I received a Chicago Beis Din document yesterday - which I posted - which listed their guidelines for dealing with the Meisels affair. The document is dated May 19, 2014. There is no mention of informing the seminaries or the students or the parents of what they perceived as serious sexual abuse and harassment. There is no mention of a concern that staff members might have been complicit in the abuse. There is no mention of the concern cited in the RICO claims that the seminaries and staff were conducting a fake operation whose sole goals were to defraud parents of their money and to provide victims for Meisels sexual appetite. There is no mention that they require Meisels to sell the seminaries. Finally there is no mention of going to the police - either in Israel or America.
In short the guidelines of the documents are the stereotypic Chareidi coverup of "lets keep silent and handle this ourselves."
So why only after they transferred the case to the Israeli Beis Din two months later - for the purpose of clarifying monetary obligation - that they suddenly sent out a warning letter stating that they can not "at this time" advise sending students to these seminaries? Why only at this junction does the HTC block government funding to the students?
Furthermore if they suddenly woke up to the need to protect the students - why did they renege on their promise to the Israeli Beis Din to share the information they had collected and to provide access to the testimony of the victims? Why did they refuse Rav Aharon Feldman's suggestion that they form a joint beis din with the Israeli Beis Din? Why did they renege on their promise to remove the warning if the seminaries were sold to Yaakov Yarmish?
At this point they have refused to answer any of these question - even to the Israel Beis Din.
So why is their apparent plan of destroying the seminaries - which they clearly viewed as viable and fixable and apparently still do under unnamed conditions - being applauded as sensitivity to the victims? Why is their coverup and insensitivity to the victims and potential victims amongst the students - being ignored. Why instead is the CBD allowed to make the IBD into the scapegoat and blame them for insensitivity. Why is the IBD being falsely accused of being obsessed with saving the seminaries at the expense of the students - but the CBD is viewed as enlightened and solely interested in protecting the students?
No one seems to know the reason for this injustice.
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