Knicks to host Maccabi Tel Aviv in exhibition

NEW YORK (AP) The New York Knicks will host Maccabi Tel Aviv in an exhibition game for the second time in three years.
The Euroleague team will play at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 18, the Knicks announced Thursday. The game will tip at 1 p.m., a more convenient starting time for the team’s fans in Israel than the usual 7:30 p.m. start.
Proceeds from the game will benefit Migdal Ohr, the world’s largest orphanage.
The Knicks beat Maccabi 112-85 on Oct. 11, 2007, a game that drew the largest crowd for an exhibition game at MSG. Many in the crowd rooted for the visitors, who had a large contingent cheering and waving Israel’s flag.
Maccabi Tel Aviv also will visit the Los Angeles Clippers on its trip to the United States

Cottage Manor Apartments in Lakewood, N.J., settles discrimination charges for $200,000

Justice Department Obtains $200,000 in Housing Discrimination Settlement with Lakewood, New Jersey, Apartment Complex

The Department announced an agreement with the owners, a manager and a former manager of Cottage Manor Apartments in Lakewood, N.J., to settle allegations of discrimination on the basis of religion, national origin and race. Under the settlement, which must be approved by the U.S. District Court in New Jersey, the defendants must pay a total of $170,000 to identified victims of discrimination and an additional $30,000 to the government as a civil penalty.

The lawsuit originated from charges filed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of current and former tenants of Cottage Manor Apartments. The complaint alleges that the apartment owners of Cottage Manor Apartments, Triple H. Realty LLC, its principal manager Harry Kantor and former managing agent Vincent Ortiz, violated the Fair Housing Act when they discriminated against Hispanic and African American tenants.

The defendants transferred or attempted to transfer Hispanic and African American tenants from their apartments located in its most desirable building to make room for Orthodox Jews whom they courted as new tenants from 2002 to 2004. The defendants then assigned the non-Jewish tenants to less desirable apartments in the rear of the property, which had fewer amenities and were less well maintained than the most desirable building at the front of the property. The defendants charged the incoming Jewish tenants less rent than they did to non-Jewish tenants for apartments of similar size.

“Segregating tenants and providing discounted rents based upon religion, national origin or race, is degrading and discriminatory,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King of the Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division will vigorously pursue such discrimination.”

“Federal law has long made it illegal to favor or steer anyone to housing based on race, national origin or religion,” said Bryan Greene, HUD’s General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “This month commemorates the 41st anniversary of the Federal Fair Housing Act and for as many years, HUD and the Justice Department have worked hand in hand to eliminate discriminatory housing practices and recover relief for those harmed.” 

Fighting illegal housing discrimination is a top priority of the Justice Department. The Federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin and disability.

Family of slain Jewish man walked out of a tense Paris trial

PARIS (AP) The family of a Jewish man tortured and killed in 2006 walked out of a tense Paris trial Thursday in anger over comments by the man accused of murdering him, the family’s lawyer said.
Twenty-seven young people are on trial in the case, which drew nationwide attention and raised concerns about anti-Semitism. The victim’s family says Ilan Halimi was killed because he was Jewish.
The group’s suspected ringleader, Youssouf Fofana, said he had friends in the court “to take pictures to identify people. Some thought he was alluding to the jurors, saying he had the means to put a price on their heads,” said Francis Szpiner, lawyer for the Halimi family.
The family was angry that the judge refused to quiet Fofana, and decided to leave the courtroom. The Halimis’ lawyers joined them in the walkout.
“We will reflect on whether we plan to participate in this trial or not,” Szpiner said.
The proceedings are closed to the public because two of the suspects were minors at the time of Halimi’s killing, and officials could not confirm the details of Fofana’s comments.
Halimi, 23, was found naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris on Feb. 13, 2006. He died en route to the hospital after being held captive for more than three weeks.
Fofana was defiant when the trial opened Tuesday, declaring, “Allah will be victorious.” He is charged with premeditated murder, demanding ransom, and acts of torture and barbarism, and faces a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Critics say police initially ignored evidence of anti-Semitic motives in the killing, which caught the attention of senior government officials and prompted fear of a resurgent anti-Semitism in France.
The trial is to last until July 10.

