New York – A number of child-safety proposals have been floated in the wake of the murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky in Brooklyn’s Boro Park neighborhood.
One proposal might stand out to New York State residents as a commonsense initiative: mandatory background checks and fingerprinting for private school employees.
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The checks would not have prevented the murder of Kletzky. Accused killer Levi Aron, also a Jew from Boro Park, abducted the boy off the street in July as the child walked home from a neighborhood summer camp. But advocates contend that such regulation would codify one lesson of the murder: that Orthodox communities can no longer place blind trust in their own.
“The point that we bring to the table is that we Jews can’t do it ourselves,” said Elliot Pasik, president of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children. “We can’t self-govern. We can’t police ourselves. We need laws for child safety.” Pasik’s most recent call (reported first on VIN News) for legislation, — which he sent to six New York State senators and Assembly members.
NY Assemblyman Hikind, said it is high time that the mandatory fingerprint law, which he plans to sponsor again next year, is passed. The Kletzky murder, he suspects, might even propel the community of Boro Park and the broader Hasidic leadership to back him this time.
“I think now, with everything that has gone on, there is greater recognition that more has to be done,” Hikind said. “It’s about priming. It should have been done years ago. A lot of things should have been done years ago.”
Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of the Orthodox umbrella organization Agudath Israel of America, for his part, said that Agudath Israel is going to take a wait-and-see approach. “I am pretty sure we will not oppose it and we will discuss internally as to whether we will affirmatively encourage it,” he said.
While the “advocates” are willing to mortgage their homes for the passage of such a bill, as if it would be the safety miracle for our children, they are guilty of missing the forest for the trees. The crimes we are most concerned about are those that do not leave fingerprints. If a yeshiva were to hire someone with a criminal background, where fingerprints made a difference, it would shed virtually no light on the risk to the personal safety of the yeshiva child. I personally have no problem with making fingerprinting mandatory for private schools, and I would support the bill. But the true inroads into keeping our children safe will be achieved by teaching safety skills and prevention, the keeping of a fully utilized database, and criminal background checking. In hiring for a yeshiva, one must know a lot about the applicant’s background. Just as for a shidduch, one must obtain reliable information, and one must inquire about many areas of background before accepting to employ for a yeshiva. To hire someone for their yichus is grossly irresponsible.
I would be more pleased to see progress in so many other aspects of improving child safety. Helmets on bikes, anyone?
Levi Aron would not have been caught with this. Why is he using Leiby’s blood to promote his agenda?
Did anyone read the comments on this article at “The Forward”? The anti-Semitism there is as bad as anything you see on Yahoo or HuffPost.
Finaly a proposal that would actualy do some good
we would have another child murder
Another law should be stiff jail time for anybody who harms a child. Case in point. The guy in staten island that put his son into a hot oven received today 4 MONTHS in prison that’s a joke another five minutes in the oven the kid would be dead
Minimum for harming a child should be at least 5-8 years. And maybe maybe some of these crazy people would think twice before harming children
I propose a training school school for rabbi’s before they get a job in a yeshiva. You get training on how to deal with children in a classroom setting. You get a full background check and screening. And from here you can get outsourced or hired. Just cause some person got smicha, has a beard, and wears a hat means absolutely nothing.
There are some terrible rabbeim out there and its our job to get them out and protect our kids from letting them get in.
Lets just have a GPS planted into everybody so Government can track our movement, for our safety of course.
They should also have access to all our phone calls, bank transactions and all the rest, all in the name of a greater good and safety. While at that, they should monitor our shopping habits confirm to bloombarian theology.
Its scary that a politician I highly admire should think along these lines.
How would fingerprinting teachers help with child abuse?
And If you want the teachers to be even lower quality continue this way. Demonized, mistreated, underpaid. And then you will wonder why the teachers are rock bottom quality. Because anyone with a brain will get a different job.
This whole idea is just plain non sense. Finger printing will only identify a person with a criminal record. Our biggest concern are the guys without the records.
Let’s not forget “Levi Aron had NO record”…
Let me echo #6 : This would not have prevented this terrible crime. It will also not prevent molesting because these molesters usually don’t have a criminal background.
I’m all for this…but what good is it if we continue to protect abusers and not permit law enforcement or secular agencies to intervene. If the perps are never to the point of getting fingerprinted, then what good is this?…If shomrim has a list of perps that they beleive may be doing harm, as long as they simply stay on that list and nothing further, then what good is this law…they will never get to the point of being fingerprinted and as such can be hired by schools without any hesitation. That is the issue which needs to be dealt with.
The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) helps employers in England and Wales make safer recruitment decisions. A number of roles, especially those involving children or vulnerable adults, are entitled to a criminal record check.
CRB’s aim is to help protect children and vulnerable adults by providing a first-class service to support organisations recruiting people into positions of trust.
A Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check provides details of an individual’s criminal record and, for certain jobs, information held by the Independent Safeguarding Authority to help you recruit suitable staff. When the CRB check is complete, the potential employer receives a CRB certificate.
Armed with information on an applicant’s criminal past – or lack thereof) an employer may make an informed choice as to an applicant’s suitability for working with children, young people, or other vulnerable sectors of the population.
CRB in England and Wales has been successfully performing this service for more than twenty years, so its not beyond the abilities of NYS authorities to do something similar.
Now I await the onslaught of the American “civil liberties” nay-sayers and the so-called defenders!
these people obviously don’t know much about frum schools, or for that matter much about private schools. Private schools are always trying to get every type of grant they can get their hands on, many of which require background-checks and/or fingerprints. So this is already being done in most frum schools and yeshivahs.
