Monsey, NY – A Rockland County District Attorney said yesterday that the family of the boy slapped by a rabbi is now unwilling to cooperate in the case.
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On Monday, Vinnews (http://bit.ly/ZAkWfo) reported that assault charges have been filed in Rockland County against Rabbi Meilech Spitzer, principal at the United Talmudical Academy in Spring Valley, for allegedly slapping a 10 year-old boy repeatedly on Feb 12th.
News 12 is reporting that (http://bit.ly/XE82Lm) yesterday, Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said that for unknown reasons, the boy’s family is now choosing not to cooperate with investigators going forward.
“The family is unwilling to cooperate,” said Zugibe. “The allegation is that the principal learned that the victim had done some damage in the school bathroom, so as a means of discipline he smacked him across the face a number of times.”
The boy was left with swelling on the left side of his face and left ear as a result of Spitzer’s assault.
Pictures, showing the boy’s injuries were posted on Twitters accounts, accompanied by Hebrew captions that read, “The handwork of principal Meilech Spitzer.”
Zugibe said yesterday that in order for the case against Spitzer to go forward, the county needs a first hand account from a family member of the victim, or someone with direct knowledge of what happened.
“If within 60 days we cannot obtain that first hand, non-hearsay information, the charges will be dismissed,” said Zugibe.
Classic. Community puts pressure. Charges dropped. Principal gets his job back. Another one shoved under the rug.
This is a common problem, and the fanatic advocacy movement will not fix this. The issue here is that an educator was unable to control himself, and took “discipline” to the degree of harming instead of educating. This abuse is intolerable, and must never be permitted to occur. This general problem is rampoant among frum yeshivos and schools, and the abuse is often emotional, such as when shaming a student who misbehaves. There are clear halachos about these issues, which the occasional mechanech has learned and followed.
Rabosai – we need to continue with the public awareness, and we need to advocate with yeshivos to insist that only trained mechanchim should be hired to assume the responsibility of the welfare of our precious children.
Part of chinuch needs to be anger management. Rebbes and teachers are as vulnerable to anger as anyone else, but they cannot safely release that anger in ways that damage. They need immediate help.
These parents would put their status in the community, above the safety of their child?!? Pretty sick.
was spitzer fired?
I applaud the family of the boy for choosing not go forward wih the charges as I believe the Menhal got the message and I am pretty sure he won’t hurt a boy anytime soon.
Did they file the complaint in they first place?
Zugibe know that they wont cooperate. this was a public stunt. which is the best he could have done
That is the only way to do it. We must stop mesirah once and for all. Baruch hashem for the parents and family that really care for the chinuch of this boy starting when he is still young more then the so called social service, child abuse the court. etc. Any other way he would become a criminal like the once that use the government to protect them for there crime. Now he will learn that he has to be responsible for his action and behave properly grow up to be a mentch and his parents will iy”h see allot of nachas from him.
And I am sure that the child will not clog up any bathrooms anymore.
Corporal punishment is healthy and vital, without it we are bringing up a generation of wusses will not be prepared for the curve balls that life has to offer.
A community that fails to protect its children has no future. If the parents put their allegiance to the rov and the community before the health and safety of their children, they should be charged with child abuse. Luke.
While I think Mr. Spitzer should be booted and never put in a position with kids involved, I have absolutely no confoidence in the justice system though, if this goes to a jury he’ll get the maximum sentance and I still don’t believe he deserves that.
When my children were little I always told the Rebbe, teacher, Menahel that my children’s parents are alive, have a phone and address where they can be reached if there was an issue with my child…I absolutely forbade them to touch my child in any way. I would have reported them without hesitation. Stop and think….. If Ch’Vesholom something serious, medical or otherwise, occurred from a slap or other physical punishment, it would be on the head of the punisher and I’d never, ever, forgive him/her!!!!!!!
the DA should then immediately file charges against the parents for abuse. If the principal didint do it, then they must have. that should get them cooperative pretty quickly, when Children Services takes away all their other children.
The parents are sick in the head. If anyone ever laid a hand on my kid, the DA ah commin knockin would be the least of their worries!
Frankly this is a matter for the family and yeshiva to resolve everyone else should butt out
I wish i can bring my rebbes to justice but unfortunate they all dead by now..and i think in oylem huemes they probably get punished for not hitting me enough.
What a chillul Hashem. Bad enough that it gets in the paper that a principal slapped a kid. But now, everyone knows the pressure the community put on the parents not to report it. Where are our leaders. Where is the Satmar Rebbe on this? (which one?)