Nikolsburg Rebbe Addresses Sheloshim In Lakewood Discusses Growing Problem in the Yeshiva World

Rebbe Of Nikolsburg Addresses Sheloshim In Lakewood
On Sunday of Parashas Tzav, the Rebbe of Nikolsburg, well known for his warm and inspirational drashos, came from Monsey to address a seudah marking the sheloshim of the tragic passing of the bachur Yehoshua ben Moshe Finkelstein. The gathering was held at Bais Medrash Ateres Yeshaya in Lakewood, where family and friends of the niftar assembled to hear words of zikaron and chizuk in honor of the niftar.

The mara d’asra, HaRav Simcha Bunim Cohen, shlita, spoke first, asking everyone present to take on a kabbalah as a z’chus for the neshamah of the niftar. He recommended that each person resolve to say Modeh Ani each morning with kavanah. This begins the day on a positive note of avodas Hashem and can change the course of one’s entire day.

Afterwards, the Rebbe of Nikolsburg addressed the assembly in English. He began with the words of Chazal (Shabbos 153a) that at a hesped “hasam kaim’na,” the niftar is present, listening to what people have to say about him. The bachur, Yehoshua, lives on since because of him people gathered at a bais midrash to hear words of chizuk and be inspired to improve themselves.

The Rebbe referred to the tremendous pain on the part of the niftar’s parents and friends. He paraphrased the words of Reuven who, on discovering Yosef’s disappearance, asked “Ana ani va—where will I turn?” to which Rashi adds “mitza’aro shel avi—from my father’s pain.” The Rebbe pointed out that no one can share the feeling of loss that his parents suffer each day and night. The Shechinah however shares in human suffering, as the Mishnah tells us (Sanhedrin 6:5), when a person suffers in this world the Shechinah says “kalani meroshi, kalani mez’roi—my head hurts, my arm hurts.”

Speaking to the many bachurim present, the Rebbe went on to discuss a growing problem among some elements of the yeshiva world: the misuse of certain dangerous substances. The Rebbe compared the passing of a single bachur to the Holocaust of six million. That Holocaust is still going on today, he pointed out. These are the many bachurim who turn to unsafe substances because of the attraction of feeling daring and “cool.” Unfortunately, they then find themselves caught in a trap of being pulled further away from the world of Torah and Yiddishkeit. When their behavior and performance falls short of expectations, such bachurim may find themselves suspended from their yeshiva and separated from their friends. Matters continue to spiral out of control, going from bad to worse.

The Rebbe also discussed the three bachurim who are suffering in prison in Japan because of Jews who were involved in the illegal drug trade. These bachurim are crying daily, asking “me’ayin yavo ezri—from where will my help come?” And although many people are lobbying on their behalf, no one has the power to save them. Similarly, those bachurim who find themselves caught up in the pull of this world’s physical attractions cry out to us to save them, but it is difficult to help.

Noting the tendency on the part of others to treat such lost bachurim with contempt, the Rebbe made it clear that this is not the correct Torah attitude. Every Jew possesses a precious neshamah that must be respected no matter where that person finds himself. We cannot deign to judge them; who can say how we would act had we faced the same temptation? These unfortunate souls deserve our empathy, and must not be made to feel rejected by K’lal Yisrael.

He continued with a limud z’chus on the stance the community and yeshivos take towards these teenagers by comparing them to patients being treated in the quarantined ward of a hospital. Even the parents may be forcefully separated from their sick child when the threat of contamination is present. Similarly, the community may hold such people at arm’s length to avoid being drawn into the same trap. However, this should not be viewed as a rejection of a Yiddishe neshamah.