There are 30,000 registered sex offenders in NYS alone, and 700,000 nationally. There are also thousands more convicted violent offenders, even murderers, who have completed their sentences, or are on parole or probation. Some of them are sick people, who want to work near children.
In NY, and 41 other states, all public schools are required to fingerprint their employees. Twelve states, but not NY, require their private schools to fingerprint – including some states with large frum populations, such as, Maryland, Illinois, Michigan, Calif. If you have relatives who teach in yeshivas there, ask them if they’ve been fingerprinted, and they should say, yes.
We also asked the NYS Educ. Dept. for the number of public school job applicants who have been rejected for employment over the past 10 years, based on their criminal histories. The number is 1,623 – and that doesn’t include New York City. That number also doesn’t include people who, when told of the fingerprint requirement, decided not to apply, well knowing they would be rejected.
So if these and other dangerous people want a job, especially near children, where will they apply? Yeshivas, unless we too have a law.
Our letter of July 22, 2011, to leading state legislators called attention to NYS Education Law Section 803-a. This is the exact text: “All pupils in grades K-8 in all public schools in the state shall receive instruction designed to prevent abduction of children.” This law needs to be speedily amended. State law should require that children in all schools, both public and nonpublic, receive instruction designed to prevent their abduction. Every summer, not only in Borough Park, but other neighborhoods also, there are dangerous predators who want to inflict harm on children. Sensible, age appropriate classroom instruction can help stop this.
Fingerprinting is in the future, all you people who are against it better prepare your fingers.
Amazing all this talk about innocent till proven guilty. freedom etc.
In order to get my license in NYS to practice Dentistry I had to get fingerprinted. The choice was there; no fingerprints but no license. I do not think they are fingerprinting everybody just those that will do a specific job. Yhe choice remains, no fingerprints, no job.
These laws apply for many positions in health care and caring for elderly.
Yes, it is true this would not have helped in this case.
YES, there should be training courses for Rebbeim of young kids so we would have Rebbeim that are somewhat able to understand to separate their personal stresses for heir job and personality. There should be an ethical code that one Org can advise another of a proposed Rebbe that might not be fit.
I agree completely and it is about time. My kid used to complain about rabbis breaking his pencils and trying to hit in class. Even the best rabbi needs lessons!!
There is a serious concern on how teachers are treated. They are not prison guards.
Besides, Levi Aron had no record, and most molesters do not. Furthermore, it seems more and more likely that Levi Aron is a simply a class-A meshugeneh and not a molester.
It would be far more helpful if every school had an open policy on molestation, spoke openly to the kids about it IN FRONT OF THEIR TEACHERS. The biggest danger with molestation is the secrecy around it, which allows it to continue unchecked.
Hikind means well, but I think he is off-base here.
This whole idea is just plain non sense. Finger printing will only identify a person with a criminal record. Our biggest concern are the guys without the records.
Let’s not forget “Levi Aron had NO record”…
The Rosh Yeshiva should get fingerprinted first, and the others will follow. Somebody needs to be Nachshon ben Aminodov.
This is a disgrace. It would be the ultimate insult for any rav who has received semicha to undergo the humiliation of having to be fingerprinted. There is also a question of whether it is even mutar for women teachers to have to undergo this identificaiton process although there are fewer reported cases of abuse and molestation involving women teachers.
Levi Aron, in 2010, at 34 years-old, received a summons, in NYC, for public urination, to which he pled guilty. While not a crime, that is either an “offense” or “violation”, depending upon the section of the law he was charged under. If someone with that type of record in his background applied for a job in a yeshiva, it would do us well to, first, know about it, and then, make a reasoned decision on whether to offer him the job.
In addition, there is one media report that in 1996, he was arrested for Driving Under the Influence of alcohol. It was dismissed.
I really don’t understand how this will help, though some child molesters in the community were teachers the majority had nothing to do with it, they were just regular people who would use a bathroom in Shul or the mikve to molest children, so how in the world would this help? And what does Leiby Kletzky have to do with this? Had Levi Aron even tried applying for a job at any school he would’ve been pushed out the door right away.
This wont make any changes. just make the community distrust the politicians even more.
I really don’t understand Dov Hikind!!!
43 and others: Inevitably, whenever abuse is debated, a few accuse the advocates of bad manners. They attack the gedolim, they exploit the victims, and so on. This particular group of advocates, identified in the article, is trying real hard to do things the right way. They have their own rabbinic committee. They are all frum professionals. They have consulted with rabbis, often quietly, across the spectrum of klal Yisroel.
I am happy to see so many people raising their opinion. Being the wife of a long time rebbi I would like to say my opinion.
First of all I dought that any well meaning rebbi would oppose fingerprinting.
Second I can’t believe what I see how poeple talk so low about today’s Rebbis. Who is working to bring up our next generation if not for our devoted rebbis?
Before you talk like that on your own childs rebbi take a minute to think. How much time & Koach does he put into my kids? Do you ever think abit deaper? How about the rebbi finally comes home to his family & he can’t sit calmly with his kids cause parents keep calling & he MUST be available all the time?
How about your son’s rebbi probably didn’t get paid already 5 MONTHS? Did anybody raise their opinion about that? Do you care about that? Or only screwing up what you can find negative? Pls start respecting your kids rebbis that are so devoted & work almost LESHEM SHAMAYIM cause they never know when their next pay check will come………………….(& they have to come home every day telling their wife sorry no money for any shopping this season….) pls give credit where it is due….. THANX