We’ve all heard the story about the guy who reported a case of abuse to the cops and as he was leaving, the cop said to him, I’ll see you back here tomorrow. Questioning what he meant, the accuser was told by the cop that you lot always rescind your statements before 24 hours are up.
The accuser insisted that he would not be doing so and would see it until the end of the process, to which the cop replied, we’ll see!
He held out a while, and put up with the threats and the dirty looks and the well meaning do gooders, but after they applied the pressure to his wife, who in turn started turning the screws on him, and he quickly found himself, very embarrassed, in front of the same cop again but this time, rescinding his statement instead of giving it.
Yes my friends, thats the way we work!
Here is where the problem is only gonna thicken , when will we understand ,
The feds the government they are not for the child or for the parent , they are
Out to perfect their statesmanship and image in the public , irrespective of the jew
And so now , family , look out , cause you will be under their watchful eye with constancy without you knowing , and thus the child protective services will witch hunt you and your other kids , dont believe? Well go inquire about other similer cases in borough park in williamsburg , but its ok , of course you will not believe ,untill it will be reality ,
Thanks to all the Self Haters!
With all the hate against us in the non-jewish population (and even IN the jewish population), I would definitely consider doing the same! The fact that my kid, or i was injured, doesn’t mean I can go out and cause even indirectly damage to a sect! this means I have to take into account the anti-semitism, hate, etc. that will result of my action! The fact that he “was” a rotzeach does not automatically mean I will not at the least have a guilty conscious when informing on a brother.
Please quit your hatefull statements as it doesn’t encourage nor help fixing our problem. IMHO more people would run to the authorities if there was “support” for them rather than seeing their jewish brethren be led publicly to the gallows! (that is being besmirched, degraded, cursed, and shamed, for the action of a few, insisting that everybody orthodox is guilty!)
The frum community has lost trust in the “justice system”.
The family believes that the principal should be disciplent and perhaps quit his job but they don’t think he should get the “103”
חוסך שבטו שונא בנו
Let’s see this boy in 20 years from now!
Can any of the SMART people sitting and commenting on this blog, find a hetter on mesira? i mean its amazing to see all the comments and negativity on the parents and the school etc. did you try at least once to ask a shaileh if according to halacha and i stress ” according to halacha” you are allowed to go and be moiser someone,
i would really like to know if there is a hetter someplace?
Thanks in advance….
Kol Hakavod to the parents.
Although they don’t deserve any praise becuase what they do IS the Jewish way but still we must praise and encourage them for not giving in to the so called activist who are seeking to destroy our way of life. What the principal did is horrible and it shouldn’t be tolerated.
Lets sing and praise kudos to the parents for not falling under pressure from the so called activists and so called professionals.
What will it take for this community to figure out that we have to stop this pattern? Why are we fighting this, instead of educating and seeing that we ahve to make changes.
Ribono Shel olem, for the life of me i cannot figure this out! Why would aparent not take her childs side rather than the Yeshiva’s side.
Mind boggling!
I am very sorry to say this but if the parents refuse to cooperate the State Child Protective Services need to step in here. These parents need to be charged with neglect. That is the only way parents will truly understand that their obligations to their children come first and foremost before their mistaken believed obligations to the community. It is NOT the community who blessed and gifted them with children. It was HASHEM and it is to those CHILDREN and to HASHEM that they owe their loyalty and concern. Did HASHEM grant them children to allow them to be used and abused? Is this how you appreciate Hashem’s gifts and creations. Shame on them and on any other parents who let others determine how they parent and protect their children. Ask a childless couple what they wouldn’t do for this precious neshomah. Shame on them and all those that pressured them to back away. Why is it ok for this villain to punish this child so severely for his bad deeds but HE is not man enough to accept his own punishment? Why is it that only a little tiny neshomah is expected to handle and accept severe punishment but a grown adult is too weak to handle it? Yes such is the character or lack there of, of the leaders and role models placed before our innocent neshomas.
I wish i had pictures from my rebbes pulling down my pants in front of the class room and spanked me with a hi-li stick..the noise from those prakes left a ringing scare in every kids ears for days to come…I got hit on my hand from a belt of a sewing machine and had bruises for weeks…I was put in the corner of the class my face facing the wall for 2 hours standing counting how many grains the panels had…
The funny part is that i grew up more normal then those kids today who are untoucable….I dont believe in hitting any kid but to go to police is messireh and we need to solve this by embarrasing the rebbes and principle on blogs and internet email….Thye wont do this after they get exposed……
I am back. I was out looking for Saul. No luck. 🙂 Luke
Every single commenter here who thinks hitting/slapping a kid is proper chinuch:
I guarantee you were hit/slapped as a child. Guarantee it. That is why you think it’s OK. It allows you to repress the pain.
