From: http://www.chicagotribune.com
A Federal
lawsuit alleging that an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who runs seminaries for girls in
Israel is a sexual predator offers a rare look into the most traditional branch
of Judaism, where a young woman's religious education can prove key to finding
a good husband through a matchmaker.
The allegations
raised in the lawsuit, filed this month in Chicago, have already been brought
before rabbinical courts in Chicago and Israel. The courts —known as beis din —
came to contradictory decisions on the accusations against Rabbi Elimelech
Meisels.
The lawsuit was
filed by parents of girls who want their tuition money back in light of
allegations against Meisels. They say in the suit that the rabbi for 10 years
recruited young women from Chicago and other cities to his seminaries in Israel
"under the guise of educational and spiritual development."
Meisels is
accused in the lawsuit of "developing mentor-mentee relationships with
girls," taking them on late-night coffee meetings and sexually assaulting
them. Meisels, who could not be reached for comment, does not face any criminal
charges.
A few weeks
before the suit was filed, a Chicago beis din heard the allegations against
Meisels. The body ruled that, based on testimony (including from Meisels) and
documents, it believed "students in these seminaries are at risk of harm
and does not recommend that prospective students attend these seminaries at
this time," according to the lawsuit.
Given the
strictures of a religious prescription known as loshan hara (evil tongue),
which forbids the ultra-Orthodox from speaking ill of anyone, parties to the
lawsuit declined to talk about the matter, said Shneur Nathan, their attorney.
However, a
parent who is not a party to the lawsuit agreed to talk about his experience
with Meisels as long as his name was not used.
His daughter, a
recent high school graduate, was scheduled to spend a year at one of four
women's seminaries in Israel operated by Meisels. With a tuition of about
$20,000, plus living expenses, sending her would deplete the family's savings
and mean taking out loans. His wife volunteered to work extra hours.
But the two of
them thought it worthwhile. For a girl in their community, a year at an Israeli
seminary has become a sort of finishing-school experience; it separates
childhood from the next stage of life, finding a husband and setting up her own
observant household. As the lawsuit notes, for Orthodox Jewish girls a seminary
experience in Israel "profoundly shapes and influences their marriage
prospects."
hey learned of
the Chicago beis din ruling against Meisels. When the man and his wife told
their daughter why she wouldn't be going, the young woman was deeply upset, her
father said.
Parents seeking
refunds have been unable to get answers from administrators at the seminaries,
according to the lawsuit. The named plaintiffs are seeking class-action status
to cover damages, said Nathan, their attorney.
Meisels did not
respond to an email request for comment or to a phone message left with the
U.S. office of his seminaries.
Parents
scrambling to find an alternative Israeli school for their daughters were
further stymied when an Israeli rabbinical court issued its ruling on the case
July 25 and sided with Meisels.
According to the
Israeli rabbis, "there is no cause for concern" at Meisels'
seminaries. In addition, the Israeli court said that "it is absolutely
forbidden" for other seminaries to offer Meisels' prospective students the
opportunity "to switch to their institutions."
If the federal
lawsuit goes to trial, jurors will have to sift through claims and
counterclaims connected to a lifestyle virtually unknown to outsiders, even to
other Jews.
"The
ultra-Orthodox are in the larger world, but not of the larger world," said
Samuel Heilman, a professor at City University of New York, who has written
extensively about the ultra-Orthodox.
In Hebrew,
they're called haredim, "tremblers." The men have long beards, and
ritual fringes trail out of their shirts; women wear ankle-length dresses and
keep their hair covered after marriage. They live in strict obedience to 613
prescriptions — plus so many extrapolations made by ancient commentators,
medieval rabbis and contemporary sages that it could take a lifetime to master
the literature.
Not just rabbis,
but all men who make that intellectual effort, command enormous respect in the
ultra-Orthodox community.
"The social
bonds of the ultra-Orthodox community are loshan hara, the seminary and the
matchmaker," said Michael Salamon, a clinical psychologist with a practice
near a largely ultra-Orthodox community outside New York City.
The matchmaker,
called a shadchan, is necessary because of the strict separation of the sexes.
So a third party has to introduce an eligible man to a suitable woman, a
responsibility that's gotten harder lately,
"There's a
crisis," said Rabbi Yitzchok Wolf, a Chicago-area matchmaker. "There
are more girls looking for husbands than boys looking for wives."
That demography,
Salamon notes, puts a premium on polishing a young woman's credentials, if she
is to be introduced to a pious and scholarly man. "Parents are convinced a
daughter must go to the right seminary," he said.
The federal
lawsuit quotes from Meisels' acceptance letter: "Your choice of our
seminary ensures you the wonderful benefits of gaining from our marvelous
faculty and staff as you prepare to build homes and lives that reflect the
centrality of Torah."
Both supporters
and detractors of Meisels agree that his is a charismatic personality. The
lawsuit alleges that Meisels "threatened his victims that if they shared
their story he would draw upon his vast contacts within the Shiduch system to
ruin their reputations and ensure that no viable candidate would want to take
their hand in marriage."
The accusations
leveled against Meisels have sent shock waves through the ultra-Orthodox world.
"The whole tapestry of their lives is tightly woven together,"
Heilman said. "So one thread coming loose threatens to unravel the whole
thing."
The fact that
the members of the community came forward could mark a turning point, said
Nathan, the attorney who filed the civil case. There is even a chance that the
question will be aired in open court because of a handful of parents who, by
putting their names on a federal lawsuit, challenged loshan hara.
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