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