NEW YORK (VINnews) — Asher Lovy, Director of the Za’akah organization, has apologized for attacking Rabbi Aharon Lankry on social media, after R’ Lankry defended an innocent man accused of trying to abduct a child. He also admitted that the account in the NY Post about the abduction, which he initially took at face value, was false, and admitted he “should have known better than to take the Post’s word and should have waited for more detail from another source.”
In addition, Lovy deleted a Twitter rant in which he made many baseless presumptions about the case, including one in which he implied that what we now know to be the most likely narrative, that the accused man accompanied the boy through the hall to avoid walking in between women alone, which the Talmud says should be avoided, was as believable as selling the Brooklyn Bridge.
Lovy wrote: “Regarding my earlier coverage of this case, I’ve been getting a lot of criticism for it, some fair, some not, so I’ll address it here. Regardless of how the video can be interpreted, it clearly didn’t happen the way the Post reported. I should have known better than to take the Post’s word and should have waited for more detail from another source. Regarding my comments about the rabbi, had he seen the video before commenting (which I don’t know) his comments while still do come off differently. I still do think that he should have worded his statement differently but give the video he may have seen I was too harsh with him. I admit that and apologize.”
However Lovy still has not apologized to the accused, and still refuses to remove his earlier tweets about the arrest. In addition, he has not deleted the tweet with a picture of the accused.
This is inexcusable, considering that the video shows conclusively that there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
Regarding my earlier coverage of this case, I've been getting a lot of criticism for it, some fair, some not, so I'll address it here. Regardless of how the video can be interpreted, it clearly didn't happen the way the Post reported.
— Asher Lovy (@HareianiBlog) January 27, 2023
I still do think that he should have worded his statement differently but give the video he may have seen I was too harsh with him. I admit that and apologize.
— Asher Lovy (@HareianiBlog) January 27, 2023
As of the posting of this article, Lovy kept this tweet up, with the name and photo of the innocent man who was wrongly accused.
Your organization called Rabbi Lankry disgusting when he tried to exonerate the accused. And called it an "attempted kidnapping"
That is more than just reporting an arrest pic.twitter.com/TfnYuSpPTo
— Yaakov M (@yaakovmshow) January 26, 2023
To be clear, Lovy’s organization may do good work to help abuse victims. However we need to be extremely cautious to not rush to judgement or accuse innocent people with no evidence of wrongdoing.
VINnews conducted an exclusive interview with Rabbi Lankry, the Rav of the shul in which the incident took place, who obtained camera footage which assisted in exonerating the accused.
Below is the footage of the incident from the shul surveillance camera:
(It should be noted that there are still some charges pending, however in the court of public opinion the broad consensus is that this was not an attempted abduction and the man did nothing wrong.)