Dear Tatty - By Naomi

Dear Tatty,
I am so sad to find out that there are many (at least six now) young men who have accused you of molesting them as boys. To think that as a child I was jealous of "your boys" when you stopped abusing me and turned your 'love' and attentions onto them. You brought them presents, took them on overnight trips...They will not come forward yet because they are still victimized and intimidated by the image you hold in your community. You are so "well connected," so good at playing the holy, trustworthy man. You have all of these big rabbonim who are protecting you in order to uphold the image of themselves and their community... But the truth will come out soon enough. Hashem does not like lies.

Some part of me feels relief and validation knowing that I can trust my memories and experiences. But mostly I am just sad and confused to hear of all of your victims. You are my father and I needed you. I wanted to hold on to my image of you that I had as a child, that I needed to have...A good, loving, strong father. A wonderful educator, a popular friend to many diverse people. A respected man. I wanted to be close to you and feel safe at the same time. I never did. I wanted you to see me and love me... but you only saw yourself...I wanted, and still want a father. Why did you rape me? Why did Hashem let you do these things? Why don't you get yourself help? How can you be so good and so bad at the same time? Tatty, you destroyed my love of yidishkeit. You, together with your rabbonim who protect you have destroyed my faith in the God of the Torah. This is what people like you and your rabbonim are doing to Am Yisroel. You and your frum rabbi's are destroying yidishkeit from the inside out. All these frum children I speak with on drugs...going off the derech...so many of them admitting to being abused within the community by rabbonim, teachers, community leaders, parents.

A few weeks ago I attended a women's gathering on shabbos. The principal of a girl's school spoke. She talked about how we have to watch with vigilance that even "the dust particles of the outside world" should not enter our homes and contaminate our families. Her message is one I grew up with, that as long as we keep the secular world at bay we will be a safe and pure and holy people. This is so naive. The pull of the "outside world" on our children is a symptom of our own inner dust. The inner dust of child abuse and neglect that we try to deny. As a community we need to come out of the closet and face our inner dust. Let us deal with who we are, and what we have within our community. What we allow in our community. Let's stop playing the dangerous game of making the yetser harah something easy to control because it is"out there," and separate from us...It's all the goyims fault right? Wrong. It's the frum abusers fault and the community that allows him to abuse.. It's you tatty, and it makes me cry.