Finally, the Rebbe spoke about the tremendous loss to the individual and community when a teenager leaves the world of ruchniyus to pursue Olam haZeh, meaning that he can no longer reach his potential in life. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, persevered at his job until he accomplished what he set out to do. The Rebbe said that each bachur has a purpose and must not cop out on his role in life. If he does not “invent” what he is destined to accomplish, all of humanity may suffer. He repeated the words of Moshe, who said “sh’lach na b’yad tishlach—send with the one who you will send,” meaning that everyone has a sh’lichus for which he has been sent down to this world. We must not shirk our duties or avoid accomplishing the task assigned to us. The Rebbe concluded by wishing everyone that they succeed in accomplishing their sh’lichus in this world.

At the conclusion of the seudah, the Rebbe remained to speak privately to those who sought an audience with him. The moving event deeply impressed all the participants and was surely a tremendous z’chus for the niftar.

http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=4192

British airline sorry for deleting Israel from its electronic in-flight map

LONDON (AP) A British airline has apologized for excluding Israel from an electronic in-flight map.
Israeli media reported that on BMI’s London-Tel Aviv flights, Israel and most of its cities weren’t marked. Only Haifa was identified – by its Arab name, Khefa.
BMI apologized Thursday and said the plane was acquired from a now-defunct airline that flew to several Arab countries in the Middle East, and the map highlighted locations including the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
BMI says the airline asked for the map to be removed once it took over the planes, but there had been a “technical mistake.”
The airline will provide new maps and BMI will use different aircraft in the meantime for its twice-daily flights to Israel.

France inducts Pole who saved Jews during World War II into Legion of Honor

WARSAW, Poland (AP) French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has honored Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a Polish Auschwitz survivor and politician, making him a member of the Legion of Honor.
French officials say Bartoszewski was decorated for his “courageous commitment” to save Jews during World War II, his resistance to the Nazi regime and his postwar efforts to built a united Europe.
Fillon bestowed the honor on Bartoszewski, 87, Thursday at the French Embassy in Warsaw.
Bartoszewski is a Roman Catholic who was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp for political resistance. He was Poland’s foreign minister in the 1990s and is now an adviser to the government on Germany.
Created by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Legion of Honor is France’s elite national merit society.

El Al Israel Airlines Helps Fulfill Dreams For 15 Israeli Children

Airline Supports Children’s Group with Visit to U.S.A.
New York, NY – April 30, 2009 – EL AL, Israel’s national airline, offered its support in conjunction with the “Fulfilling Dreams” charity organization and Gil Travel (of Philadelphia and New York City) to a group of 15 Israeli children suffering from life-threatening illnesses with a visit to the U.S.A.
 
The “Fulfilling Dreams” organization, an Israel-based non-profit group, aims to care for sick children and youth through the age of 21, regardless of religion or race. The organization strives to improve the quality of life and provides every child and teen with an experience of happiness and love.  
 
While in the U.S.A., the group of children, ages 8 to 15, together with their volunteer escorts which included one doctor, two nurses and three chaperones, experienced a fun-filled week long tour with visits to Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City and Washington D.C. where they made a special trip to The White House.
 

Mayor Bloomberg And Police Commissioner Kelly Introduce Hybrid Cars To Fleet Of NYPD Response Vehicles

Nissan Altimas are First Hybrid Cars Deployed for NYPD Patrol
 
Hybrid Police Cars Help Fulfill PlaNYC Goal of Reducing City Energy Use and Emissions from City Operations by 30 percent by 2017
 
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly today deployed 40 Nissan Altima Hybrids as the first alternative fuel vehicles to be used as marked and unmarked patrol cars in the Police Department’s fleet. The Altima Hybrids have been assigned to areas of the city where their fuel efficiency presents the greatest economic and environmental benefit – both in precincts with a large coverage area and smaller precincts prone to heavy stop-and-go traffic. The 40 hybrid vehicles, 18 marked and 22 unmarked, will be used in patrol precincts and other units in all five boroughs. The hybrid Altimas are partially funded by the intra-agency Energy Conservation Steering Committee, created by Executive Order signed by Mayor Bloomberg in 2007 and chaired by Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler. 
 
“These new patrol cars will help fulfill the PlaNYC goal of reducing City government’s carbon footprint,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Through savings in fuel, these Altimas can quickly cover their additional cost, from then they will save taxpayers money – another example of how going green is good for our environment and our pocketbooks.”
 
