Jeremy Rosen
Sex Abuse in the Charedi World
Summary
Jeremy Rosen talks about abuse in the Charedi community. He explains how, why, and what is going on there, and why it is being called out, and why sometimes it’s not being called out.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
There is a law about sexual abuse. There is a law, it is forbidden. In the Charedi community, technically, you’re not supposed to touch another woman. So how come this guy was sleeping with another woman, let alone touching another woman? So there are laws, they are just being circumvented, unfortunately, by people. And this is again, human nature.
No, Judaism has the morality, universal morality for all human beings, the seven basic Noahide laws. And although initially, initially, Judaism extended social protection to members of the Jewish community, by the time you get to the period of the Talmud, you already have this idea of respecting everybody, no matter what their religion, no matter where they come from, and no matter how they worship God. So, that’s an evolution in our tradition.
Yes, there’s no question that this is a breach of law. People are breaking Jewish law in the Charedi community all the time, whether it’s in business ethics, or whether it’s in sexual ethics. Humans are humans, unfortunately.