It’s basically the way you justify and repress the hurt and shame of the assaults you endured as a child. Otherwise, how does one begin to deal with one’s emotions relating to what essentially amounts to abuse? With the memories of parents we love and who loved us hitting and shaming us? It’s unbearable, if you actually think about it. Reconciling the two extremes is too painful and difficult to grapple with. Parents and educators who declare their love and concern for us, and then use physical assault as a means of controlling us, cause extreme confusion and pain.
So we justify it. We say it’s no big deal. We endured it, and so can they. We say it’s OK.
But it’s not.
Of course the family will not come forward in fear of being ostracized in the community.
I have a ten year old son, and I am shocked by the photographs. A ten year old is a baby. He wasn’t just “potched”. He was assaulted by the hands of someone who appears not to be far from a Nazi. We really don’t know what the child did to deserve such treatment. It certainly couldn’t be clogging up toilets! I would expect nothing less than the immediate termination of the Menahel. For Satmar to do less, just makes them complicit in evil behavior.
He didn’t hit the child once, he hit the child multiple times, that’s asur according to halacha, and not permitted by law. The child got his punishment, the principal should get his. Whats up with all you people screaming mesira, if he broke the chids niose or arm, would it then be okay, to go to authorities, how about if he murdered the child in anger? Aside from which that’s no way for a principal to act. A principal is supposed to be calm, cool and composed under pressure, not hit people out of anger, he’s not fit to be a principle, or to teach children, this isn’t 19th century Europe.
A public service message to all those yelling “mesirah! mesirah!”
Please read the following halachah from the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch:
“Regarding all those who disturb the community and cause it distress, it is permitted to give them over to the secular government to be punished whether by beating, imprisonment, or fines” (Rambam, Hilchos Choveil U’mazik 8:11; Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 388:12)
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that an abusive principal is included among those “who disturb the community and cause it distress”.
You are also unaware that according to many poskim, including the Aruch HaShulchan, there is no issur mesirah in civilized countries.
Chaverim, No one is defending the principal and nobody thinks for a minute what he did is justified but are you really nuts and you willing to charge him with a crime?
What have we become of? and you all Am Haratzim quoting halachas which does not apply in this case.
To be willing to charge and arrest a melamed for hitting a child IS all the result of the so called activists who declared themselves as guardian of our children in the last few years and their ONLY goal is to bring down our way of life and shipping of to prison as much frum Jews as possible.
We should all learn from the parents of this child how NOT to cave into pressure to those activist.
I applaud the parents for avoiding a chillul Hashem by avoiding Messirah. A child who does mischief needs petch.I think king Solomon was a lot wiser than the liberal mushosim in our western messed up society. Do not spare the rod. I thank my rebbes for beating me as a kid in yeshiva because I was a troublemaker at times. I deserved a beating and I would turn out bad without the petch.
This family is smart for avoiding getting into a conflict with the community. It would only hurt the child and ruin their other children’s shidduchim. Look what happened to other families who rock the boat. Their kids went off from yiddishkeit and many smoke weed and take dope. Stay away from machlokos. I’m sure the principle will not hit others and this kid will behave. And if he don’t let the parents treat hen to call the principle for a dispel inery session.
It’s amazing to see how some “Jews” can deteriorate to such a low level and to suggest that a Melamed or Principal of a religious Cheder should be arrested.
A Cheder is usually controlled by a rabbinical authority, the authorized Torah leader of each particular cheder has the final word (according to Shulchon Aruch & thier tradition) to rule what’s right and wrong. No one is compelling you to enroll your children to any particular Cheder.
…and when this principal breaks some kids bones and disfigures him or causes some poor kid to lose his eyesight – this family and everyone that will not cooperate with the authorities on this beat down and past beat downs at the hands of this sadist will not be able to say that their hands are clean. they are allowing this beast to continue to beat kids at will.
as a side note they are teaching their child that when the time came between protecting him against the man that beat him – they choose to show more love and compassion to the man that beat him than to him! poor child… what a chinuch he is receiving from his parents. he gets the side of his face beaten by his principal and his parents tell him to “turn the other cheek”. would they feel the same way if he killed their son by too many smacks to the head? do they even care that another child could die at the hands of this beast?