“The NYPD embraces innovation when it doesn’t compromise performance or safety to our personnel and the public,” said Commissioner Kelly. “We want to get the most mileage out of technology where it makes sense – with the addition of these hybrids, we’re doing that literally.”
 
While the Altima hybrids are the first alternate fuel vehicles to be used as regular police cars, the NYPD already uses hybrid vehicles in it’s parking enforcement fleet as well as electric scooters. The Police Department also has 10 GMC Yukon Hybrid SUVs employed by NYPD Duty Captains for marked patrol. Additionally, police officers utilize T-3 personal movers in city parks, stadiums and beaches. The Nissan Altima Hybrids account for 40 of over 100 total hybrid vehicles the Department is expected to deploy this year.
 
The Nissan Altima Hybrids were acquired earlier this year following evaluation and testing by the Police Department’s Fleet Services Division and Driver Training Unit. At $25,391 per vehicle, the Altima hybrids cost about $1,500 more than the conventional Impala. At 35 miles per gallon for city driving, the hybrid Altima gets double the gas mileage of the Impala, which gets only 17 miles per gallon. The Altima hybrids, manufactured in Smyrna, Tennessee and outfitted with equipment specialized for patrol, will be used in addition to the Chevrolet Impala and the Ford Crown Victoria. The Department also uses Dodge Chargers, mainly for highway patrol. As with all hybrid technology vehicles, the Altima switches between gasoline engine and electric motor. After a year of monitoring the vehicles performance the Department will determine whether to further expand them into the fleet. The Nissan Altima Hybrids will bring to over 170 the total number of hybrid vehicles the Department is expected to deploy this year.
 
In July 2008, Mayor Bloomberg put forth a long-term action plan to achieve the PlaNYC goal of reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the City’s municipal buildings and operations by 30 percent by 2017. The long-term plan, available on nyc.gov, is a comprehensive guide to reducing the City’s carbon footprint, through making City buildings more efficient, improving preventative maintenance, capturing energy potential at wastewater treatment plants, and more. To meet its 30 percent reduction goal by 2017, the City must produce 1.68 million fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) annually compared with 2006 levels. This will be achieved through an aggressive capital improvement program for the City’s facilities, and significant enhancements to its current operations and maintenance practices. The projects in the long-term plan, including the purchase of some of the Nissan Altima hybrids, will be partially funded by an annual commitment of 10 percent of the City’s energy budget, which in fiscal year 2009 is $100 million. City government accounts for approximately 6.5 percent of New York City’s total energy usage and 10 percent of its peak electricity demand.

Investment executive charged in NY pension probe

NEW YORK (AP) An executive at a Dallas investment firm that advises some of the country’s biggest public pension funds has been arrested in connection with a pay-to-play scandal in New York.
Saul Meyer is a co-founder of Aldus Equity, one of several companies whose conduct has come under scrutiny in a probe led by N.Y. state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a complaint filed Thursday that Aldus paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in “sham fees” to a top aide to New York’s former comptroller in exchange for his help landing the company a $175 million pension fund deal.
Meyer surrendered to face criminal charges Thursday morning.
His lawyer did not immediately return messages.

Forward.Com: Boro Park – Nadvorna Yeshiva Talmud’s Harrowing Path from Abuse to Survival

One Man’s Harrowing Path from Abuse to Survival

One Friday night last November, after saying Kiddush and putting his children to bed, Pinny clicked the send button on his e-mail and turned to the work of killing himself.

To the outside observer, and even to friends who knew him well, Pinny seemed like an upstanding, frum guy with a great life. He had a beautiful wife, three wonderful children, a good job and a secure place as a respected member of his Orthodox Jewish community in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn. He had all those things, and he cherished them. But he also had a secret.

At age 15, Pinny was raped repeatedly and violently over the course of several months by a teacher at his yeshiva. When he told a rabbi about the abuse, his molester threatened to kill him unless he recanted. When he tried to tell him again, he was labeled a liar.

