NEW YORK (VINnews/Sandy Eller) – Decades after allegedly being molested by a yeshiva guidance counselor, a Monsey man is filing suit against the school, its spiritual advisor and his abuser under New York State’s Child Victims Act. The legislation, which went into effect last August, lifted the statute of limitations on child sex abuse lawsuits for one year and raised the maximum age for victims to seek justice from age 23 to 28.
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50 year old Haim Zuckerman told The Jewish Week (https://bit.ly/2OozVdM) that he was filing his lawsuit to spare child sexual abuse victims the years of anguish that he himself had suffered at the hands of Avrohom Mondrowitz. Zuckerman said that he was a 13 year old ninth grader at Ger’s Yeshiva and Mesivta Bais Yisroel in Borough Park when he saw Mondrowitz molesting a fellow student in school. Reporting the incident to the school’s spiritual advisor, Rabbi Avrohom Leizerowitz, Zuckerman was reprimanded for his inappropriate thoughts and sent for counseling with Mondrowitz, who allegedly molested him as well.
According to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Zuckerman was expelled from the yeshiva shortly after reporting the abuse, his parents receiving a letter saying their son “didn’t fit the mold and he should find another school.” He flew to Israel to continue his education in another Ger yeshiva but was unexpectedly told to leave school with no explanation in 1984, roughly the same time that Mondrowitz fled to Israel to escape mounting charges of allegations in Brooklyn. Embarrassed to tell his parents that he had been ousted from yet another yeshiva, Zuckerman spent years sleeping on the streets and on buses, stopping strangers on the street and asking them for money.
Multiple allegations of abuse have been made against Mondrowitz over the years, but Israel has refused to extradite him to the United States as previously reported on VIN News (https://bit.ly/309U4JI).
Zuckerman’s is the first suit to be filed against Mondrowitz and marks the first time that he has publicly identified himself as a sexual abuse victim, something he had declined to do previously out of fear of being stigmatized. His suit also names the yeshiva and Leizerowitz as defendants, charging them with breaching “their duty to care by failing to protect him” and asks for an unspecified damages on the grounds that Zuckerman has suffered irreparable mental, emotional and psychological injuries.
Now divorced and working as a contractor and developer, Zuckerman said that the abuse he suffered as a child has left him unable to trust others.
“If my story will make a change just to save one child … I think it’s worth it,” said Zuckerman.
While victims of childhood sexual abuse often suffer in silence, Zuckerman emphasized the importance of speaking out.
“Every child should hear that if something is done to you that way, it’s wrong,” said Zucker. “And you must come out and say the truth because [if you don’t] you’re going to suffer throughout your life.”
Davening in a Shul or walking in the street without wearing a mask is 1000 times worse than anything Mondrowitz allegedly did. Mondrowitz might of done abuse, but not wearing a mask is MURDER.
Kal Hakavod to this brave individual. This sick, deranged, and evil molester will finally get his onesh in this world. Certainly also, in the next for all the innocent lives he destroyed.
It is high time that Monsterowitz gets nailed. And there should be several other charges heaped onto the ones in this suit. He forged his way to being credentialed as a professional. His career as a counselor was based on two lies. One was being qualified to perform the professional services, the second was his hiding his true motive – not to help children but to victimize them. May he rot in prison for the rest of his life. May all of his supporters join in his suffering. I feel really bad for his family, but he was a piece of garbage for decades, and it is time for justice.
Many died because of him.
Some hungry lawyer found himself a client.
This is sickening I know Chaim Zukerman as a kid from wiili. I knew his father and mother he is silly for opening up a can of worm’s on himself and his family, he should better respect himself his siblings and the memory of his parents, second he is also inviting many others that will make him pay for his inappropriate behave to others, he is not a Talis Sekulo Techeles etc.
The key words in this story are “Embarrassed to tell his parents that he had been ousted from yet another yeshiva”. This is what led to his decline. As parents, we may not be able to prevent abuse from happening. What we can do and should do is make some time every day -even just five minutes- to talk individually to our kids and give them the space to be open with us without judgement. The earlier we start, the better. This way if something does happen to them we can be there and support them through it.
Hazak uBaruch may HaShem give you the strength to complete this important mission.
My father OBM tried to get this rasha to justice but there were a lot of people that did not want this worm to embarrass our system.
We have to accept that when a child reports inappropriate conduct he is almost certainly telling the truth. Our impulse is to ignore him or call him a liar as he is accusing someone who is respected. This is difficult in practice.
Nervous moser, you are a deranged fellow. How did you bring in masks into the equation? Besides being machti as harabim is like killing them from olam habba.
According to the teachings of Educated Archy, since Mondrowitz is a Yid, he has a Chezkas Kashrus. So, case closed.
Mondrowitzzzzzzzzzzzzz get helpppppp !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a lot to say about this article, but I see that the general sanity of too many of the comments is not up to par, so I guess I’ll pass on this one.
Especially the first comment. Truthfully, when I first read it I thought it was tongue-in-check sarcasm.
To turn this issue into a referendum on poor vs proper parenting is horrifying. Of course the parents screwed up royally (certainly beginning with getting him “out of the way” by shipping him off to E”Y). But to pretend that kids who are molested and thereby destroyed as human beings are mainly results of parenting problems, and not an institutional one which allows such monsters to continue their retzicha unfettered for decades (the Kolkos come to mind), and which assists, ironically, in forcing parents to doubt their children in favor of the “authority” figures in their lives (especially when it’s in a rigidly chassidishe institution, where fear of whichever Rebbe supersedes everything), is to practically condone the rotzeach and his enablers. Let’s leave good parenting discussions for more appropriate venues. This poor kid acted the way he did chiefly because he was a mental churban. That’s what molestation does to you, and the parents may have screwed up, but the machariv was the monster and his enablers.
