JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In an act of defiance towards the established leadership of the Chareidi community, a group of activists distributed fliers in Chareidi neighborhoods stating that “We all believe the victims”, referring to the revelations regarding Chaim Walder.
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Hundreds of thousands of such fliers were distributed Friday, depicting a young girl holding her hand over her mouth and including the caption “We all believe the victims.” The girl’s mouth is being shut by a man wearing a bracelet which states that “Lashon Hara doesn’t speak to me”, a reference to Chareidi concerns about Lashon Hara regarding victims of abuse which can lead to silence in the face of such abuse.
The backside of the fliers explains the importance of speaking out about sexual abuse and believing the alleged victims. The pamphlets were placed on bulletin boards, stuck in mailboxes and distributed in shuls around Israel.
The campaign, which involved 150 volunteers who distributed the fliers, is a response to claims by Chareidi leaders and media outlets that the stories of Walder’s alleged victims who came forward in recent months are Lashon Hara and may have caused Walder to take his own life. The Chareidi activists behind the campaign, who preferred to remain anonymous, decided to strengthen the victims and to negate the response of the Chareidi media, which lauded Walder as “well-known writer and educator” and omitted any of the abuse allegations or the manner in which he died.
The campaign organizers have launched a crowdfunding campaign in order to produce another batch of fliers.
Israeli Chief Rabbi David Lau made a condolence visit to Walder’s family. In response to the uproar that ensued, he issued a statement, expressing his support for Walder’s victims.
“Unfortunately, there were those who interpreted the fact that I made a condolence call to the mourners — widows and orphans who I know personally, and there is no need to exaggerate what they are going through — as if I do not identify with victims,” Lau said in letter released Sunday.
“My heart goes out to the victims who are going through some very difficult days, and we must all stand by them always, and at this time in particular. I believe completely everyone who has been affected,” he added.
When the allegations first came to light in November, a number of Chareidi entities severed their ties with Walder. Radio Kol Chai stopped featuring Walder’s program, Hidabrut magazine stopped accepting his stories and the Otiyot children’s magazine said it would stop publishing his stories. At his funeral it was claimed that he had decided of his own volition to stop writing in the Yated Neeman newspaper.
Finally Daas Rabim is talking back.. finally Daas Kahal is making sense. finally Daas Klal Ysiroel is taking steps to save our Neshomos and our children’s Neshomos
Better late than never
I think the public has a right to know which “leaders” knew what was going on and kept quiet.
This is absolutely wonderful.
I am afraid that due to the many “leaders” in our communities quietly ignoring the abuse and even talking sides against those who were mesiras nefesh in the face of the outpouring of criticism to keep on uncovering abusers, despite being called murderers and those who shame people which is worse than the worst sins, and called out for supposedly “speaking loshon hora”…that now people not trust Rabbonim in general to take this abuse seriously and therefore will take every unproven allegation as fact when the accused may very well be be innocent. It is important to go the middle way, not believing in hearsay, but weighing each case separately because the abusers can go kill themselves but those who are innocent of wrongdoing cannot have their lives be destroyed by baseless allegations.
The time has come …
the aguda has been covering up this kind of stuff for years whats new?
Good for them!
20 years ago he was an obnoxious bigshot. I saw him parading around the major orthodox communities pretending to speak to the “gedolim.” I watched. He talked to them, he never listened. I don’t think he had any qualifications in psychology or Torah. He just hyped himself, and stuck his dirty hands wherever he could. Figured out a way to make money from writing down the confessions of children. I apologize for not spitting on him when I saw him frauding around. Talmud says: one should unmask frauds to avoid drsecration of Divine name. Lets go and arrange a spitting ceremony on his uncovered grave. And his wife and children would bring themselves more honor by saying “we loved the good side of him but are decent people and will not defend his sins.”
This article makes it sound like the established leadership of the Chareidi community doesn’t agree with these activists. However, from what I’m reading, it sounds like the established leadership of the Chareidi community believed the victims???
Rabbi Lau made a serious mistake by going to the Walder home. For those who still had some respect for him (I am not in that group) that is now history. If he needed to be menachem the family because Walder was (like Lau) a member of the Chareidi Snob Elite, he should have done it by phone. The picture in the paper will not be forgotten by the victims.
People should be stringent, makpid, on the halacha of “yichud”, the forbidden seclusion of a man with a female. Rather girls must be taught to always bring another girl into any closed area with a man doctor, social worker, etc.
o0o chills..
Everything these activists do are always anonymous. Interesting.
I wonder what they are hiding.
If you feel you are doing the right thing, don’t hide.