He stayed quiet for almost two decades, stuffing the pain deep within himself. He got a job, got married, had kids and went through the motions at synagogue with a smile on his face. But every step of the way, he carried with him the broken 15-year-old boy who was betrayed by his mentor. Eventually, that boy’s pain became too much to bear.

“I did not die in peace; please help me rest in peace,” Pinny’s suicide email began. Without going into detail about his own story, Pinny tried to break through the denial that pervaded his community and make people understand the devastation that child sexual abuse causes: “A victim from a sex crime cannot tell it to anyone, is afraid to mention it, for fear he will get shamed out of the community as it happens over and over again… I am in so much pain writing this, gevalt, so many victims between us going around silently crazy with deep pain and suffering.”

He did not believe in suicide, but in his mind he had no other choice. He hit “send,” then washed down 10 oxycodone pills with vodka. He started to feel lightheaded, like he was floating. Soon people would know the truth. Soon all the pain would be gone.

Pinny survived that night, but part of him did die — the part that had kept him silent for so many years. To live, he realized, he had to talk about what had happened to him and try to keep it from happening to anyone else. When approached by the Forward after speaking at a forum in Manhattan on sexual abuse, Pinny agreed to tell his story. But speaking to activists, academics and policy makers at a limited forum in Manhattan, a universe away from Boro Park, is different from agreeing to have your full name published in a newspaper sold in Brooklyn. Because of the potential that he and his family may be shamed and shunned in his close-knit community, he is not yet ready to use his full name in this article. The Forward has checked Pinny’s account with other sources, including his therapist, friends and a school official who have been able to confirm key aspects of his story.

The teacher who Pinny alleges sexually abused him has not been charged with any crime, and is now beyond New York State’s statute of limitation for either criminal charges or a civil suit by Pinny. This paper does not, therefore, identify him by name.

Then Pinny begins to tell the story of how he was molested, he starts with his mother’s death.

She died of cancer five weeks before his bar mitzvah, leaving a huge hole in Pinny’s life. Perhaps, he thinks, a motherless child looked like a target to predators. By the time he was 15, Pinny was beginning to bridle against the authority of his father, a strict Hasid. At his school, Yeshiva Tiferes Shulem D’Nadvorna in Boro Park, he caught the eye of a young teacher — not a rabbi, but one of the popular teachers to whom everyone looked for guidance.

This teacher singled out Pinny for attention and soon became his mentor. Pinny confided in him about his fights with his father, and the teacher took Pinny’s side, subtly using every bit of information he got to drive a bigger wedge between the teenager and his family. Before long, Pinny was convinced that his father and sisters hated him.

“Basically, I lost everyone around me,” Pinny recalled. “As far as adults, someone to look up to, he was the only person.”

Pinny’s mentor was a 15-year-old boy’s dream: The older man bought Pinny cigarettes, let him skip class and let him play on his home computer.

One afternoon, while Pinny was visiting his home, the teacher grabbed him and threw him onto the living room couch. The teacher punched, choked and molested the teenager. “Just give me two minutes,” Pinny remembers his mentor saying over and over, as he violated him.

Afterward, Pinny ran from the house, vowing never to return. Telling his father wasn’t an option; he barely could put what happened into words. “I had no vocabulary for it,” Pinny said, “and I was very naive.”

A few days later, his abuser called him into his office at school and apologized profusely, promising it would never happen again. Pinny wanted to believe him. After all, the teacher was his best friend. But it did happen again, repeatedly over the course of the next six months. Pinny stopped going to class and davening at his synagogue. Anyone else would have been expelled from yeshiva, but his abuser made excuses for Pinny — and somehow, all the other adults in Pinny’s life bought these excuses and ignored the giant red flags.

Finally, at camp that summer, Pinny broke down and told a rabbi his secret. Sympathetic and understanding, the rabbi promised him that he would put an end to the abuse. The next night, his abuser, who also taught at the camp, took Pinny for a ride in his new car. Turning into an abandoned driveway, his abuser pulled him out of the car and into the woods, and threatened to kill Pinny unless he recanted.

