My intent was never to prove Rabbi K innocent. My intent was only to demonstrate that The NY Jewish Week, Hannah Dreyfus, Gary Rosenblatt, and Chaim Levin, who all represent themselves as professional investigators, are not. They are activists. They have an agenda and will stop at nothing to get what they want. In this case, they wanted Rabbi K fired because they mindlessly took the side of the accuser. That was severely disappointing.
But something interesting and unexpected happened. In 5 days, including a Shabbos, this blog has had close to 11,000 views from about 8,500 unique URLs. Among all of the feedback, I received dozens of emails from current and former Camp Shoresh campers and staff. I answer all emails and tend to have at least a 2 email exchange. If they profess his innocence, my closing question is "I'm sure Rabbi K appreciates your support. But please reply with the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you the reason he is innocent?" Most had a similar message. The building! It was the building they wanted to point out.
This was not what I had expected. It demanded investigation. The investigation did not take very long. I interviewed senior staff, junior staff, and even children. I asked simple questions about the camp day. I made no allusion to what I wanted to know.
The thing I immediately learned is that Shoresh has a very structured and scheduled day. On a given day, the pool has scheduled activities from 10am until about 3pm. It's a busy and popular activity that is part of every camper's day. A swim activity is exactly 55 minutes, and when one activity is getting ready to end, there is another group already in the pool house getting changed. They were there for about 7 minutes getting ready. As one group leaves the pool, they spend about 7 minutes changing back into their clothes.
A group includes about 80 children and 12 staff members. There are over 90 people coming and going on a tight schedule. There are kids coming a little late and kids leaving a little late. And, by camp policy, the poolhouse is always staffed to ensure the kids move through with no playing around or making trouble.
In addition to the above, there are the bathrooms. The poolhouse sits dead center on the campus. Surrounding it are the ball fields, the playground, bunkhouses, the activity rooms, and the crafts barn. Over 450 children are having activities at all of these places. During activities, kids that need to use the bathroom will use this building. The boys have 3 urinals + 3 stalls while the girls have 7 stalls. Even the bathroom portion of the building does not have walls that reach the ceiling. Nothing is private. Neither conversations, nor peeing noise is without an audience. Everyone is entering and exiting the same massive doors through the open areas.
The changing area is a large open area of benches surrounded by open cubbies on both the boys side and the girls side. There are no doors and door locks anywhere. By all accounts, the building is truly the Grand Central Station of Camp Shoresh. It is never empty and there is no hope for any privacy at any moment in the camp day. This view is shared by dozens of people and is claimed to be shared by every person in the world who has spent any time at Shoresh. Boys one side and girls the other.
Sure, Rabbi K is a nice guy. But many molesters seem nice. He has lots of supporters. But that is not uncommon at the beginning of any case. The police report discusses how Detective Davies visits "the scene of the crime". Hannah Dreyfus' expert called the move "highly unusual" and using this, she led her reader to believe that he was not cut out for this type of investigation. But that visit cemented his opinion of Rabbi K's innocence. Not because he was nice or had supporters. He had other opinions of the accusers that has been heavily discussed. But we are now talking only about Rabbi K.
This ruined man is innocent and has been falsely accused! As great as this may be, I find this horrible! This was not my mission nor was it ever my agenda. But the conversation about guilt ends after this one innocent fact that has been staring us in the face all along. It is just not possible that this happened in that poolhouse building. And that is the only location they claim this occurred.
To email me: arighteousindig@gmail.com
But something interesting and unexpected happened. In 5 days, including a Shabbos, this blog has had close to 11,000 views from about 8,500 unique URLs. Among all of the feedback, I received dozens of emails from current and former Camp Shoresh campers and staff. I answer all emails and tend to have at least a 2 email exchange. If they profess his innocence, my closing question is "I'm sure Rabbi K appreciates your support. But please reply with the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you the reason he is innocent?" Most had a similar message. The building! It was the building they wanted to point out.
This was not what I had expected. It demanded investigation. The investigation did not take very long. I interviewed senior staff, junior staff, and even children. I asked simple questions about the camp day. I made no allusion to what I wanted to know.
The thing I immediately learned is that Shoresh has a very structured and scheduled day. On a given day, the pool has scheduled activities from 10am until about 3pm. It's a busy and popular activity that is part of every camper's day. A swim activity is exactly 55 minutes, and when one activity is getting ready to end, there is another group already in the pool house getting changed. They were there for about 7 minutes getting ready. As one group leaves the pool, they spend about 7 minutes changing back into their clothes.
