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| Jerusalem funeral of Baruch Lebovitz (JTA) |
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.
Their challenge was based on the fact that his death was not even mentioned in any of the mainstream Jewish publications – thereby questioning my source of information. The subtext of which is that the Orthodox world I accused of this terrible reaction did not in fact react this way. That they knew who Lebovitz really was. And that any funeral he might have had was attended and eulogized by his family. Reports about ‘glowing eulogies’ by prominent rabbis were at best questionable and probably never even happened.
Well those funerals did happen. Twice. Once in Brooklyn and once in Jerusalem. And Lebovitz was indeed eulogized by Chasidic Rabbis. This was reported by JTA, not exactly a marginal player in the world of Jewish journalism.
Lest anyone accuse them of anti Charedi bias, a video of the Jerusalem funeral is available online and can be viewed in all of its over 2 hour ‘radiant glory’.
There you will hear eulogies (in Yiddish) by Chasidic Rebbes who spoke of him exactly as I said they did. As though he was a Tzadik. They described all of the things that made him so ‘great’! There was of course no reference at all to his conviction as a sex abuser. Although there was an attempt to garner sympathy for all the suffering he had endured during his lifetime. (By which I assume they meant being ‘falsely’ accused and convicted of sex abuse.)
There is little doubt I my mind that the Chasidim that attended this funeral are victims of a Hashkafa that denies anything negative attributed to them by the outside world. No matter the evidence. Their denial of that reality is a result of their indoctrination about the outside world. A world they see as purely evil. Any news about any of their members that is negative is assumed to be false. Perpetrated by an antisemitic world and/or an anti religious secular Jewish media. If one of their people is convicted of a crime, they are considered to have been persecuted as Jews and falsely convicted of a crime they did not commit.
As I constantly say, their insular ways reinforces this attitude. Which is why there were 2 funerals for this Rasha attended by hundreds of Chasidim who thought a Tzadik was being buried. Eulogized as such by established Chasidic Rebbes.
I realize that not all Chasidus and their individual Rebbes are like this. But anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that a lot of them are.
I get that they exude a lot of piety by the way they look and in many other ways. This is why the Lithuanian/Yeshiva world has been incorpiarting some of their Customs. They do not want to be a accused of being less Frum than Chasidim. But of what value is piety when serial sex abusers are treated ;like Tzadikim regardless of evidence that they are sex offenders? That they deny it all makes actually does put them in an alternate universe.
One of the sad parts of all this is that their Chasidim don’t even realize how far removed they are from reality. Sadder than that is the fact that because of their very high birth rate they are the fastest growing segment of Orthodoxy. And the fact that no Orthodox leader calls them out on this fallacious way of seeing the world is the saddest part of all.