This case should not be over, Mr. Zugbie should now file charges against the parents for endangering their child and putting their child’s safety at risk, charges would have been filed by the DA had the parents given their child willingly and knowing to a molester-why not in this case.
If this is not done, then the DA is giving the full blessing for the harassment, pressure and intimidation put on the parents not to file charges and putting the kids at risk, Government should also cancel all funds from lunch programs etc; for that school.
The DA should investigate this administartor since the day he was in diapers
This child made it on twitter, how many are there that didn’t, are we waiting for a child to die. SHAME
Msg: @yakovhorowitz: NOTE TO PARENTS #3: children say Kaddish for parents, not educators. It is YOUR sacred responsibility to keep them safe.
Punish the victim and reward the culprit. Not a new shitah. In fact, Avrohom Avinu a”h had a nephew who took a shteleh as dayan in a kehilla that had just this minhag.
So I guess what the Menahel’s protectors are saying is that the previous generation survived the horrors of the holocaust so that their children and grandchildren can be terrorized and abused by these sadistic “Rebbeim”. Then we defend these “educators”. A shandah.
I suggest that we all take the time to read Isaiah 5:20.
So far he hasn’t been fired and will continue being paid. (from one in the know)
(Reply to #104 ):
Your comparison of this phenomenon to Stockholm Syndrome is insightful, qazxc.
The theory of “pedagogic poison” was written about by the world renowned Polish/Jewish author and psychologist Alice Miller. She was a survivor of WWII. She moved to Switzerland after the war and began writing articles and books about the lingering effects of child abuse.
A common denominator in Miller’s writings is her explanation of why human beings prefer not to know about their own victimization during childhood: to avoid unbearable pain. She believed that the unconscious command of the individual, not to be aware how he or she was treated in childhood, led to displacement: the irresistible drive to repeat traumatogenic modes of parenting in the next generation of children.
In her books, the term is rendered as “poisonous pedagogy.”
“Humiliations……. and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away,” she writes in an explanatory essay on childhood mistreatment and abuse on her Web site, alice-miller.com. “Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love.”
I am quoting the above from Wikipedia. Her books are beautifully written and widely read. “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware” and “For Your Own Good” are two of her masterpieces.
(Reply to #95 ):
Of course you plan on doing that with your kids. That’s exactly what I predicted. You were slapped (not often, but every now and then), and you will repeat that pattern with your kids.
You even justify the assaults, saying you “stepped out of line.”
You make it sound so normal – like slapping a defenseless child once in a while is even advisable and perfectly OK.
But it’s not.
Why isn’t social services allowed to investigate?
Maybe if the parents are slapped with some child abuse charges they will cooperate.
I still marvel at the ignorance level in many of the comments here.
* This child was assaulted. Proof? Look at the injuries. Whoever did it is guilty of an unspeakable crime.
* Chinuch never permits assault. The halachos about a potch are specific, and can be found in any of many seforim on chinuch.
* Discipline must be educational to be considered a part of chinuch. If it does anything else, it is not chinuch. Making a child fear harm, causing injury, or hurting a child emotionally are NOT discipline.
* Many mechanchim sadly lack the training and qualification to fulfill their responsibilities. Their work is sometimes difficult and frustrating. Training makes a huge difference. Otherwise, there are more experienced mechanchim to ask for guidance. Mechanchim are humans (though some are animals), and have anger issues like all, but they can never be permitted to release any of this as “chinuch” because it isn’t.
* Check your local seforim store for Torah based guides on chinuch. You’ll discover that there is nothing that supports what happened to this child. May the assailant be banned from chinuch forever, and may he meet his consequences in court.
The biggest problem in our generation and the threat to being able to observe Yidishkeit in America for the long term is the believe by too many Jews, that we can no longer run our Yeshivas (government needs to decide on who can be a mechanech and how we should be mechanech our children) according to Daas Torah (Shulchon Aruch & tradition) and the believe that we can no longer deal with a person who is accused of being a “choita u’machtie”
Should we continue this slippery slope, the government will decide if our Mikvahs are not a threat to hygienic rules, who can qualify to be a Ruv, the training which someone would need to qualify to me a Malamed and so on…..
A family that Mosers on a Yeshiva should be thrown out.
They have so many free public schools to send their children.
In these public schools the children will not be slapped by a staff member. (However the child may be beaten/abused/raped by other students).
Untill a parent pays the Yeshiva the same 15k per year that the Public schools receive – they have no business reporting the Yeshiva.
-No one forces you to be Religious, No one forces you to send your kids to Religious schools – If you don’t like the community – find somewhere else but it is a sick thing to wage war with a community