Pinny returned to the rabbi, crying, and took back his story. He’d never seen such fury as what he experienced that night. He was a liar, the rabbi thundered. How dare he make up such stories and try to ruin a good man’s reputation. He remembered the next 24 hours as worse than the day his mother died. He felt completely shattered and alone. Finally, tormented, he returned to the rabbi in charge of the camp and told him the truth — that he had been abused, that the first story he told was true.

If possible, the yelling was even worse this time. Stop with your lies, the rabbi shouted at him, describing in great detail the punishments that Hashem rains down upon false accusers. Pinny gave up and accepted the verbal abuse. He realized no one would believe him now.

Most children who have been sexually abused take years to process their experience and longer to be able to tell someone, says Asher Lipner, a psychotherapist and respected authority on sexual abuse in Orthodox communities. Previous studies have found that it takes, on average, seven years for a sexual abuse victim to tell anyone what happened.

All sexual abuse victims go through trauma, and they fear the stigma that comes with speaking out, Lipner says. It’s especially hard when their stories are met with denial, either because people are protecting powerful abusers or because these people just don’t want to admit to themselves that something so horrible has happened to a child.

In Orthodox communities, it’s even harder to speak out. Some rabbis use Halacha — misinterpreting it, Lipner and others say — to prohibit Jews from informing authorities of the misdeeds of fellow Jews, or even speaking ill of another Jew. But the real barrier to an open discussion and battle against sexual abuse, Lipner says, is simply the close-knit nature of Orthodox communities. “Orthodox Jews feel such a connection with each other,” he explained. That connection can be wonderful, such as when everyone pitches in to help someone who has fallen on hard times. But it also leads to strong resistance to the notion that a community member could be capable of something as awful as molesting a child.

“People don’t want to talk about it,” Lipner said. “For one Orthodox person to blow the whistle on another, it’s almost like he’s part of the family.”

And abuse victims rightly fear what will happen to them if they do gather the courage to tell the truth. Their molesters might physically hurt them, or, perhaps worse, authorities might punish them. Lipner knows many people who were expelled from yeshiva for the crime of being sexually abused. “It’s not hard to scare the hell out of a little kid,” he said.

After camp ended, Pinny went to a yeshiva in Israel. It was an escape from his abuser. But Pinny’s attitude toward schooling didn’t improve, as he’d lost all respect for authority. When he returned to New York, he registered for yeshiva but never showed up for classes. By the time he was 17, he’d dropped out of school.

About a year after Pinny first tried to tell of the abuse, his mentor abruptly left Yeshiva Tiferes Shulem D’Nadvorna. He was hired by another school in Boro Park, only to be let go about a year later. The pattern repeated twice more. Pinny followed his abuser’s career with a sick feeling in his stomach. He was sure the same thing that happened to him was happening to other kids; he heard whispered stories about this teacher, but nothing ever came of it.

“It was unreal. I felt like it was another rape for me, because of the guilt. If only I could stand up,” Pinny said.

In a phone interview, Rabbi Avrum Leifer, the head of Yeshiva Tiferes Shulem D’Nadvorna, recalled the teacher that Pinny identified, and confirmed that he’d taught at the school during the 1990s. But the head rabbi said the teacher left because he got a better offer for more money to teach elsewhere, not because he’d been forced out.

“He was excellent. The boys liked him very much,” the head rabbi said of the accused teacher. “I’m very surprised to hear this.”

At 18, Pinny got a job and started educating himself, reading all the history books he’d missed out on in high school. He reconciled with his father and grew close with his siblings again. He married and had children. He was a happy guy, the kind of mensch who would try to make others smile and who would go out of his way to help people. But at night, in the dark, the memories would close in. The flashbacks and nightmares would visit, and sometimes he would wake up screaming.

When Pinny was in his 30s, a respected member of his community with a good job as a property manager, he tried talking to several rabbis about child sexual abuse. They all nodded and said yes, of course it’s a problem, but is it really that big a deal? Talk to us about it, Pinny, they said. Let it out, and you’ll feel better.

Pinny didn’t want to feel better. He wanted change.

