Enabling and Apologetics

I urge everyone to read this great post by Gil, where he respectfully takes apart some statements made by by Agudah spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran on the subject of child molestation. I agree with Gil's overall point. In my opinion, Rabbi Shafran is spending too much time explaining and obsessing on how Orthodox Jews are the victims of the media, and how our culture is under siege by people hell-bent on proving that the molestation issue is as prevalent in the Orthodox community as it is in society at large - and in doing so, Rabbi Shafran is completely dodging the issue here, an issue which sorely needs addressing. The issue that child molestation does exist in our schools, in our camps, in our neighborhoods. The issue that every single allegation of child molestation needs to be fully and thoroughly investigated. The issue that there are too many instances coming to light of people in our community turning a blind eye - whether out of ignorance or out of willful denial - to the cases of abuse that have seemingly occurred.

Is Rabbi Shafran correct that every allegation cannot automatically be treated as fact, and that there needs to be a some sort of balance to the wholesale panic and hysteria that can ruin lives if left unchecked? Yes. Is that the point that needs to be driven home? Perhaps - but it is certainly not the most important point to be made on this subject, and certainly not the point that needs to be made every single time Rabbi Shafran addresses the topic. It's almost as if Rabbi Shafran would have us believe that the fear of the community losing face over these allegations is somehow anywhere near as disturbing as the allegations themselves. The allegations, some quite credible, of children being abused in the most heinous manner by those who we entrust to care for them, to educate them. If Rabbi Shafran were to put out just one statement that would lead me to to believe that he is chagrined, devastated, completely emotionally wrought by the allegations of abuse and cover-up that have rocked the Orthodox world, then maybe I would feel more comfortable with the apologetics and attempts to paint the community at large as the actual victims of unfair media attention here. But the bottom line is that the victimhood is getting old. The victim here is not the Orthodox community, at the hands of a sensationalist press - or at least they are not the most pitiable victims. The victims, that just once, Rabbi Shafran might consider showing at least as much compassion for as he does for the reputation of our entire community, are...well, the actual victims of these heinous crimes.

Is Rabbi Shafran trying to enable child molesters? Is he truly looking to be complicit in the culture of cover-up that permeates our community when it comes to this subject? I don't believe he is. But I think his apologetics and his tone-deaf approach to the topic are misfiring, again and again.