The_Barnacle wrote on Feb 15
th, 2015 at 10:34am:
The issue here, just like with the Catholic Church cases, is that those in charge of the religious institutions knew the pedophilia was happening but chose to not report it. In fact they showed no sympathy for the victim, they were too busy protecting their own interests.
It's not a matter of them knowing there were paedophiles. It's a question of why they didn't report it, and there were completely different reasons for why Jews didn't report them and why the Catholic Church didn't.
The Church did it to protect the "faith" of their adherents. It did it to save face. Unlike the Church, the rabbis were simply following an ancient directive in oral tradition. This is what they mean when they talk about the so-called "code of silence." This directive was meant to protect Jews from persecution.
You see, the rabbis of the local Chabad community had completely different motivations for keeping quiet about paedophilia in contrast to the Church.
Svengali wrote on Feb 15
th, 2015 at 11:05am:
A shameful aspect of this is the whole Jewish community ostracized and shunned the families that reported pedophilia to the police while allowing the pedophiles to continue their crimes.
I am going to repeat this again. There are different groups of Jews. There is Ultra-Orthodox, modern Orthodox, traditional Orthodox, Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, etc.
This happened in a Chabad community. Chabad is ultra-Orthodox. The "code of silence" thing is something associated with the Chabad community. It does not exist in all Jewish groups.
Svengali wrote on Feb 15
th, 2015 at 6:06pm:
If they had gone to another temple the word would have spread and they would have been ostracized there as well.
A very traditional group like Chabad would probably have rules against mixing with other groups of Jews.
Besides, a "code of silence" would mean they would not discuss what happened, even to other groups of Jews.
Unlike you and I who live in a secular society, ultra-Orthodox Jews do not treat matters like this lightly. If they have been instructed to keep their silence over something like paedophilia, they wouldn't be gossiping about it. To these ultra-Orthodox Jews, a "code of silence" is a bit like an oath. It is sacred. You do not break it. To break the code is to betray the entire community. It could mean getting kicked out of that community or being ostracised, which is precisely what happened. From what I have heard, they are now attending services at a modern Orthodox synagogue, which does not have such problems.
Svengali wrote on Feb 15
th, 2015 at 6:06pm:
You could not possibly have known that ostracism occurred only at one temple unless you have inside knowledge.
You don't need inside knowledge, just some basic knowledge of how different groups of Jews operate. You can learn all this from the Internet.