What drove him to attempt suicide, though, weren’t the memories of his own pain, but his fears for his son. As his son began to approach the age Pinny had been when he was first molested, Pinny couldn’t escape the realization that if his son were to be abused, no one would pay attention to his pain, no one would protect him. In his confused, panicked state of mind, he could think of only one thing that would stir people to action: a letter from a dead man.

So he started writing, and he started thinking about suicide. When people discovered his letter excoriating the community for its doubting, tepid response to child sexual abuse allegations, then, he thought, people would sit up and take notice. Then his children would be protected, even if he wouldn’t be around to see it.

That Friday in November, he sat in synagogue, trying to hold his tears inside. The silence he’d lived with for 19 years suddenly felt like a 1,000-pound weight on his shoulders. After midnight, he started downing pills and vodka.

Just as his arms and legs started to tingle, he thought of how he wanted to see his children and hug them one last time. He tried to stand up, but couldn’t. The finality of what he was doing hit him. He called a childhood friend who was a paramedic, and that friend came to his home and took him to the hospital.

His paramedic friend remembers that night well. He got a call at around 1:30 a.m. Saturday; he observes the Sabbath, but because of his work he is allowed to take emergency calls. He’d noticed that Pinny had been acting withdrawn, but he had no idea why.

“He was isolated, building a gate around himself and not allowing anyone to speak to him,” said the friend, who also asked not to be named. Pinny, he said, was silent because he didn’t want to burden anyone: “He’s a darling little guy, with such a good heart. He didn’t want to bother anyone. He was trying to save others the pain.”

Pinny and his friend still speak several times a week. Though the friend doesn’t want to hear the details of Pinny’s abuse or get involved in his crusade, he said he doesn’t doubt Pinny’s story for a minute.

“He wouldn’t tell stories. He’s not trying to be a hero,” the friend said. “I don’t think I ever, ever caught him in a lie.”

The stigma around sexual abuse persists in both the secular and the Orthodox communities, says Lipner, the psychotherapist.

“Society’s lack of interest is what really makes it impossible to deal with,” he said. “People reaching out and wanting to hear their stories makes all the difference in the world.”

It’s something Lipner has confronted both as a therapist and personally. Last winter, he disclosed that a rabbi had molested him when he attended yeshiva as a child. Lipner says that when he decided to speak publicly about his own abuse, his supervisor at the social service agency where he works asked if he was sure he wanted to risk his professional and personal reputation. Others warned that people would think of him as damaged goods.

But nothing so dramatic happened. And he hopes his example will inspire others, just as previous outspoken abuse survivors inspired him. While he hopes that rabbis and other community leaders will step up and work to end sexual abuse, he puts more faith in the power of fellow abuse survivors’ voices to effect change.

“People can’t say anymore that it doesn’t happen,” Lipner said. “The victims have the biggest power, because they know the truth. And when you speak the truth enough times, even to people who don’t want to hear it, eventually they have to hear it.”

Speaking truth to power is Pinny’s mission now. He emerged from the hospital a changed man, and realized he no longer could live with the silence.

He went to a therapist who helped him a lot, and he started speaking out. He talked to friends about his experiences so they would know that sexual abuse was a real threat in their community. He contacted Survivors for Justice, a group formed last year to support sexual abuse survivors in Orthodox communities. He talked to Dov Hikind, the Brooklyn assemblyman who has taken on the cause of child sexual abuse. And he kept talking to rabbis, even if they were reluctant to listen, trying to persuade them to do more to protect children.

Sometimes, his friends and his wife worry that he has become obsessed. They say he should just relax and work on his own healing. His friends warn him not to speak out too loudly, for fear that he will anger powerful people.

“I’m sorry, I can’t go back to normal life until there is a change,” he tells them. When he sees rabbis and the community taking the problem seriously, then maybe he’ll get another hobby.

He doesn’t want to leave the Hasidic community where he was raised, he says. Despite its problems, there’s so much that he loves about it. But one thing has changed for him, perhaps unalterably: His faith is gone. He still believes in God, but the religious teachings he dutifully hands down to his children feel hollow to him now.

“I’m yearning to come back,” Pinny said. “I never left the Torah, the Torah left me.”

http://www.forward.com/articles/105262/