Confronting Abuse In The Orthodox Community

As we report this week on page 11, several yeshiva heads and scores of prominent Orthodox pulpit rabbis, teachers, and school officials, most of them self-identifying as haredi, have issued a proclamation, or kol koreh, on the duty of Jews to report child abuse to authorities.

The kol koreh declares that “every individual with firsthand knowledge or reasonable cause for suspicion of child abuse has a Torah obligation to promptly notify the proper civil authorities.”

Despite the haredi bona fides of most of the signatories, the community-wide concern for the protection of children, and the obvious logic underlying the proclamation, it will undoubtedly cause some controversy since there is a significant body of opinion in the haredi world which maintains that rabbinic approval must be consulted prior to any approach to secular authorities.

In practical terms, the proclamation surely makes a compelling argument: “Lives can be ruined or ended by unreported child abuse, as we are too often tragically reminded. The Torah’s statement in Leviticus 19:16, ‘Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed,’ obligates every member of the community to do all in one’s power to prevent harm to others.”

We hope that any debate over the proclamation will be formed in terms of those procedures best calculated to protect children from the predators in our midst.