rabbi Avi Shafran, who spins Agudah's fairy tales with no apparent concern for the children destroyed in their path.
There are several key lessons we should learn from the Leiby Kletzky murder. Here are the top three:
1. Report all suspected pedophiles to police immediately. If neighbors who now say Levi Aron tried to lure their child into his car had reported Aron, both the car and Aron would have been known to police, and Leiby Kletzky might be alive today.
2. People with clear psychological disturbances need to be in treatment, monitored by professionals trained to do so – not by rabbis or Shomrim.
3. As a community, much more must be done to aid and comfort those among it who suffer from mental illness.
The danger haredim need to face is not from the outside, it is from the inside, and it comes far more often from its overemphasis on not reporting (i.e., not committing mesira) suspected criminals to police, and from its constant all-pervasive knee-jerk reaction that crime and sexual abuse must be hushed up, than it does from mental illness.
Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant, and the haredi world needs a thorough cleaning.

Let the sun shine in already.
                               

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A CALL FOR ACTION - TO THE LEADERS OF AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA AND THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE. THE TIME HAS NOW COME TO UNITE AND SUPPORT "THE CHILD VICTIMS ACT" SPONSORED BY ASEMBLYWOMAN MARGARET M MARKEY IN MEMORY OF LEIBY KLETSKY A'H

/ 

PROTEST AT AGUDA DINNER
                                     

 A few weeks have now passed since our community has been turned upside-down with the tragic murder of leiby kletsky hy'd. The past weeks were filled with sadness, grief and pain ,  weeks that will be remembered as being one of the saddest weeks in our lives. During the funeral and the weeks that followed nothing else mattered ................................................................................
LEIBY A" H
except for the face of a young, sweet and innocent boy named leiby a"h                             


                                                          



 THE   MADNESS IN BROOKLYN IS DYING DOWN       POLICE ARE REMOVING THE BARRICADES ,THE SHOMRIM ARE BACK TO CHASING SHOPLIFTERS AND PETTY THIEVES,MISSASKIM ARE BACK TO BURYING THE DEAD,HATZALAH  IS BACK AIDING THE SICK  AND THE RABBIS ARE BACK TO  THEIR VACATION RESORTS GIVING GREAT AND EMOTIONAL SPEECHES ON THE HORRIFIC TRAGEDY  
ADVOCACY
                                                                            
   BUT FOR US ADVOCATES THE WORK GOES ON,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


SURVIVORS SPEAK
 FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS WE THE VOICE OF JUSTICE HAVE EMPOWERED HUNDREDS OF VOLUNTEERS TO HELP THE MANY  VICTIMS WHO UNLIKE LEIBY  ARE PHYSICALLY ALIVE        BUT ARE EMOTIONALLY DRAINED AND IN DIRE NEED OF SUPPORT.  WE AS ADVOCATES ATTENDED THE COURT SESSIONS AND TRIALS OF THE DEFENDANTS AND LINED UP SUPPORTERS TO GIVE THE FAMILIES  THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT THEY NEED.  WE HAVE CREATED PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS ALL ACROSS OUR COMMUNITIES ,A PUBLIC SEDER FOR SURVIVORS AND DEVELOPED A STRONG ADVOCACY NETWORK TO HELP AND PROMOTE STRICTER LAWS IN NYS TO PROTECT OUR PRECIOUS CHILDREN
FREEDOM SEDER 2011
                                 We Need to Protect OUR Children and Stop Shielding Sexual Abusers
        http://www.nychildvictimsact.org     PLEASE SIGN PETITON NOW

WE strongly urge you to support the Child Victim's Act of New York There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of UNKNOWN sex abusers of children living and working among us -- in schools, , synagogues, youth groups, and especially in families. To find and pursue them, our legislators must change the New York State statute of limitations (SOL), as two special grand juries in New York have declared.
According to the FBI, 1 in 5 of ALL children are sexually abused before they are 18! Many predators are life-long abusers, with as many as 100 victims. Yet, only 10% of this abuse is ever reported to authorities.
This epidemic is made worse by those who have criminally covered up for abusers and are themselves shielded by the state's statute. For example, IN NYS -- KINGS COUNTY --WE have uncovered orchestrated criminal actions by religious institutions using deception and intimidation to delay victims from legal recourse until the statute of limitations expired.

