Seminaries in Israel - Let the Buyer Beware

Rabbi Meir Kahane, Dean of Chedvas Beis Yaakov (Frum Follies)

The Chilul Hashem r.l. is spreading; people have lost their emunas chachomim; I just heard of two girls who went off the derech because of this affair. 

I am a therapist, frum, no not just frum but FFB. I am American born and bred, practicing in Israel. I am not a newcomer comer to Yeshivos and Seminaries, like I have said I grew up in the mainstream frum American world (rare among therapists, and even more rare among mechanchim in Israel. But I write this as a regular yid, who happens to have inside exposure to the mess. 

I pride myself in having gone to Yeshivos and my family in every direction too. There may some due criticism for all mosdos, and lots for specific ones, but by and large they do devoted and hard work for our children, as was done for us 

Firstly, let us acknowledge this; the vast majority of people working in chinuch are devoted and honest people, who are moser nefesh for a praiseworthy goal. Those who don’t live up to this standard, who are not honest and fair and even worse abusive are the exception. Thank you to all the special true mechanchincm. 

Now, yes with heartbreak, we must admit not all, and yes it is becoming more and more common, are people we should trust our children, teens or adults too. 

As a therapist, I often deal with such cases, of neglect and outright abuse of all types. Whether the issue stems from parents, friends, strangers or the teachers themselves, too often mechanchim and even rabbonim are implicit. It is simply rare to find people who will stand up for the truth, who are not afraid of it. Who will get up and put down their foot to protect and prevent abuse.

At the end of the day, adults are responsible for themselves, people need to fight for their rights, fairly and honestly. Parents are responsible for their children, and as such all I can say, is that it is FRIGHTNING how foolish and willfully blinded people can be when making decisions on where and why it is safe to go places.

(It causes great harm when so many innocent are accused, often by rumors or clearly non-reliable people and their lives ruined without fair and honest investigation. Please, lets be wary of unconfirmed rumors, and be very careful who we really can trust to say one was guilty. Ironically the guilty usually get away and the innocently framed get nailed and shattered. 

For many of us in the field this specific expose came as no surprise, nor is it the first time such ‘problems’ were discovered in seminaries. The writing has been on the wall for years! People in the know make no secret of the questionable situations which come up constantly for young impressionable girls away from home.

The options include but are not limited to; hashkafic crumkeit (the majority of seminaries proudly entertain all types of ‘Jewish thought’ -little do parents knew what their child will be exposed to), sexual education -undesired, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, manipulating for egotistic reasons, peer abuse, dangers of all sorts from within and without seminaries, and more.

Every year a number of girls learn the hard way. Not a small number, I myself have a connection with a few dozen a year! And I obviously do not come across all. (I am not only referring to abuse, but also other situations, such as girls getting a lot deeper than they planned or their parents can imagine with other people, etc..).