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| Baruch Lebovitz (Nww York Daily News) |
This is how I felt after reading an obituary of serial sex abuser, Rabbi Boruch Mordechai Lebovitz. For those unfamiliar with the name, here is what a 2014 New York Daily News article said about him:
A Brooklyn cantor was hauled to prison Wednesday for abusing a teenage boy, capping a controversial and convoluted case a full decade in the making.
An unapologetic Baruch Lebovits, 62, got shackled, waved goodbye to his son and was led away to serve a two-year stint in prison — which translates to only a handful of months after credit for good behavior and time served.
The Hasidic defendant, who copped in May to felony sex abuse against a 16-year-old in 2004, had already spent 13 months in prison after he was found guilty in a 2010 trial and sent to a maximum of 32 years behind bars — before the conviction was overturned on appeal…
Lebovitz died last week at age 71. Never admitting to what he did (other than in that plea deal). And certainly never apologizing. There were many other victims of this cursed man - quite possibly in the hundreds. One might think that if there was ever anyone deserving the words ‘Shem Reshaim Yirkav’ - May the name of evil men, rot… it would be this man.
However, after reading an online obituary one would have thought this man was paragon virtue. A Tzadik in our time. An angel sent from heaven to live here on earth among people needing the salvation that only a heavenly emissary of God could provide. The following is in part what that obituary said:
His coffin will reach the Holy Land: The late Rabbi Baruch Mordechai Yehuda Leibowitz of Boro Park, who was born a few days after his father died and was named after him, passed away on Shabbat. He is survived by a blessed tribe, and his brother the Rebbe of Nickelsburg from Monsey. His coffin will reach the Holy Land for burial on the Mount of Olives...
Baruch Dayan HaAmet: The news of the death of the late Rabbi…, arrived on Saturday evening from the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn...
He was born on the 8th of Adar 5711; his father… died a few days earlier (The Satmar Rebbe) came himself to remove the newborn from the hospital…
When he was a young student, he later served as a teacher at the Munkatch School in Borough Park and was involved in education alongside his brother, the Rebbe of Nickelsburg, who was at the time the spiritual director of the Munkatch Torah Talmud...
All his days he was around setting times for Torah both in attending public Torah lessons and in fellowship. For many years he had a chavruta in the early morning at the Beit Midrash Burstein, as well as at the beit midrash in Asramin, which was close to his home...
Every time his grandchildren came to him, he always talked to them about what they had learned in a yeshiva or Talmud Torah…
He had a tremendous emotion, in the power of his understanding and emotions in the playing and formulas of prayer, many righteous people asked him to come to pray in their beit midrash and pass before the ark…
I’m told that Lebovitz’s funeral was attended by many distinguished rabbis of the community who mourned his loss. But not a word was uttered about his abusing anyone. Only that a Tzadik has left the world and that we are all the poorer for it.
In the context of our time after the majority of the Orthodox world has finally acknowledged the scourge of abuse by people in positions of power, a fawning obituary like this it is particularly grievous.
Mass denial of reality seems to be a feature of certain parts of the Orthodox world. We still find religious leaders ignoring the evidence of abuse as though it was all one big lie. And treating the death of a serial sexual abuser as though we lost a Tzadik in our time.
I can only imagine the copious amount of bitter tears shed at that funeral by Lebovitz’s family, friends. and fans. I’m not even sure I can blame the attendees. It is very likely that because of their isolation from the outside world - they didn’t even know about his hundreds of victims. Or if they did - refused to believe it because that is how they have been indoctrinated to see accusations coming form the outside world.
What about the copious tears shed by his many victims? And worse - the life long trauma so many of them experience?
What victims?!
When will they realize that the real world is nothing like the alternate universe they have been led to believe is reality? How many more victims will it take for them to get a handle on what is real and what isn’t?