INSTITUTIONS FAILING OVER CHILD ABUSE
A REPORT into child sexual abuse in religious institutions has reached the damning conclusion that a number of Jewish religious institutions are failing to provide adequate child protection measures.
In a 200-plus page report published last week, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse urged the government to regulate educational settings such as yeshivot in order to better protect children.
The report said: “At present, there is either no or very limited oversight and assurance of child protection in religious organisations.”
The inquiry detailed several shocking examples of abuse in the Jewish community and how victims were not properly dealt with by their religious leaders.
That included the case of Todros Grynhaus, who was jailed for 13 years and two months in 2015 for the abuse of two adolescent girls.
When one of his victims reported him to a rabbi in 2004, the rabbi sent him for counselling. Two years later, when she told influential figures in the Charedi community about Grynhaus, she was offered £5,000 in compensation.
Going to the police was “not an option”, she was told, because she would be regarded as a moiser [informer] and shunned by the community.
The report said that barriers among religious organisations to reporting suspected crimes included abuse of power by religious leaders, mistrust of external agencies and gender disparity.
“Having only men in positions of power, and only men to whom abuse can be reported within an organisation, makes it less likely that women and children will report abuse,” the report stated.
The inquiry also referred to one man who was “allegedly abused when he was 10 years old by a teacher from his Chabad Lubavitch Jewish school”.
Even as an adult, he said he had felt unable to report the alleged abuse to the police, because the Charedi Jewish community of which he was a part “had a culture of discouraging members from complaining to the police”. The alleged perpetrator was tried and acquitted of the allegations, the report said.
Educational institutions which teach only a religious curriculum are currently exempt from registration with the Department for Education, although the government has recently proposed changing the law to ensure that they are inspected.
The inquiry will wait until its final report before deciding whether to recommend the mandatory reporting of child abuse or legislating to ensure that voluntary organisations comply with basic child protection standards.
Ofsted had found a “weak” culture of child protection in three yeshivot it had inspected, the report said.
In addition, in two of the settings it identified fire safety concerns, such as
One victim reported the abuse to a rabbi. The perpetrator was sent for counselling
locked fire exit doors, and “significant” hazards, such as multiple broken and shattered windows, electrical sockets in disrepair with exposed wires, broken tiles, a dirty kitchen, uncovered vermin bait in classrooms and inadequate toilet facilities.
The City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership (CHSCP) had written to the Government to express concern about its impotence in resolving the issues about schooling in yeshivot.
It had sought to engage with the Charedi community, but the community had been “unable, unwilling or lacked the overarching authority to commit to the changes required”, it said.
The inquiry – which conducted separate investigations into the Anglican and Catholic churches – collected evidence from 38 religious organisations, including several from across the Jewish community.
Rabbi Jehudah Baumgarten, repre
senting the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, told the inquiry that disclosures of abuse with the Charedi community were “thought to be lower in number than would be expected for the size of population”.
While they did not have the data, they had “a high level of confidence that it is correct,” he said. This, he added, could be “explained in part by the prevailing environment and culture within the Charedi community.
“There are significant protective factors in the community that are likely to reduce the incidence of child abuse.”
The UOHC’s child protection committee advice line had received only four calls raising concerns “of a serious nature,” he said.
This contrasted, however, with 800 calls received by Shema Koli, a helpline for survivors of abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community, between April 2013 to December 2019, the report stated.
Migdal Emunah, a charity providing support to victims, gave support to 50 families a year.
Although the UOHC did not have a child protection policy when Rabbi Baumgarten attended the hearings last year, it has since put one in place.
The inquiry was also made aware of the child protection policy for the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in Hackney, which appeared online in 2015, stipulating that outside agencies should only be involved “after consultation with the rabbinate of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations”.
The report further cited a 2013 Dispatches documentary on Channel 4, where an “under an undercover interview showed Rabbi Ephraim Padwa [head of the UOHC’s rabbinate] dissuading someone from reporting abuse to the police, invoking the concept of mesirah [being an informer].”
Following the documentary, the UOHC’s rabbinate, the inquiry said, “issued a position that set out that there are ‘certain circumstances which it is right and proper to contact the social service and / or the police’”.
Although that statement was welcome, the IICSA said, “it is of note that it implies that there will be circumstances when it would not be proper to contact social services or the police. Rabbi Baumgarten accepted that this statement was not sufficiently clear.”
Rabbi Baumgarten had sought to distance the UOHC from Rabbi Padwa’s remarks, stating that “Rabbi Padwa was acting in his personal capacity” and that the incident that was filmed “does not reflect UOHC rabbinate position today”.
At the other end of the Jewish religious spectrum,
Rebecca Fetterman, Liberal Judaism’s youth director and safeguarding lead, said that she believed that three incidents within the movement had been reported to the outside authorities in 10 years, while two of “very minor” harmful sexual behaviour had not.
The inquiry described as a positive step the fact that a number of organisations had a child protection policy, such as Chabad Lubavitch, the United Synagogue and Masorti Judaism.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was also cited as providing a good example of leadership in communicating “his abhorrence of child protection failures”. Ms Fetterman was among those who supported making it mandatory for religious leaders to report suspected abuse to the statutory authorities. But the report quoted the Federation on Synagogues as one of the organisations concerned about such a move. “We fear that requiring religious leaders to report these matters will have the unintended consequence of deterring complainants, victims and survivors from disclosing them to their religious leaders,” the Federation said.
“If someone is not yet ready to go to the authorities, but needs to confide in their rabbi, they will be reluctant to do so if they know the rabbi is required by law to report their conversation.”