A group includes about 80 children and 12 staff members. There are over 90 people coming and going on a tight schedule. There are kids coming a little late and kids leaving a little late. And, by camp policy, the poolhouse is always staffed to ensure the kids move through with no playing around or making trouble.
In addition to the above, there are the bathrooms. The poolhouse sits dead center on the campus. Surrounding it are the ball fields, the playground, bunkhouses, the activity rooms, and the crafts barn. Over 450 children are having activities at all of these places. During activities, kids that need to use the bathroom will use this building. The boys have 3 urinals + 3 stalls while the girls have 7 stalls. Even the bathroom portion of the building does not have walls that reach the ceiling. Nothing is private. Neither conversations, nor peeing noise is without an audience. Everyone is entering and exiting the same massive doors through the open areas.
The changing area is a large open area of benches surrounded by open cubbies on both the boys side and the girls side. There are no doors and door locks anywhere. By all accounts, the building is truly the Grand Central Station of Camp Shoresh. It is never empty and there is no hope for any privacy at any moment in the camp day. This view is shared by dozens of people and is claimed to be shared by every person in the world who has spent any time at Shoresh. Boys one side and girls the other.
Sure, Rabbi K is a nice guy. But many molesters seem nice. He has lots of supporters. But that is not uncommon at the beginning of any case. The police report discusses how Detective Davies visits "the scene of the crime". Hannah Dreyfus' expert called the move "highly unusual" and using this, she led her reader to believe that he was not cut out for this type of investigation. But that visit cemented his opinion of Rabbi K's innocence. Not because he was nice or had supporters. He had other opinions of the accusers that has been heavily discussed. But we are now talking only about Rabbi K.
This ruined man is innocent and has been falsely accused! As great as this may be, I find this horrible! This was not my mission nor was it ever my agenda. But the conversation about guilt ends after this one innocent fact that has been staring us in the face all along. It is just not possible that this happened in that poolhouse building. And that is the only location they claim this occurred.
To email me: arighteousindig@gmail.com
I have been thinking about this same point as well. I have read all of the police reports in their entirety. The more I read them, the more questions I have especially because each and every allegation of abuse is alleged to have occurred in the pool house. Please consider the following additional allegations that have not been well reported: (i) multiple witnesses (as many as 10-15 in some cases) were alleged to be there during many of the incidents (but no one noticed or said anything and still no one has corroborated any of this, other than for these 3 claimants-- and even their stories do not match up); (ii) none of the counselors or other Shoresh employees who worked with the accused ever recalled a time when he was alone in the pool house with a child; (iii) that the accused was said to have locked the pool house door (yet as the Detective confirmed, there are no internal locking mechanisms on the pool house doors); (iv) that in the most recent allegations (nearly 2 years after the initial complaints), yet still from the same accusers, one of the children described in graphic detail the new allegations of bodily penetration to the “mouth and butt” which was alleged to have occurred by and to the accuser and the accused. Further these incidents involved blood and excrement. Finally, they were alleged to have occurred “everyday for the last two (2) years except if it rained.” Everyday, except if it rained…and no physical evidence. When taken as a whole, these allegations do not stand up to scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know why the Jewish Week chose to ignore every single piece of exculpatory evidence and instead focused solely on the allegations of abuse itself; yet the police, CPS, and the Assistant States Attorney (who is the Chief of the Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit), all declined to prosecute for lack of evidence. No one wants to see a child abuser walk the streets. No one. But none of us would want to endure the arbitrary, indefensible, and extra judicial trial and conviction by the court of public opinion that has unfolded before our eyes. Sometimes the truth is right in front of our eyes, we just have to be willing to see it.
You make some good observations. I have children and seven year olds are very perceptive and stubborn. You can't just accept the story as a whole. You have to pick apart the details of what the 7 year old child says and make sure it lines up detail for detail before you accept any of it. I bet they left specific dates out of the report because it would have destroyed the narrative. And when a kid's abuse story changes over time, you know that something has to be up. What kid is going to go through an experience like that and keep it bottled up for so long? Those CPS "experts" who found the kids "credible" (ha!) are probably trained to see child sex abuse every time a kid claims any kind of anal or oral penetration no matter how implausible. Don't they know what kids are exposed to these days?
DeleteExactly. It can't be true. It is simply impossible that the accused could have sexually assaulted the accuser, orally and anally, every day at camp for 2 summers, in that pool house. Where is the physical evidence (fluids, scars, tears, scrapes, abrasions)? Where are the witnesses to this ridiculous daily routine? Even one such assault would have been almost impossible to escape from undetected, but everyday? Finally, Detective Davies noted that during this interview, the accuser showed "very little eye contact and he appeared fidgety". It seems like the Detective wasn't buying this story.