There is one proven way to discover predators and their protectors.

"...the NYS legislature should enact a statute similar to the state of California that revives civil actions for damages for a period of one year...." When California enacted a similar law, it discovered more than 300 undetected predators. Delaware, a much smaller state, has discovered more than 60. Given that predators have multiple victims, thousands of children have now been protected in just these two pioneering states.

New York's children deserve this protection, too.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Help Keep Leiby's Memory Alive

Help Keep Leiby's Memory Alive

BY HELPING THE LIVES OF OTHERS
New York - Continuing to accept the death of their son with immeasurable emunah and dignity, the Kletzky family, upon rising from Shiva, has announced that an official fund has been established in memory of their son Leiby.  The Leiby Kletzky Memorial Fund, which will be managed exclusively by Rabbi Binyomin Eisenberger and Leiby’s parents, Nachman and Esty Kletzky, will perpetuate Leiby’s memory by helping people in need, much the way Leiby’s parents envision he would have done had his life not been tragically cut short.
Advertisement:
                   
The fund, which hopes to raise one million dollars, is a 5013c IRS tax exempt non-profit organization and will provide assistance to families in crisis, both financial and otherwise.
Contributions can be made online at www.leibykletzkymemorialfund.com 
or mailed to:
Nachman & Esty Kletzky
c/o Rabbi Binyomin Eisenberger
1448-56 Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11219  
http://www.give2gether.com/projects/help-support-leiby-kletzky/

Help Keep Leiby's Memory Alive

    
            

Help Keep Leiby's Memory Alive

BY HELPING THE LIVES OF OTHERS
New York - Continuing to accept the death of their son with immeasurable emunah and dignity, the Kletzky family, upon rising from Shiva, has announced that an official fund has been established in memory of their son Leiby.  The Leiby Kletzky Memorial Fund, which will be managed exclusively by Rabbi Binyomin Eisenberger and Leiby’s parents, Nachman and Esty Kletzky, will perpetuate Leiby’s memory by helping people in need, much the way Leiby’s parents envision he would have done had his life not been tragically cut short.
Advertisement:
                   
The fund, which hopes to raise one million dollars, is a 5013c IRS tax exempt non-profit organization and will provide assistance to families in crisis, both financial and otherwise.
Contributions can be made online at www.leibykletzkymemorialfund.com 
or mailed to:
Nachman & Esty Kletzky
c/o Rabbi Binyomin Eisenberger
1448-56 Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11219  
http://www.give2gether.com/projects/help-support-leiby-kletzky/

Thursday, July 14, 2011

WHY IS AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA STILL TELLING OUR COMMUNITY TO VIOLATE THE LAW

Agudath Israel of America, the ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, has a policy: all suspected cases of child sexual abuse must be brought before senior rabbis, who will then evaluate the case and rule on whether police can or can not be contacted.
And this is true, Agudah says, even if a legally mandated reporter suspects child sexual abuse.
Today, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi often used by Agudah as a speaker and who sits on Agudah's West Coast board, has strongly rejected that policy:

                            MR DAVID ZWEBIEL STOP PROTECTING PEDOPHILES  

                                   COURTESY- FAILED MESSIAH
HORAV Y. ADLERSTEIN
Yadeinu Shafchu Es Hadam Hazeh   By Yitzchok Adlerstein • CrossCurrents

After the horror, the disbelief, the shock, the emptiness, I next thought what many others must have.

He had to have been a pedophile. I messaged a colleague, a respected rov, and asked what he thought. I will post it anonymously; I haven’t gotten to him yet to ask to use his name:
I am sure he was, and I am sure he molested many others, and i am sure that there were people that knew and hushed it.
It is time to forever bury the myth that reports of pedophilia can be managed and dealt with by committees of rabbonim, even for a short time. It is time to bury the myth that there is a serious halachic barrier to going to authorities to deal with credible reports of such behavior. Enough baalei halacha have told us that there is no barrier.

Choshen Mishpat 358:12 tells us that those who vex the public can be handed over. Any pedophile does at least that, and poses a danger of doing much more. Moreover, mesirah of a molester exposes him to a safek of danger; pedophiles pose a much greater danger level to many more victims.

