But a lawyer for three-dozen alleged victims says Yeshiva University High School is still hiding the extent of wrongdoing, CBS 2's Tony Aiello reported Monday.
Yeshiva University promised to "meet or exceed" the openness of Penn State and other institutions that have hired outsiders to investigate abuse claims, but a lawyer suing the school says an investigative report released Monday falls far short of that promise.
Attorney Kevin Mulhearn slammed the report released by Yeshiva University.
"I think this is a whitewash. They're trying to establish with the community the fact they're being open and candid and this report indicates the opposite," Mulhearn said.
A lawsuit accuses two former faculty members of physically and sexually abusing boys over a 20-year period — from the 1970s into the 1990s — at Yeshiva's high school in Washington Heights.
Yeshiva ordered an independent investigation, Aiello reported.
The report out Monday admits "multiple incidents of sexual and physical abuse took place," and found "multiple instances in which the school either failed to protect the safety of its students or did not respond to the allegations at all."
"It confirms that the school acted grossly inappropriately," Mulhearn said.
A statement from President Richard Joel calls the findings "a source of profound shame and sadness for our institution." He offered victims his "deepest and most heartfelt remorse."
Yeshiva's report is far less revealing than last year's "Freeh report" on the scandal at Penn State. Yeshiva admits it is withholding details as a legal tactic in the face of a lawsuit demanding millions for the victims.
"We're looking for the information that they promised to provide, but didn't. We're looking to get that through the litigation," Mulhearn said.
The two sides will square off in court in early September.
The report released Monday found that since 2001 Yeshiva has had excellent protections in place to safeguard students.
YU is sadly not the only institution where such things took place and where there was a major cover up.
ReplyDeleteThere are serious allegations of abuse at Ner Yisrael Baltimore, by someone who by now is an old man - also one of its top educators, whose terrible acts are well known by the many students he allegedly abused and by others too. You may want to look at some the allegations by some of his many victims, on the web.
The faculty of that institution also allegedly covered up his actions for the past 50 or so years.
Apparently he has not only raped boys, it is sadly reported that he has done the same to girls(he is alleged to be guilty of rape on his trips to Russia).
Apparently he even published a commentary on one of the books of the Tanach with one of the very well known publishing houses, who it seems were made aware of his wrongdoing and even so went ahead with the publication.
The Baltimore Jewish Times did an investigation and as anti-frum as they could be, they found nothing that would count as real evidence. Personally I do not believe the accusations and I do not believe that the Gaon the Founder of Ner Israel ztl or his brother-in-law the Executive Director ztl would have covered up such behaviour. These were people of astonishing yashrus and integrity. A first cousin of the Executive Director is a Justice of the English Supreme Court -- Lord Neuberger. I was in Ner Israel when the rabbi in question arrived from Philadelphia Yeshivah to assist our Mashgiach Reb David Kronglass ztl, another person of superhuman integrity, who would have never put up for a minute with any form of immorality. Incidentally the rabbi in question did several volumes of Nach and did a brilliant job.
DeleteI've just done some research on line. One of the Baltimore Rosh Yeshivah's grandsons was accused of improper behaviour in a yeshivah in California where he was teaching. It appears he was banned from the Baltimore campus and never attended future family simchas judging by photographs.
DeleteI know this Rov personally as I was one of the boys in the yeshiva in Europe that he used to visit ten years ago regularly and in this yeshiva we had few boys from kishenev, Moldova as well they new the Rov long before. I learnt with him personally many times and was on his shiurim a lot. The only thing I can say he is a tailmid chocham with a great personality, never I have noticed anything that would disqualify him as Rov or a Torah Jew or anything even slightly strange neither did I hear something like this from my haveirim, I have been few times with the Rov alone in his room helping with installing Barilan on his laptop and he never behaved differently then in the public. I really hurts me hearing this accusations since I am sure it is shekker gomur.
ReplyDeleteHow krumm should one be to schmutz a talmid chocham so badly!