DeleteYou are so right. When you read a report like this, you have to read between the lines to know what is really going on. When the CPS expert based this kid's credibility on the fact that he "talked of hair getting caught between his teeth and bodily reactions to the oral and anal sex", you can tell that she is sensationalizing the whole thing. CPS is too hair-trigger; the cop has been hardened by investigations into robberies and other violent crimes so when he's brought into an occasional child sex abuse investigation, his opinion carries much more weight than some forensic investigator whose training and experience is all about this topic. That creates a tremendous bias. A little common horse sense on the cop's part is what should carry the day. It's really telling that he preserves his objectivity by not openly expressing any judgement on the kid's credibility, but just throws in these asides so that the intelligent reader understands.
DeleteJW started this and I bet they wanna get off this train but it's too late. I wonder if Levin is proud of himself. I bet he is. I bet this kind of show is exactly what he was hoping for and he could care less about those kids. Everyone loses and hes the big winner.
ReplyDeleteFinally someone did this right. With that regimented and predictable schedule, no way that anyone could have found a window to abuse kids in that locker room. The continuous presence of one staff member in the locker room makes the claimed abuse completely impossible. Young Miss Dreyfus really dropped the ball on this one.
ReplyDeleteOnly the parties involved knows what really transpired. I am not defending Rabbi K or
ReplyDeleteclaiming the victims are lying. Unfortunately, with this type of accusation one has to prove
their innocence. Should they accomplish, a doubt will always exists to the alleged perpetrator's
innocence. People will still think, " Where there is smoke there is fire."
Don't be so wishy-washy. We know exactly what it going on here. If we even begin to suspect every Rabbi who has multiple kids accuse him of anal rape, then we've basically opened up the system to abuse by anyone with an agenda against any Rabbi. Our leadership needs to be above such suspicions. We have to be firm that this simply didn't happen. Period.
DeleteBut what if there are secret tunnels under the building like the McMartin preschool trial?
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. For every case real Rabbinic abuse case, case there must be 10 or 100 McMartin like cases. That case happened 30 years ago and people still haven't processed the implications (it's worth repeating: 30 years to process the implications!). They "claim" that the psychology field has moved on from those flawed techniques, but we know better, and you can see that in this case. CPS just gives way too much credibility to improbable descriptions of oral and anal penetration by seven year olds. It is very important to keep citing that singular flawed case from 30 years over and over to show what can happen when abuse claims by kids are taken too seriously. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I'm so happy that there is one site out here that has the guts to tell it like it is.
DeleteYes, kids don't lie - of course not, they are merely gross exaggerators of the facts, to say nothing about them being the most major of pranksters & very capable of deception. There was a time when parental conversation was left with parents; no longer! Today everything is discussed @ the kitchen table. Subjects concerning, sex, murder and child abuse are discussed openly, sometimes it's the kids who lead the conversation. From the age of 7 or earlier kids are already conversant with social media as they walk around with their smart phones as if an appendage of their bodies. It must have been a slow day at the office when the 'smear oficionados' decided to have some fun & put out a story that wreaks to its core and of course keep on repeating it and reality takes over and then, 'mob mentality'. To the perpetrators of distruction, I wish you nothing but a life of anguish for trying to ruin the lives of a beautiful, respectful family. You won't win.
ReplyDeleteThe beautiful and respectful family has been silent. They have sent henchman to put out a slanted and partial story citing only facts that support it's agenda. There was no way that story was not going to get answered.
DeleteAnd kids do not lie. But experts tell us that if you ask children the same question over and over, and show them you don't like the answer, they will pick up on what you want them to say and just give you what you want.
Of course it's all speculation! All the public has is what Dreyfus put out there. And a small bit of investigation told us she either did not know the whole story or hid it from the public. And you speak of attempting ruin? A man's life is certainly now ruined. So what kind of "win" is there for anyone to have?
Guys, don't give up hope! The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. People are going to wake up and smell the coffee. Remember Trump's locker room talk? All the pointy-headed intellectuals dismissed that as a pathetic excuse, but who won that election? Who actually won? Well, we'll win this one. Who did the people believe? The people will believe us.
DeleteWe all know that with cellphones and facebook and the moral disgrace this country has become, locker-room talk has seeped down into our youth. It's a surprise to me that there aren't three kids claiming abuse for every holy Rabbi out there. Kids don't even have to lie when they can just repeat the kinds of filth and deviance that they're taught is normal every day.
Maybe I'm going overboard, but I think the jury is going bend that arc of justice faster to our side a than a spinning NYT election gauge on the night of Trump's great victory. Keep up the good fight and MKGA!