Well, I guess I ended up commenting after all…
The lawsuit was filed in the states. The USA will again ask for Mondrowitz’s extradition. The previous extradition request was denied by the Israeli Supreme Court. Nothing accomplished, except publicity and opening up old wounds.
Everyone involved is dead and noone has any money left because of this pandemic. Good luck collecting from the parents paying tuition for the 2020-2021 school year who weren’t even born yet in 1984. This was a terrible chapter in our history, but nothing is going to happen. May Hashem heal this person.
We all go through horrible experiences, so people pull themselves together and continue with life. Others suffer many years afterwards.
I don’t know what is the difference, but some have it and some don’t.
This is sad but becessary the real culprit is the late corrupt charles hynes who looked the other way. I am awaiting a statement from aguda who had no problem attacking trump for deporting illegal aliens since de blasio wanted it
The Israeli justice system seems to find it difficult to extradite people accused of child abuse. Is there some reason for this?
37 years to late the rabbinic leaders at the time hid the fact that he was a sexual predator attacking the young
But he’s not the only one that has gotten away with it
I don’t understand how the same people who are super strict on mechitzos and extraordinary frumkeiten gave a pass to mishkav zochor.
Kol hakavod that he’s dealing with it. To say that he’s opening a can of worms and embarrassing his family are you for real????? Rather sweet under the carpet? I guess that you would have done that.
again a yid have a chaskus kashrus’, pintul. in the gemura rav pupa give malkus for someone came with a story alone eid achud, becouse its not kosher as aides then its simple lushen hora, this is jewish law, fact.
thair was no kosher eides in bais din about this metter, its sham ra.
im sorry i don’t understand y IM so wrong. as a jaw we have to act halochadig, in if some one is not convictate haluchadig its lushon horah to talk, bais din have the right of “imdena” were you don’t need eidem, its not a right given to bloggers, in the this case its sure if this case is 35 years ago ur right that we have to take it seiries becouse mabey children r in danger, but now its only the case of a punish for old mabey crimes, in not to save children from this guy then a yid have to think like a yid even its not main stream
to monsey jew
Although it is nearly impossible to understand most of what what you are saying – what makes you think a molester will stop because he is “old”? Who decides how “old” a molester is before he must stop molesting? One thing I keep learning as I get older is that every age I thought was old became young when I reached it. I hope to continue to do that for a long time….for now 72 is “old” to me (that is Mondrowitz’s approximate age) on the other hand President Trump is 74 so he surely thinks Mondrowitz is young. If a 74 year old has the energy to be President, surely a 72 year old can have the energy to do lots of things that a younger person might do…
ur right, this will be case if we here some molesting the last few years, but did we here any thing the last 20 years? if yes then ur right we have to contact a ruv , to deside to put this man off the streets behind bars, but again, as long its a OLD mabey story, than we have to learn shmiras haloshen whats right or not,
to Monsey Jew
So what you are saying is that before the people who were abused in the past can go forward with their case they must first find a current victim to see if the abuser is still currently active? How long is the statute of limitations on that? If someone was molested 5 years ago is that recent enough? What about 3 years ago? See how this can’t work? Who would decide how long ago the abuse had to happen? The whole point is that when kids are abused they are traumatized and if the parents know they too are traumatized. If someone is being abused now YOU might not hear about it for another ten years, maybe after therapy and who knows what else… So there’s really no way to know if he is abusing now. PLUS: are you saying that the victims from Brooklyn have to go to Israel and hire a detective in a community that they don’t know to see if there is current abuse before they can bring a claim? What you are saying would NEVER work and is what the abusers are hiding behind. Its why the abuse continued for so long… and its why NYS finally passed a law that allows old cases to be brought now.
Just curious, why doesnt Israel extradite Mondrowitz?
According to the NY authorities, if you approach a girl on the street in the Jewish neighborhoods and try to strike up a conversation, its actually considered harassment, they basically act like the vaad hatsenius, while when a gentile hits on a girl in his neighborhood its considered romantic activity, when an orthodox jew does it its harassment, this has been their position for quite some time and its a known fact, now if you dont see anything wrong with this behavior and approach i really cant help you, and these antisemites are the ones that are lecturing us about and prosecuting sex crimes? these are the ones you are massering to and expect me to masser my fellow Jews to?, now just think about it, you can have a bi sexual male judge who is married a guy, happens to have a consensual affair with a married women, and is sitting in judgment of orthodox jew who was accused by someone with no witnesses about a crime that happened 8 years ago, and convicts him and so destroying his family and future, dont you see how wrong this is? dont you understand that this whole anti child molester movement from the last 20 years is driven by antisemitism? and dont you understand that jews are hated? do you believe in judgement day? do you believe hashem is in charge and will punish evildoers?
If nothing happens to the perpetrator. and everyone is protecting him, then the children and victims will be quiet, hold it in and turn into a basket case, maybe even suicide..and sometimes continue with the cycle of abuse to other children. Is that what you really want to see? I say, believe the child first, and then investigate. I had coached my children that if an adult asked them for directions or information, run, yell fire anything to get away. Adults have no reason to get into a discussion with children. They can always ask an adult.
@voice of reason, you dont have a problem with the police enforcing gender separation? please explain