ISRAEL (VINnews) — On Tuesday, the day of shloshim for Chaim Walder, his victims sent a powerful message of anger and defiance against a close ally of his.
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A pile of Walder’s books containing emotional messages written by the victims, were thrown at the front door of Rabbi Nosson Zochovsky, the head of the Vaad HaRuchani of the Israeli Yated Ne’eman, who fired Walder from the newspaper when allegations surfaced, but later eulogized him at his levaya.
Some messages mentioned Shifra Horovitz a”h, a victim who tragically took her own life following Walder’s death, with one saying in hebrew “You murdered Shifra Horovitz.”
Taped to the front door was a typed heartfelt letter from a victim, expressing deep, intense emotions and trauma, calling the books a “gift from dear families who chose to throw them out of their houses in protest against the newspaper, in a clear proclamation that our lives and the lives of our children come first!”
Here are excerpts from that letter:
“I’m writing this to you with blood pouring from my heart, thirty days after I ceased from being a human. Thirty days ago I was murdered by you for the second time in my life–which is not a life!!!”
“When you stood that night to be maspid the serpent with your tears, who destroyed my life and the lives of many girls, and you chose to bestow on him the highest possible honor, you finalized our complete spiritual deaths.
“And the next day when we were just beginning to recover and try to rise back up, you advised your newspapers’ writers to give him respect which was overly inflated, and as such you crushed any last drop of respect that we still possessed, by confirming that not a single Rabbi believes us, and nobody is interested in preventing the continuous murders happening through our darkness.”
The letter added, “With a crushed spirit [the victims] think all the time about the end of their lives, because you sent a clear message that their lives are worth less than a garlic peel.”
–With a torn and broken heart
Yated still needs to print an apology, retraction or something to show remorse for their huge mistake.
I am deeply saddened by the terrible pain the victims have from those who are in leadership positions, who are considered to be rabbis and poskim, who ignore the pain of the victims and create environments where they guilt people into ignoring the reality of proven molesters and they protect them for decades. It is beyond my understanding how leaders can invoke the halachas of “loshon hora” when it clearly states that we must let the world know about reshuim so that we can be careful of them. Of course, this situation cannot be turned into a witch hunt where every whisper and rumor is believed to be true, but it also cannot be where leaders KNOW of abuse and abusers and keep silent so as not to shame the abuser or show these reshuim respect, (and in this case many still have the heartlessness and stupidity to sell his books or have them on their library shelves). We need to have real leadership where the goal is to prevent more victims and we need to be able to have trust in our leaders that they take this seriously enough to publicize the true immoral characters of these reshuim for the public’s safety. The laws of loshon horah and the mitzva of v’ahavtah l’reiachah k’moicha does not mean that we enable abusers to have access to more innocent victims.
Very appropriate. He thinks he could quiet people by killing himself and dropping out of the news.
We should do something once every month to make sure this stays in the news so we can give this problem the attention it deserves. We need to make sure people don’t just forget and everything returns back to the way it was.
Enablers have blood on their hands. Hope this sends a message to them as well.
I stand in support of the victims!
Let’s hope by his first yartzeit there are none of his books left
Show solidarity for victims. Cancel your subscription to yated.
The days when victims kept silent are over . Criticism against the protectors of abusers is now mainstream , and hopefully will continue to gain strength .
Rabbi Nosson Zochovsky did NOT fire Walder.
Quite the opposite, he BEGGED him to stay.
Nor did anyone at Yated fire Walder.
Rather, Walder left on his own.
All of the above was said by Zochovsky, in his hesped at the levaya.
Zochovsky said this as PRAISE of Walder, proving what a tzaddik Walder was.
Here is the recording: https://rotter.net/User_files/forum/61cabbad517b913d.mp3
Make sure the Jewish book store you frequent isn’t still selling his books. If they are let them know you are finding a different book store
Based on the handwriting seems that the writings in these books was all written by the same person…
I threw out my Walder books, but I still do not agree with the mob justice that has been carried out against proper legal proceedings.
So now the news includes a dozen books left on some guy’s doorstep.
Honestly, this is the first time i see a letter from a victim and i feel sorry for this victim. Maybe there is something to this whole story.
Maybe bec r nosson,his mother &siblings suffered so much when his father had severe stroke & and later died at a very young age wanted to be mechazek the wife and kids
I think it should translated as “crocodile tears”