Brooklyn, NY – Police are searching for a man who has lured children into a Brooklyn synagogue, molesting at least one of them.
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Police say the sex attack happened during the afternoon on Wednesday, June 22.
Police say the man lured a 12-year-old into Simcha Hall, a Borough Park synagogue located at 50th Street and 15th Avenue.
Once in the basement, police say the man, dressed in tradition Hasidic attire, sexually assaulted the boy.
About an hour later, a second boy, 11, was confronted by the same man in front of the synagogue.
Police say that boy was not sexually assaulted but was lured into the synagogue.
The Special Victims Crime Unit is now handling the case as they search for the suspect.
According to the NY Post, The incidents came to light after one of the victims told his father what had happened. The dad in turn contacted Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, a advocate who works to expose incidents of child sexual molestation in the Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community.
Rosenberg gave the father the number of an NYPD detective.
“I said go down to the detective, and report it,” Rosenberg said.
David Orlander, whose son Nafatali Orlander manages the shul, said he had hear about the alleged attacks, but did not know who committed them.
“We won’t sweep it under the rug. Nobody is denying it [happened] but, for some reason, nobody knowns anything either,” Orlander said.
“Our shul is open 20 hours a day, and there’s not necessarily someone in the building,” Orlander said. “It’s open, in case anyone wants to come in an study. Even the mailman and the sanitation workers know it’s open and they can use the bathrooms. Anyone can walk in there.”
If the Shul is open and unsupervised 20 hours a day I assume there are cameras running 24/6
while I’m not going to say it didn’t happen, this story sounds like from the horses mouth. I don’t believe a story when the sole story teller is nachum rosenberg. I know too much about him. based on my reading this article it seems pretty clear nachum is writing that the father contacted him too.
I hope and pray that my 12 year old knows not to go with strangers even if he looks like a chasidish yid. Education is key though unfortunately sometimes not enough.
We will hunt him down and put him behind bars
Any description, maybe this will help to find him? Maybe every public place (inc shuls) should have video cameras .
Its a shame the shul has no cameras
How can you let a building open all day with no cameras?
I used to daven in the shul a few years ago in the morning and the pushkes were stolen a few times
If the Belz don’t have the common sense to have someone watching the shul while it is open, I’m not sure any amount of public outrage will have any affect. Somone could walk in and desecrate the sifrei torah or steal seforim and yet they seemingly don’t care if some youngster is abused.
All of your comments are just reacting to this tragedy instead of trying to prevent future ones. It’s time to vaccinate our community’s children against abuse by being good pro-active parents.
Take a half hour and watch Rabbi Yakov Horowitz’s video on Speaking to Your Kids About Personal Safety http://vimeo.com/25322132
and then sit down and speak to your kids (and not just once either).
Educating your children is the best way to protect them, so they won’t follow some guy into Shul or anyplace else, and they’ll know better than to allow anyone (relative or stranger) to touch them.
Wake up parents!! There is something you can do to help prevent your children from being molested.
The most important form of crime protection is the vigilance of the victim. The best law enforcement cannot eliminate crime.
Protecting children is the chiyuv of every parent, mechanech, and caregiver. No one is exempt. Teach, teach more, and teach again.
The video by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz is highly recommended.
place cameras at all the shules. not jsut for molesters but for security as well.
sometimes a camera down the block or accross the street catches what you are looking for. i hope they are contacting neighbors with cameras as well.
every public place should have a video recording system, it’s a must do.
I bet dollars to donuts this guy is a “regular” & if it’s true, someone saw something. But once again no one seems to have a clue what’s going on. Strange, isn’t it??? As for cameras…if they don’t have any (which I do not believe, sometimes they’re well hidden) Belz should have applied for the $75,000 Homeland Security grant to get them. They should have come to me; I write the applications & my clients get awarded.
You know what might have happened? The perp, speaking flawless Yiddish, asked the kid to help him look for his Tefillin, or get a sefer down from a high shelf or some other ruse. Our kids, who are taught to help a fellow Yid especially an adult, won’t say no. In hindsight, it might be better to teach our children that if it comes to going off with someone to do a “mitzvah”, ask an familiar adult to come too.
Grants are only given for homeland security unless that grant writer (#19) writes false grants. It does does not pay to prevent maniacs roaming the street.
Rabbi horrowitz’s video works for children in flatbusbh not belz.
The insular culture of Belz, is such that they couldht sit down to talk about these things with their kids at all.
Besides any community that allows children and adults to attend the mikve together, is breeding their own pedophilia….
I’m glad to see that some people are becoming more pro-active about protecting their children. There is no such thing as not having, “the capacity to have the talk” with children. If you can teach your child not to go into the street, not to touch a hot pot, or to wear a seat belt, then you can teach them to avoid people who may try to harm them (whether they know them, are related to them, or not). And it is an absolute “chiyuv” to do so.
Wake up people!!! Cameras only help after the fact (and an intelligent perpetrator will figure out how to avoid the cameras). Teaching your children is your best defense against abusers.
To Number 28: Why don’t you ask Rabbi Horowitz to produce a video in Yiddish or even better, invite him to give the speech in Yiddish in Belz? If what Number 20 said is true, “I happen to know personally that the Belz community is outraged by this event . . .” then let them invite the whole community to hear Rabbi Horowitz speak. Actions speak much louder than words.
(Reply to #26 ): How right you are. The unfortunate truth is that the more insular and sheltered ANY particular group is from mainstream society and mainstream Judaism, the more fertile the ground for child abuse, molestation, and the inevitable cover-ups that follow. Many studies support this fact.
Molesters know this and take full advantage of it. Mikvehs, as you so astutely noted, have been used by child predators and those looking to exploit our kids and teenagers for years. It was just never spoken of. But it exists, and the denial of this shameful phenomenon is especially harmful to our families and youth. Ignorance and sticking our heads in the sand is never an excuse. The only real “chutzpah” that exists is the brazen refusal to acknowledge these facts. The real “nerve” is the chutzpah of each fool and ignoramus who continues to collude with the abusers, and refuses to become educated about the ugly realities.
We are mechuyavim – obligated – to teach our children the truth about the dangerous “friends, relatives, and strangers” among us. We must adhere to the credo, ” Be forewarned and be forearmed!” Our blindness to the exploitation and assault on our defenseless children will not serve us well come Yom Kippur.
To all the folks who care so deeply about the media getting hold of the story……………..
Do you care as passionately about protecting our children, YOUR children, someone else’s children? Or is it primarily our so-called reputation that needs protecting more than anything else?
Your answer will determine
how much credibility
you retain in the eyes of all Ba’alei Seichel and Yirei Shamayim. And in the eyes of Shamayim.
What number should be called in case this happens again?
Rosenberg is not an option!
Is there anyone else who could be called?
(Reply to #39 ): The to’eles is that the awareness of this existing scourge of child molestation is heightened. Every single time it happens, it needs to be reported and publicized.
If people become aware of just how rampant in our communities these predators and their crimes are,
there is hope that it will be addressed, dealt with, and eliminated. We have failed to take it as seriously as we should have until now.
It IS an epidemic.
I work with the families, so I know the numbers. But even what I see is just the tip of the iceberg. Do YOU know what’s going on out there?
The devastation is compounded by the behavior of people who care more for “image control” than for the welfare of our children.
It is a tragedy of epidemic proportions. Publicity will help reduce the stigma, fear, and shame. Hiding reality will never do us any good.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Try to understand it from the victims’ point of view.