TODAY - Boycott Yaakov Menken, Project Genisis, Torah.org, TorahMedia.org, Team Genisis
CALL TO ACTION: Boycott Events Associated with Alleged Sex Offender, Rabbi Yaakov Menken (December 16, 23, 30)
click here: Download a pdf file of this call to action
Over the last few years The Awareness Center has shared information with you regarding the case of Rabbi Yaakov Menken (AKA: Yakov Menken, Kenneth Menken, Ken Menken). Due to the issue of confidentiality we have been limited in what we have made public. The allegations against Menken include sexual harassment and clergy sexual abuse.
Yaakov Menken's alleged modus operandi is to become a father figure to vulnerable young women and eventually manipulating them into having sexual contact with him. Menken is married with children and in his forties. The alleged women he targets are usually in their late teens or early twenties. In 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Menken had a discussion with Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky and confessed to having sexual contact with a very young woman he counseled. He basically blamed the survivor, stating "she came on to me".
Since The Awareness Center became aware of the allegations made against Yaakov Menken we were able to gathered information which included conversations with various rabbonim in Baltimore. It appears that a national Jewish outreach organization which included a relative of the Menken survivors were in a bet din dispute right before and during the time that Rabbi Yaakov Menken was sexually manipulating a young woman from an extremely insulated community.
The survivor was barely out of her teens at the time that Yaakov Menken started his grooming process on her. When Menken got started the young woman had recently moved away from her family for the first time. Menken allegedly marked her as an easy target and began to provide rabbinical counseling to her. It's important to keep in mind that Rabbi Menken was very angry with the survivors relative during this time period and the woman was unaware of the bet din dispute. It is believed that this is part of the reason why Menken picked her as a target and began to lure her in.
Usually when someone goes searching for spirituality they are in a vulnerable state because of some sort of personal crisis in their lives. These are exactly the type of people that Menken allegedly preys upon.
Several Kiruv organizations are partnering up with alleged sexual predator, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, for a Jewish Outreach event that will be featuring Dr. Gerald Schroeder. The problem is that by doing so they are basically saying that Yakov Menken is safe and someone both affiliated and unaffiliated Jews can trust.
The Awareness Center is asking that you boycott all events associated with Yaakov Menken, Project Genesis, Torah.org, Project Genisis and TorahMedia.org. We are also asking that you to call and or write the following people and demand that they stop working with Rabbi Yaakov Menken.
Contact:
The Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore
Adam Rosenberg
E-mail: arosenberg@associated.org
________________________________
* The Center for Jewish Education
Larry Ziffer, Executive Vice President
Phone: 410-735-5000, ext. 5005
E-mail: lziffer@cjebaltimore.org
________________________________
* Gerald Schroeder, Ph.D.
HaHish 5, Jerusalem 93223, Israel
Phone 011-972-2-5671233
E-mail: gs@geraldschroeder.com
posted by Jewish Survivors at Saturday, December 15, 2007
3 Comments:
Yaakov Menken should pay his victim 1.2 million dollars for the pain and suffering he has caused her. This is the amount the Catholic church was court ordered to pay each of it's victims in California. I feel that it is a fair amount that Menken should pay each woman he has sexually victimized.
Kenny should also write a public apology and have it printed in the Where, What, When and the Baltimore Jewish Times.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847322669&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Dayanim panel to vote on firing Metzger
Dan Izenberg , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 12, 2007
The Dayanim Election Committee is due to vote next month on whether to dismiss Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, an attorney for the Ometz watchdog organization has told The Jerusalem Post.
The attorney, Boaz Arad, said that as a result of the decision to put the question to the committee, Ometz withdrew a petition it had filed on September 27, 2006, calling on the justice minister to take steps to fire Metzger following a report presented a few months earlier by Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz.
In his April 3, 2006 report, Mazuz decided to close the file on the criminal allegations against the chief rabbi, but advised Metzger to resign of his own free will because he was allegedly unsuited for the job. Mazuz wrote that if Metzger did not voluntarily resign, he recommended that the justice minister have the Dayanim Election Committee convene and fire him.
