Sexual abuse case sheds light on Emmanuel’s ethnic tensions

Reports suggest principal of settlement's Ashkenazi school currently on trial on suspicion of sexually abusing 3 boys from Sephardi families

A sexual abuse case recently made public is shedding some new light on the development of the ethnic tensions that exploded in Emmanuel last year.

Channel 2 reported on Monday that the principal of Emmanuel’s Ashkenazi elementary school for boys, Rabbi Moshe Nussboim, is currently on trial behind closed doors in the Kfar Saba Magistrate’s Court on suspicion of sexually abusing three boys from Sephardi families in his school between the years 2002-2008.

The Emmanuel affair took off in 2007, when a partition was erected in the middle of the local Beit Ya’acov girls’ school building to separate between girls in a “hassidic track,” composed of primarily Slonimer Hassidim, and the rest of the girls.

A High Court petition by Yoav Laloum and his Noar Kahalacha NGO charging ethnic discrimination led to the court ordering that the wall be taken down, and the Independent Education Center, which runs the school, obeyed.

Parents of the primarily Ashkenazi girls in the hassidic track then refused to send their daughters to the reunited school, on the grounds that the spiritual level of the other girls, primarily of Sephardi background, was inadequate.

The High Court sent some 30 fathers to prison for a short while for holding it in contempt, and over 100,000 haredim took to the streets in a massive demonstration against what was perceived as a secular court meddling in internal matters of haredi education and values.

The final solution was that the Slonimer Hassidim opened their own school, which – unlike the Beit Ya’acov one – receives no state funding.

After allegations were raised by a group of parents against Nussboim in 2007, he was removed from his position as principal but remained in the school as a supervisor.

The families of the boys turned in their despair to a psychologist for professional help, after their demand that Nussboim leave the country was not met, and the psychologist filed a police complaint, as her duty required, she told Channel 2.

Police launched an investigation, and in 2008 Nussboim was indicted. His trial has been taking place with him remaining under house arrest.

Nussboim’s attorney, Avigdor Feldman, said in response to the television report that the complaints were from families that belong to a certain Bratslav sect that does not agree with the school on many educational issues.

The fact that the Slonim community of Emmanuel supported Nussboim when the affair erupted, including helping finance his legal representation, had apparently contributed to the tension and polarization between the members of that hassidic court and the baalei tshuva (newly religious) and Sephardi families, who later faced off against each other about the girls’ school.

While Nussboim allegedly did not prey solely on Sephardi boys, the fact that it was those families who dared complain catalyzed the ethnic tensions.

Nussboim himself flatly denied all the charges in an interview to the Galei Israel radio station Tuesday night, and stressed the importance of preventing sexual harassment in educational institutions.

Laloum explained that his silence on the Nussboim case was a result of his rabbis’ ruling that he not raise it, in an attempt to reduce the desecration of God’s name.

“Many asked how we could contain these things and not release them to the public, especially when such information would have led to a deeper understanding of the [Emmanuel Beit Ya’acov] affair, including from an internal-haredi perspective,” he wrote in a statement Tuesday.

“There is no doubt that from a public-political perspective, this would have been the effective move, but the question was whether this was the right, kosher and worthy move. There was a desire to use these materials, especially in the face of the personal attacks of Slonimer Hassidim against me, my family, my children, including their use of what they knew were lies regarding my wife’s attire; violence, threats, intimidations, breaking into my e-mail and much more.

“Despite all of that, and in contrast to the other side’s conduct, common sense required not tipping the scales with this volatile material,” the statement continued.

“Members of the Noar Kahalacha leadership unanimously submitted the question to the rabbinic committee headed by our teacher Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, which weighed in on the issue and decided not to make use of the topic in public,” he continued.

“The struggle undertaken by Noar Kahalacha is to bring about clear and egalitarian religious criteria for accepting pupils to educational institutions that belong to all of us and are publicly funded. If a person wants to discriminate, he will have to do it at his own private expense,” he wrote.

“Our struggle bore partial success in Emmanuel, and today every principal is more than careful about discriminating against pupils based on their ethnic background, out of fear of the budgets [they could lose], as was the fate of those who built the wall in the middle of the Emmanuel school.”

Laloum also told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that the Noar Kahalacha rabbis backed the parents in the police complaint and the legal procedures against Nussboim.

He didn’t attempt to draw a direct line between Nussboim’s actions in the boys’ school and the wall in the girls’ school, but said that “there is no doubt that this was part of the background and the rift.”

The Kfar Saba court is expected to rule on Nussboim’s case in a month.

District Court sets precedent by upholding right of ‘aguna'

Woman’s bid to sue her recalcitrant husband after he consistently refused her a get for more than 16 years upheld in precedent-setting decision

A woman’s bid to sue her recalcitrant husband for NIS 700,000 in damages after he consistently refused her a get (Jewish divorce) for more than 16 years was upheld this week in a precedent-setting decision by the Tel Aviv District Court, The Jerusalem Post learned Wednesday.

“The woman standing before us has been held hostage by the [husband] who has no valid reason for the prison that he made for her simply because she once agreed to marry him,” wrote the judge on Monday, ruling on a case brought by the husband, who was appealing the damage award set by a family court.

“The respondent had the right to a get from the moment she wanted one, and all the more so when she married the appellant at the age of 24, was with him for all of three months, and knew no comfort from him.”

“Today, almost 40 years old, she continues to suffer from his cruelty towards her,” the judge continued. “He prevents, and prevented her, from experiencing life’s joys, establishing a family, and especially from having children. We are talking about immeasurable damage that increases by the day. These actions are immoral and go against the Basic Law – Human Dignity and Freedom.”

“This is indeed an important precedent,” commented attorney Susan Weiss, founder of the Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ), which has represented the women since her first attempt to seek damages in Family Court through this appeal hearing in the district court.

“This is the first time a court of appeals has ruled on such a case and its decision – barring a contrary ruling by the Supreme Court – is binding on all family courts in Israel.”

She added, “This is also an important ruling for CWJ, for Israeli women, as well as for Jewish women in the Diaspora.

It is our hope that this case will serve as a precedent for women all over the world allowing them to realize that religious laws cannot be exploited to abuse them or be used to infringe on their basic rights to autonomy and freedom.”

Weiss explained that one of the main goals of the CWJ since its inception in 2001 is to establish that get refusal is abuse (a “tort”) that entitles women to damages.

CWJ has successfully achieved damage judgments for agunot, or “chained women,” in family courts all over Israel in amounts totaling millions of shekels. This ruling marks the first time that these judgments were confirmed by an appellate court.

“Slowly but surely, we have convinced family courts all over Israel to award out clients damages,” she said, adding that in this particular case, the husband appealed the family court’s ruling in the Tel Aviv District Court.

In Israel all Jews must be married in accordance with Halacha, although civil marriages from abroad are recognized. Divorces among Jews must also be effected in accordance with Jewish law.

According to Jewish law, a woman cannot remarry until her husband agrees to give her a get. Women waiting for an intransigent husband to give a get are known as agunot, or “chained” women. If agunot do marry without receiving a get from their previous husbands, the children born of the second marriage are considered illegitimate, or mamzerim, and can only marry another mamzer or a convert.

While the rabbinical courts are empowered by law to impose sanctions to coerce one of the sides, usually the husband, to grant a divorce, the CWJ maintains that they generally don’t.