Failed Messiah: Marvin Schick, Jewish Week, Hella Winston and Sexual Abuse in the Religious World

I think everyone should read this article on the Failed Messiah blog

Marvin Schick, Haredim and Libel

Do haredim get a raw deal in the media? Some, Marvin Schick and Agudath Israel's Rabbi Avi Shafran most prominent among them, believe they do.

Schick writes a regular advocacy piece published in the New York Jewish Week. This 'column" is in reality an advertisement and is paid for by a donor. The Jewish Week refuses to disclose the donor's name or affiliation. For a period of months, Schick's ad ran without the requisite disclosure that it was in fact an ad and not editorial copy. (The Jewish Week claims this is an error, and that it will – or already has been – corrected.)

Schick used one of these unlabeled ads to libel (and I do not use that word lightly) Hella Winston, the author of The Unchosen, a book documenting the plight of haredim who seek to leave the fold.

Schick hates Winston, and he does little to hide that animosity. In a column dedicated to 'proving' that there is little sexual abuse in the haredi world, written under the headline, "Group Libel Is Also Abuse," Schick accuses Winston of "claim[ing] that her book deals with sexual abuse among Chasidim," and links her to anti-haredi abuse . . . click here for the rest of the story.