It is natural and good that many people were not eager to rush to modes of address that themselves could be too sweeping and harsh, with terrible consequences to people and their families. They thought that various types of modus vivendi were possible. By now they should realize that this is not true. Rabbonim cannot handle the issue. We have enough evidence of this. Failure to take notice of this could have been said, figuratively, to be shefichas damim/ bloodshed.

Today, it is no longer figurative.

It is not a stain on our record that it took time to learn the facts about molestation. Reacting far too slowly is a terrible stain, though.

Leiby’s horrific petirah can save the lives of many others – those who could meet a similar fate, r”l, and those victims whose lives are a living death.

I may still be proven wrong, but the analysis will not change. Parents will be speaking about safety to their children. Whatever really happened to Leiby, the fact is that our kids are often in far greater in school, shul and camp than from encounters with detested “others” while walking home.

The greatest aliyah for Leiby and nechamah for his family will come from all of us getting serious about molestation.

If your rov doesn’t get it, think of getting a new rov.   

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzchok_Adlerstein

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

A TIME FOR MOURNING AND REFLECTION

LEIBY  KLESTSKY A"H
As a community we now have many questions on the this brutal murder of  but now it is time for mourning and reflections.We pray for the Klestky family on this horrific loss,for this loss is a loss for all of us as  a united community. Today we  are   all   speechless, shaken to the core and sick to our stomach. We hope that our prayers and advocacy did not go to waste,that the family now has a body to bury and mourn and try to find   some consolation to ask god  where have we gone wrong and that leiby can now be brought to his final resting place. I can not imagine the horror and fear he faced knowing he will be gone from his family forever. Only God knows why our communities and his family needed to go through this  heartbreak. This heartless beast murdered a innocent young boy and  robbed him of having a life.., Baruch dayan emes...may the family be consoled and only celebrate life. All of us need to hug our children a little tighter today and tell them we love them. to all of you that prayed, searched and advocated       May god bless you....




שמעו נא זאת ראשי בית יעקב וקציני בית ישראל. תניא ר' יוסי בן אליקים אומר   
אם ראית דור שצרות רבות באות עליו צא ובדוק בדייני ישראל  (YALKIT SHIMONO-HOLY SAGE)
NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO CONDEMN OR ATTACK THOSE INFIDELS WHO ARE PROTECTING THEES MOLESTERS,BUT MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON THEIR SOULS

   WE WILL WITH THE HELP OF GOD CONTINUE OUR STRUGGLE TO MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES SAFE FOR OUR CHILDREN DESPITE THOSE WHO STAND IN OUR WAY
  
      

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

MISSING CHILD IN BROOKLYN PLEASE HELP THE SEARCH

Brooklyn ,NY - In a coordinated effort,the NYC POLICE DEPT  and  Shomrim are conducting an extensive search tonight in Brooklyn, NY for a nine year old boy who did not come home from day camp this afternoon.

Leibby Kletzky left the Boyan Day Camp located at 1205 44th Street at approximately 5 PM this afternoon.  The missing youngster, who answers to the name Leibby, has light brown hair, black glasses and was wearing a grey and light blue striped shirt, navy pants, black sneakers, a blue knapsack bearing the words “Nechmod Day Camp” at the time of his disappearance.  Surveillance cameras from nearby businesses show the boy walking up 13th Avenue to 50th Street but there is no footage of Leibby after that point.

Boro Park Shomrim has set up a command center at 15th Avenue and 57th Street and volunteers are canvassing the area, searching stores, bathrooms and alleyways.  The NYPD has been called in along with special K9 units to aid in the search. NYPD helicopters are currently in the air doing an aerial search as well.
  
“We ask everyone in Brooklyn to take a few minutes to walk out of their houses and search, their backyards, their driveways and their blocks,” said Chaim Deutsch CEO Of Flatbush Shomrim,
Deutsch indicated that it was too early to speculate if there is any evidence of foul play in this matter. Shomrim also requested that people check their Shuls for the missing boy, paying special attention to the bathrooms.
                                                                                

    PLEASE CALL 911  OR 1  800  621  8551   
     IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION