A former counselor at a summer camp run by Yeshiva Bais Hatorah School in Lakewood, N.J., pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and child endangerment, and state Superior Court Judge Francis R. Hodgson revoked his $125,000 bail.

Yosef Kolko, 39, made the admission on Monday after two more victims, a male and a female, came forward, the Asbury Park Press reported.

Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Laura Pierro said she was contacted late Friday afternoon by a young woman who claimed she was victimized by Kolko, and the attorney for a young man who also claimed to be a victim. Pierro said she met with the additional victims and would have sought to admit their testimony, had the trial proceeded.

Sheriff’s officers handcuffed Kolko and took him to the County Jail.

Kolko was on trial for sexually abusing a boy, now 16, when he was 11 and 12, in 2008 and 2009. He was calm and unemotional when he admitted committing a variety of sexual acts on the boy.

In exchange for Kolko’s guilty plea, the state would not proceed with additional charges related to the additional victims, ADA Pierro said.

Kolko’s attorney, Michael Bachner, said his client was “extremely remorseful,” apologizes to the victim and hopes after treatment “to return to society as a benefit to it,” The Associated Press reported.

Kolko, who also worked as a teacher at Yeshiva Orchos Chaim in Lakewood, could receive up to 40 years in prison, but Judge Hodgson has said he would consider no more than 15 years, according to the Asbury Park Press.

Before sentencing, Kolko will be evaluated at the state Corrections Department’s Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in the Avenel section of Woodbridge to determine if he is a repetitive and compulsive sexual offender, according to the newspaper.

After thinking long and hard about the sex abuse scandal at Yeshiva University’s high school, I have come to the conclusion that more needs to be done.

A lot of mistakes were made that resulted in many young students being subjected to sex abuse. This is certainly not a happy episode for Y.U. A lot of people share culpability for the overlooking or ignoring what allegedly happened during the employ by Y.U. of Macy Gordon and George Finkelstein.

Some of the people who need to answer for their mistakes are people I respect. Some are icons. I am not going to go into specifics of why I so admire and respect those people. Those who read this blog regularly will for instance know how much Dr. Lamm has influenced my own Hashkafos. I still honor him for that. I don’t think I would be who I am today without reading some of his works.
To the best of my understanding, his level of culpability is allegedly as follows. As president of Yeshiva University he was allegedly informed of abuse by the above two individuals. Instead of reporting them to the police and firing them immediately, he allegedly let them go quietly… and did not feel the need to inform other communities about them.

If I recall correctly – his explanation for this was that he did not want to hurt them professionally since he had no hard evidence for their abusive behavior. He also felt that it was the obligation of those who in the future would employ them to check them out… and not his obligation to warn them. That was pretty much the thinking in those days – wrong though it was.

We all know by now that predators when “kicked out” from one community will set up shop in another. It is also true that the victims of Macy and Finkelstein were not properly dealt with. If I am not mistaken they were basically told to just keep quiet, get over it, and get on with their lives.

We also now know that it doesn’t work like that. There are lifelong residual effects suffered by sex abuse victims that stay with them for the rest of their lives. Some handle it better than others. But it is no secret that in many cases abuse victims suffer lifelong depression if untreated – leading to suicides in some cases. There is ample evidence of that.

I do not think Dr. Lamm is a bad person. Quite the contrary. But I do think he made a mistake and should say so publicly.

One can say with a certain amount of legitimacy that as president of a university that was in such financial trouble when he took over that his time was consumed with turning things around. He set about to literally save the school. Which he did. With such a heavy responsibility he could have well just seen the ‘goings on’ at the affiliated high school that he was not directly involved with was an intrusion into his primary function as the head of the university – charged with literally saving it from closing down.

This of course is no excuse. But it is a fact and should in my view be taken into consideration. It is equally true that his busy schedule did not diminish his responsibility to the individual student. It did not diminish the pain suffered by students who were victims. It should not have been a back burner issue.

It is now my view that Y.U. needs to do the right thing and come clean. They need to admit that mistakes were made by leaders both past and present. What happened ought to be fully investigated and all results made public. To the extent that mistakes were made, they ought to be fully recognized and apologized for.

I also agree with Stacy Klein who said in a Forward article that Y.U. should indeed set up a fund for victims in order to help pay for any therapy needed by the victims of Gordon and Finkelstein.

However, I do not agree that at age 85, Dr. Lamm should be fired from his position – as she suggests. His intent was not malicious. Just mistaken. And his contributions to Judaism are immense. I think a sincere apology admitting his mistakes – along with that therapy fund – would go a long way towards helping to heal the victims. I do not see anyone gaining from his being fired.

After discovery of all the facts Y.U. needs to not only make them public and officially apologize – it needs to take concrete steps to make sure it never happens again. And to try and make things right for the victims via funding their path to healing.

I hope that victims of Macy and Gordon will agree with this approach.

Once Y.U. does all this it can get on with its holy mission of teaching Torah U’Mada to future generations of Jews. Y.U. has a great legacy. But it is not perfect. Once it does the right thing here – their reputation can be restored and their legacy will continue well into the future.

Unlike the typical yeshiva – there is only one Yeshiva University. Mistakes were made. But it ought not lead to its downfall. Mistakes can be corrected. That’s what needs to happen here.

Visit Emes Ve-Emunah.

I have never been sexually abused. I therefore have no real way of identifying with the pain suffered by victims of abuse. All I can do is take the word of the victim about the pain they suffer. And of course observe the tragic consequences when the depression a victim falls into as a result of both the abuse the reaction to them by their community. Those consequences are sometimes so severe that they end up in suicide for the victim.

Recent events here in Chicago have once again resulted in a resurfacing of this issue. I am not going to name names. Full disclosure requires me to say that I know and admire some of the people involved. But I am not in a position to interview them. Nor am I in a position to judge them since I do not know all the details of the case. But based on what has surfaced so far in the public square I feel the need to speak out so as to be consistent in my approach to sex abuse.

Here is what I know so far.

An 18 year old female victim who is a student at a religious school here in Chicago posted on her Facebook page about the sex abuse she suffered. When officials at the school discovered this, they asked her in a very insensitive way to remove it as that violated the school’s code for use of social media. She was severely reprimanded for this violation and unless she removed the ‘offensive’ content from her Facebook page she faced a possible expulsion.

The outrage from some in the “victims’ advocates” community against officials of the school came fast and furious… defending the victim’s right to express her pain in any way she saw fit. They condemned the official response of the school. Some are even asking heads to roll. That is the way some see it – calling it a no tolerance policy. I call it ‘slash and burn’ policy.

I completely understand a no tolerance policy when it comes to sex abuse and fully support it. The question arises when such a policy is extended to secondary concerns – important though they may be.

Should there be a slash and burn policy in every case where an official errs in how they handle the pain of a victim? Should the welfare of a fine institution with exceptional leaders be destroyed because someone made a mistake? Should the career and good name of someone who has contributed so much – and many decades of service – be instantly destroyed because of a few poorly chosen words – hurtful though they may have been?

I don’t think that’s right.

Personally, I do not think the response was appropriate. There is little doubt that victim was hurt beyond anyone’s imagination by the abuse she received. And she was once again hurt here. Based on what is public knowledge about this case – this should not have been done. The response seemed cruel to me.

In defense of the institution, they have every right to set a policy for the use of social media and demand that it be followed. And I fully support a school’s right to carry out whatever consequences they spell out in their literature for violations of that policy.

On the other very legitimate hand, doing so in this case – especially the way in which it was done – was using very poor judgment in my view. A school’s right to carry out its policies does not mean they can’t use discretion when it is warranted. When it comes to victims of abuse, there is no better time to use that discretion. What was warranted here was compassion.

I do not fault the school for telling the victim that she should not have used social media to express her pain. This does not stifle her from expressing it. All it does is limit who will have access to it. No matter how much pain a victim suffers, it does not give them the right to use a shotgun approach to disseminating it to the world. There are other – far better ways to do that. Like speaking with parents; or counselors who are experienced in these issues; or a sympathetic teacher; of even a group of intimate friends.

One of the reasons that the sex abuse issue is so difficult to overcome is that abusers are often great people in every other way. I know that is a contradiction in terms. You can’t be a sex abuser and a great person. But bear with me.

The case of Rabbi Motti Elon is one such case, currently on trial for sexually harassing two 17 year old students when he was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Elon is a Religious Zionist Rabbi who was respected even beyond his own religious Zionist community. I recall the reaction of one young Charedi Rav in Israel who practically worshiped the ground he walked on. When he first heard about the accusations, he was incredulous. This was a man who mentored him. A man he confided in. A wise and gentle man who truly cared about his students. A man you could turn to in times of crisis. The idea that such a man could be accused of such a heinous crime was simply unthinkable… impossible!

This was not only the view of this Charedi individual; it was the view of just about everyone who came in contact with him. With the exception of course of the two people who have accused him of sexual molestation.

Although Rabbi Elon still maintained his innocence (which he still does), the young Charedi Rav believed it, and felt betrayed.It has been 2 years since this story broke. The evidence of sexual harassment was so strong that he was removed from his position at the Yeshiva and from having any contact with young people. Takana, the organization that investigated this case, determined the veracity of the accusations, and made the decision to remove him from his position consisted of some of the biggest rabbinic names in Israel – including Rav Aharon Lichtenstein.

Here is what Rav Lichtenstein said at the time:

In an emotional lecture to his students, often breaking into tears, R’ Aharon Lichtenstein announced that he has received death threats by a student of R’ Motti Elon in retaliation for his participating in the Takana forum which labeled R’ Motti as a “dangerous person.” For his courage in making this condemnation, Rav Lichtenstein was threatened with violence!

Which brings me to the current article in the Times of Israel. It appears that one of the two students who were sexually harassed is not going to testify. According to the subheadline of this article, he was pressured not to do it. Which means that prosecutors will have to drop half their charges.

I suspect that’s probably what happened. If Rav Lichtenstein can be threatened with violence, it should be no surprise that a victim can be threatened into not testifying in the same way.

I suspect that the reason Rabbi Elon gets this kind of support from his ‘fans’ is the same reason that someone like Weberman gets support from his fans; and Charedi magazines like Ami. They know these people by their reputations. Reputations they earned by actaully doing good deeds and being good people in every other way. They work hard at building their name. They do a lot kindnesses for many people. I’m sure that’s true for both Weberman and Elon.

But their abnormal desires are kept hidden from their public. They may even try and fight those desires. But as Woody Alan once said about his adopted daughter that he later married, “The heart wants what it wants.”

When your sex drive is normal the heart can be satisfied in socially acceptable ways. But when those desires are abnormal one must do so clandestinely. The libido is a very strong force that is very hard to overcome. Certainly on a constant basis. Eventually such an individual will find a way to satisfy those abnormal urges.

They might actually believe that they are doing nothing more than expressing love to their victims – so self deluded are they. They will merely say that society does not really understand. This is what they tell their victims while they sexually abuse them. They tell their victims not to tell anyone of the great “love” they are showing to them because people will not understand. Sometimes I think that these people actually believe that. At least at first.

The principal of a Jewish school in Paris was indicted for failing to report the sexual abuse of minors.

The television network RILL reported that a Paris magistrate indicted the principal, identified by RILL as Rabbi Benjamin M., 55, on Feb. 21 for “non-reporting of sexual abuse of minors under 15 years.”

Victims’ parents told the principal about the alleged fondling committed by a supervisor at the Chabad-Lubavitch Beth Hanna elementary school for boys last summer, according to RILL.

The supervisor was indicted in November after parents of the alleged victims filed complaints, the French news agency AFP reported, but the principal failed to also file a complaint as he was required by law.

The online edition of Le Nouvel Observateur, a French weekly, reported that the principal also is suspected of trying to dissuade parents from complaining to police — a claim denied by Chaim Nisenbaum, a spokesman for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in France.

“Legally speaking, he [the principal] committed an error,” Nisenbaum is quoted as saying, but “there was no attempt to conceal anything.” Nisenbaum said the school, which is Orthodox, views the actions of the supervisor as “extremely serious.”

JForum, a French-Jewish news site, reported that the principal confronted the supervisor but deemed it unnecessary to file a complaint because he knew the parents had already done so.

Numerous Orthodox-Jewish websites censor the word “sexual” in the context of discussing sexual abuse. Such censorship sends the message to young people that body parts, sexuality and sexual abuse are so shameful, that adults can’t even mention them in public.

By refraining from using words such as “sex” and “sexual,” Orthodox Jewish websites are unwittingly sending the message that sexual abuse is not something that should be discussed. This only perpetuates the existing shame, secrecy, stigma and fear surrounding the issue of sexual abuse.

Parents of pre-adolescent children certainly have a right to determine the age-appropriate language when discussing sexual abuse with their children, but that is no excuse for websites censoring terms necessary to define abuse.

If children are old enough to be on the Internet, they should be mature enough to hear the word “sex” or “sexual” in the context of discussing abuse.

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, recommends “[t]alking openly and directly about sexuality” in order to teach “children that it is okay to talk to you when they have questions.” In a sexual abuse awareness seminar held in Crown Heights, experts explained that a lack of education makes adolescents more vulnerable to abuse.

The lack of discussion around the human body, intimacy and sexual issues, in essence, robs children of the ability to speak because they are not provided with the proper language.

Maintaining Halachic standards of Tzniut (modesty) does not conflict with the necessity of discussing sexual abuse openly and candidly. Tzniut concerns laws related to modesty of both dress and behavior—when dealing with normal, healthy interactions—not when educating the public on the dangers of sexual abuse.

The Talmud relays a story of a student that hid under his teacher’s bed to learn how his teacher was being intimate with his wife. The student commented on the inappropriate language of his teacher to which his teacher exclaimed, “Get out! It’s not proper (for you to be here)!” To which the student replied, “It is Torah—and study it I must.”

In contemporary society, the student might be accused of voyeurism—but this story illustrates the need to rise above the taboos of discussing sexuality. There is nothing shameful, sinful or obscene about having candid conversations about the subject – particularly in the context of educating the public on sexual abuse.

When the language center is shut down, the abuse survivor is less likely to speak, because they are fearful of voicing what is perceived as shameful, and so, sometime, they can’t even articulate their trauma.

Censoring the use of accurate language around sexual abuse perpetuates the notion that such discussions should be secret and such language is shameful. Living in secrecy is painful and damaging to an abuse survivor. We need to empower potential victims to talk openly and candidly about their experience.

There has been a lot of discussion about the length of convicted pedophile Nechemya Weberman’s 103 year prison sentence. According to an article in the Forward comparisons are being made to the sentence given to Leiby Kletzky’s brutal murderer, Levi Aron, of 40 years in prison.

A lot of people are asking where is the justice in that?

I am not one of those people. In essence Weberman got a life sentence. At age 54, 40 years would have pretty much meant the same thing. I have also heard that the appeals court will often reduce the sentence by half.

It should also be noted that the deranged Levi Aron’s sentence was the result of a plea deal, that spared Leiby’s parents and relatives the ordeal of a trial where they would have had to relive every painful moment of that terrible tragedy. And a plea deal saved the state the expense of a trial.

Weberman, on the other hand continues to proclaim his innocence. Pedophiles are gifted liars that can convince their peers, friends and family of their complete innocence. Fortunately his lies did not convince the jury or the judge. But – his community still believes him.

His trial forced the victim to relive all the painful sexual abuse she endured for over four years at the hands of this monster. And the fact is that she too has a life sentence of untold pain from those memories.

So, no I am not particularly bothered by this harsh sentence. He can still say Tehilim in prison, just as he did during the trial. He will not be having nightmares. Unless they put him together with the general population of those prisons. Prisoners have standards too and they don’t take kindly to pedophiles. Weberman may get a taste of his own medicine there. He can still say Tehilim though.

For me – justice has been served for his victim and hopefully all future victims. Pedophiles ought to take a hard look at what happened here. And victims will now know that if they press charges – sometimes good things happen.

Unfortunately this is not the way certain segments of Orthodoxy will see this. This accomplished liar – with his ‘explanation’ of why his accuser brought these ‘false’ charges against him is still believed. He has convinced most of his peers including their leader that these charges are the result of a vendetta by the accuser who is herself immoral and “Off the Derech.” She should therefore not be believed.

They also fully believe that a Chasid cannot get a fair trial in America anymore. And they have some pretty prominent people saying that – pointing to the 27 year prison term Shalom Rubashkin received for a white collar crime they saw as undeserving of such a harsh sentence. A view corroborated by many distinguished Americans.

This is how they see what happened with Weberman. An innocent man has been convicted because of his beard and peyos. They will point to what they will say is an over the top sentence of 103 years to prove their point. Of course if the sentence were only 27 years (like Rubashkin’s sentence) he would still be in prison until he was in his eighties.

I can’t wait to see how Ami Magazine treats this verdict. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they saw it in the way I just described.

The bottom line for me is that no one should see this sentence as excessively harsh. Instead they should see this as a victory for the abused.

I have to admit that the sex abuse issue is one of the most difficult issues for me to deal with in all of Judaism. Like many others, I used to think this kind of thing is unthinkable in the world of Orthodox Jewry. When in the past I heard rumors about people like that, I simply did not believe them. I have of course since come to believe that not only does it happen in the Orthodox world , it seems to happen about as frequently as it does in the rest of the world.

What is sexual abuse? And what is it not? Is all physical contact between two people wrong? Are there gradations of abuse? Do all people react the same way when they are abused Should we treat different forms of abuse the same way?

There are many things one must consider before making judgments about any given situation. In my view some types of abuse is worse than others.

There are also collateral damage issues, like who gets hurt in the process of seeking justice for the victim… or those rare cases (and they do exist although they are all but ignored these days) where innocent people get accused and are tainted for life even when accusations are proven false.

This is not about whether all reasonable suspicions of abuse should be reported to the police. They should. And in my view they need not be vetted by rabbis. But I think it is still fair to look at the whole picture.

What is justice in cases of abuse?

Although justice might include financial compensation to victims by abusers and their enablers, it is very possible that good institutions long after any abuse took place – and long after the abusers, faculty, administration, and board of directors have left to be replaced by an entirely new generation of same – could be ruined by overly generous punitive damages awarded by a jury or judge. The Agudah claim that old lawsuits brought against such institutions is unfair in those cases is a legitimate concern . The new people there may not even be aware that abuse ever took place there by a one time employee decades ago.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be sued. Perhaps they should as the Markey Bill would have allowed. But the facts remain the same. What is fair to one person may be unfair to another. And the collateral damage could be huge. That is why I had a difficult time deciding to favor that bill – ultimately siding with justice for the victim. But it was not an easy decision for me.

And then there are issues about judging behavior of the past by today’s standards. Is it fair to judge what was a common practice of yesterday by the standards of our day?

One might answer that it is. After all someone was hurt and mistreated by those practices – innocent though they may have been see in that day. That everyone was not wise about it then doesn’t matter to the victim. He was hurt and deserves to have justice.

Here too innocent people suffer collateral damage only because they were guided by the conventional wisdom of their day. What today is seen as a cover-up was in those days considered to be standard operating procedure.

And how do we judge the reactions of differing communities? Should we judge one community by a higher standard than another?

And what about differing acts? Is all inappropriate contact the same?

I once asked this of a psychologist who treats sexually abused children. He answered my question with a question. I asked him if a Rebbe would innocently playfully pat a fully clothed child on rear end – sort of the way a football coach might be seen doing from time to time to his players – is that considered sex abuse? His answer was the following: If someone came up to me and offered me money to pat my fully clothed child on the rear, would I take it and allow him to do it?

Well, put that way, of course not. The offer to pay me would show that his entire purpose was to get sexual gratification for it. But if a teacher did it in the same playful way that a football coach might – without any sexual intent, it would not bother me at all. Nor do I think a child would suffer traumatically from it in that way. But this educated professional did not make any distinction.