Ultra-Orthodox Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse

[pickel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/ny...e.html?_r=1&hp

Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. And, he said, the mother of a child in a wheelchair confronted Mr. Jungreis’s mother-in-law, saying the same man had molested her son, and she “did not report this crime, so why did your son-in-law have to?”

Oy Vay

Just goes to show how little these people take the Bible seriously
Obviously, their conception of the laws of man and an offense against a child has no meaning and shows their contempt for this child and the effects on this child. How selfish and ugly.

[Epidemic]

Wow!!!

This is part of the reason that I don't want religious beliefs and practices anywhere near my government.

[MTAtech]

Inexcusable. That's the risk of such a provincial community.

[Theophylact]

This is quite literally the outcome of a ghetto mentality: "We're surrounded by goyim who will destroy us given the chance, so don't give them anything to go on." The tragic and unnecessary part is that this is a self-created ghetto, unlike the ones European Jews were forced into.

It's also ludicrously wrong, because for all practical purposes discriminatory practice against American Jews no longer exists. And I'm old enough to remember a time when that was by no means true.

[tony_j15]

It seems this Hasidic sect has a lot in common with the Catholic priesthood: they both wear funny hats and don't like to tattle on child molesters.

[surreal]

It seems this Hasidic sect has a lot in common with the Catholic priesthood: they both wear funny hats and don't like to tattle on child molesters.

In a nutshell...

[Theophylact]

David Atkins (at Hullabaloo) has an interesting take on this:

First off, I'd like you to imagine for a moment that this were a Muslim community under discussion. How much freakout would we be seeing among the right-wing? After all, the only thing "Shari'a Law" means in the context of a Western society is that communities such as this be free to arbitrate their own business, especially when it comes to minor offenses.

But more importantly, this issue highlights the ever-present unbridgeable divide between liberalism and multiculturalism. There is a universal law of liberalism that says that children have a right to grow up free of sexual and physical abuse. What happens when that principle rubs up against communities that expressly wish to reserve the right to sexually and physically abuse children? What happens when that principle rubs up against communities that practice arranged marriage of children to far older people? What happens, for that matter, when any principle of liberalism rubs up against a culturally distinct minority community that doesn't share those values?

The easy and simplistic answer is to look dogmatically at the law book. But most intelligent folks would point out that not all laws are remotely equally enforced. Where should prosecutorial discretion be applied, then, and on whom?

Should the U.S. government intervene in this Orthodox community to prevent this behavior? Did it do the right thing to intervene in David Koresh's affairs, even though he wasn't harming anyone outside his compound? What about the fundamentalist polygamist Mormons supposedly minding their own business in the Utah desert? What if a state were to secede in order to defend entrenched principles of discrimination? Should the U.S. government fight to keep that state in the fold and enforce non-discrimination and broadly liberal values? What if barbaric actions are happening just outside our borders? Should we not intervene to protect the principle of borders arbitrarily drawn centuries ago?

I don't really have a big problem with these questions myself, as I champion ecumenical liberal values--enforced by state intervention if necessary--over multicultural self-determination. That philosophy has its own challenges, of course, and is often met with accusations of authoritarianism (I would counter, using very similar arguments to those gated community wealthy who demand to know by what right the fascist government imposes a punitive tax rate.) But for many others, these are far thornier questions.

[pickel]

"The easy and simplistic answer is to look dogmatically at the law book. But most intelligent folks would point out that not all laws are remotely equally enforced. Where should prosecutorial discretion be applied, then, and on whom?"

I guess ,when you ask this question, and look upon these Jews as dogs in the street ,admonishing one of their own, we realize how much of the "ANIMAL" there is still deep in our psyche and how, no matter how many years of evolution, man seems to always revert to his primitive instincts.
Rape and don't tell. What an insult to this child who has no retribution and a irreversible mark on his Soul . If there be a God who is just, these people will ,surely , reap his wrath and judgement.

[Theophylact]

If there be a God who is just, these people will ,surely , reap his wrath and judgement.

But since we live in a civil and secular society, what are our practical options?

[pickel]

But since we live in a civil and secular society, what are our practical options?

I would concur on the "Secular" part of your statement, but, hardly on the "Civil" part. Maybe Civil in a warped sense. If we were truly Civil, those who condemned the "whistle blower" would be arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to repress evidence of a felony and morally be guilty of offending their God and his teachings.