Mazuz ordered the police to investigate Metzger on December 16, 2004 regarding allegations that he and his family had been comped at Jerusalem's David Citadel Hotel over Pessah.
In his decision, Mazuz wrote that there was not sufficient evidence to guarantee a conviction against Metzger and that therefore, he would not indict the rabbi.
On the other hand, Mazuz added, there were "significant flaws" in Metzger's behavior. Mazuz accused Metzger of lying to police during his investigation and referred to several questionable actions on the part of the chief rabbi, including receiving favors from other hotels and a questionable rental of a Jerusalem apartment.
On April 25, three weeks after Mazuz published his report, Metzger petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding that Mazuz retract the section of his opinion that did not directly address the police investigation.
He said Mazuz's conclusions and recommendations had been extremely damaging to him and that the attorney-general should have granted him a hearing before making such allegations in public.
In September, Ometz also petitioned the High Court, calling on the justice minister to convene the Dayanim Election Committee to dismiss Metzger.
Arad told the Post on Tuesday that the justice minister had informed him that he had promised Metzger's lawyer, David Liba'i, not to convene the committee while Metzger's petition was pending.
The court handed down its ruling in that case on July 30, 2007.
Although Mazuz was forced to retract his recommendation that Metzger voluntarily resign and that the justice minister and the Dayanim Election Committee fire him, the High Court rejected Metzger's petition.
As soon as the chief rabbi's petition was rejected, Arad and Ometz demanded that the court hear their petition. The hearing was set for Wednesday. However, in the meantime, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann informed the organization that he would bring the question of Metzger's future to the Dayanim Election Committee on December 3. Friedmann decreed that until the committee voted on the matter, Metzger would not be allowed to serve as a dayan or sit on the Dayanim Election Committee.
Arad said that in the meantime, the vote had been postponed until January; however, since Friedmann had promised to hold a vote and Metzger could not serve in the above-mentioned capacities until the vote was held, Ometz had agreed to withdraw the petition.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847355474&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Four Israelis nabbed in international pedophile probe
Rebecca Anna Stoil , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 16, 2007
After receiving a tip-off from German and Spanish police, Northern District police arrested four suspects, all northern residents believed to have both downloaded and distributed pedophilic materials via the Internet.
This was the second major pedophile-related case cracked in Israel in less than a week, although neither of the cases originated as investigations by the Israel Police.
Interpol contacted the Israel Police after investigators in Germany and Spain alerted Interpol that investigations indicated that pedophiles in Israel were active on the Internet.
Following the receipt of the complaint, an investigation was opened in the Northern District's Fraud Squad.
During the Israeli investigation, four suspects were arrested under suspicion of pedophilia-related crimes. Two of those arrested are Haifa residents, aged 43 and 30. A third suspect is a 48 year-old Galilee resident and the fourth is from the Jezreel Valley area and is a career member of the IDF.
The suspects allegedly downloaded movies and pedophilic material from the Internet, and are also suspected of distributing similar materials on the Web. All four have confessed to the allegations against them.
On Sunday morning they were brought before a judge Also on Sunday, the Tel Aviv district attorney's office submitted two indictments against two other suspected pedophiles following an investigative report by Channel 10 detailing the ease with which pedophiles can find their innocent prey on the Internet.
Eitan Rozin, 33, of Rishon Lezion was indicted in the Tel Aviv District Court Sunday morning, and will face charges of attempted rape and attempted sexual harassment. Samir Roman, 36, of Ein Rafa was also indicted Sunday in Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, charged with attempted sexual harassment.
Rozin allegedly engaged in an on-line "chat" with a Channel 10 investigator posing as a 13-year-old girl, during which Rosen allegedly asked the investigator if she had ever seen a naked man and if she was a virgin, adding that "that's exactly what I'm looking for."
He allegedly invited the "girl" to meet him in a hotel room, adding that it was his dream to have sex with a virgin, and that he would teach her "everything."
Rozin then allegedly met his prey, who was represented by a young (but legally adult) actress posing as the girl with whom he had chatted, in a Tel Aviv apartment, allegedly to make good on his promises to "teach" the girl. He soon discovered, however, that instead of his anticipated meeting with a young teen, he was also met by police officers who arrested him.
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