The present seminary scandal reminds me of the Joe McCarthy's hunt for communists. As shown below he insisted he had the name of those who had infiltrated sensitive government agencies - but he refused to share the information. I well remember the fear of communists as well as the reliance on rumors or associations - which caused a reign of terror in American in the 1950's. The fear of doing anything which would cause people to make accusations of communism caused people to avoid friends or family members and to allow the bullying of many in the name of patriotism. The rejection of the rule of law, of the right to fair trial, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty - did much damage to the fabric of American society.
I sense a similar fear in air, there are suspicions everywhere, there are anonymous documents taken for fact, there are rabble rousers who are making accusations based on inferences, erroneous deductions and lies. The guilty need to be found - but the paranoia which has developed and the readiness to assume guilt without any meaningful evidence or the normal rules of a fair trial has to be stopped.
If anyone has evidence of abuse or even suspicions of abuse - they need to contact either the Israel Beis Din or the police. It is not acceptable to simply make comments on blogs - either anonymously or by name. It is not intelligent to make drastic change in plans of seminary or shidduchim or even friendship based on wild rumours. We have means of establishing the truth and protecting the vulnerable - but it needs to be done in a mature, lawful manner to protect the innocent and correctly label the guilty.
0 comments:
Post a Comment