Baruch Lanner | |
|---|---|
 Mug shot of Lanner | |
| Born | October 20, 1949 |
| Other names | Bernard S. Lanner |
| Occupation | Former rabbi |
| Criminal status | On parole |
| Conviction(s) | Child sexual abuse |
| Criminal penalty | Seven years in prison, paroled for four years |
Baruch S. Lanner (born October 20, 1949) [1] is an American former Orthodox rabbi who was convicted of child sexual abuse. [2]
Lanner was the principal of Hillel Yeshiva High School in Ocean Township, New Jersey and later the director of regions for the Orthodox Union's National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY). [3] [4]
In 2000, an investigative series published in The Jewish Week [5] alleged that Lanner had physically and sexually abused young kids for decades. Lanner resigned the day after it was published. [6] The story, "Stolen Innocence," later won an award for "meritorious journalism." [7]
An investigation was conducted by the Orthodox Union (OU). The investigating committee, headed by then-Hillel President Richard Joel, spent over $1 million interviewing more than 140 people and issued a 330-page report detailing the abuse. [8] The report alleged that Lanner had physically, sexually and emotionally abused dozens of teenagers, including fondling girls and kneeing boys in the groin, and that the abuse had begun in 1970. [9] As a result of the report, the executive vice president of the OU, Rabbi Raphael Butler, resigned. He had been criticized for failing to act on earlier complaints. [10]
Lanner was convicted in 2002 of sexually abusing two teenage girls who attended the religious school where he had been principal, and sentenced to seven years in prison. [5] An appeals court dismissed one of the child endangerment charges in 2005. [11] He was released on parole on January 10, 2008, [1] and was given parole for four years. [12]
A second report commissioned in 2001 by the OU found that the abuse had been overlooked for decades, despite multiple complaints, and that "profound errors of judgment" had been made, including failures of management. [9] [13] The case has been described as "well-publicized" and a "watershed in the way the Orthodox community addresses sexual abuse". [14]
In 2003, the members of the Beth Din that had investigated Lanner in 1989, Rabbis Mordechai Willig, Yosef Blau, and Aaron Levine, apologized to the victims for not acting to stop the abuse. Blau was singled out by Willig for counseling victims over the years. [15] [16]
In June 2022, Lanner flew to Israel under the guise of tourism and requested Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. The Israeli government awarded Lanner temporary legal residency. [17] On July 19, 2022, Minister Ayelet Shaked announced that Israel would not be offering citizenship to Lanner in light of his convictions in the US. He remains in Israel under a temporary visa. [18]
Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan was an American Orthodox rabbi, author, and translator best known for his Living Torah edition of the Torah and extensive Kabbalistic commentaries. He became well-known as a prolific writer and was lauded as an original thinker. His wide-ranging literary output, inclusive of introductory pamphlets on Jewish beliefs, and philosophy written at the request of NCSY are often regarded as significant factors in the growth of the baal teshuva movement.
The Orthodox Union is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units with locations in Israel and formerly in Ukraine. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled-U hechsher symbol, U+24CAⓊCIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.
Richard M. Joel is a Jewish scholar who was the fourth president of Yeshiva University (YU), a Modern Orthodox Jewish university in New York City. He has written on topics that include Jewish leadership, the BDS movement on college campuses, and civil discourse.
NCSY is a Jewish youth group under the auspices of the Orthodox Union. Its operations include Jewish-inspired after-school programs; summer programs in Israel, Europe, and the United States; weekend programming, shabbatons, retreats, and regionals; Israel advocacy training; and disaster relief missions known as chesed (kindness) trips. NCSY also has an alumni organization on campuses across North America.
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The Awareness Center, Inc., also known as the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault, was a nonprofit institution whose stated mission was to end sexual violence in the Jewish community. It was praised and criticized for maintaining a website whose policy was to identify Jewish clergy and officials as alleged sexual predators, by name, whether or not they had been charged or sued. Critics say the center made unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations.
The Jewish Week is a weekly independent community newspaper targeted towards the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area.
Chaim Yisroel HaLevi Belsky was an American rabbi and posek of Orthodox and Haredi Judaism. He was one of the roshei yeshiva (deans) at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, and rabbi of the summer camp network run by Agudath Israel of America.
The Yeshivah Centre is an Orthodox Jewish umbrella organisation in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, that serves the needs of the Melbourne Jewish community. It is run by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, until recently, under the direct administration of Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner. Rabbi Zvi Telsner has been brought as the new Dayan of the Centre and Lubavitch community.
HaRav Mordechai Yitzchak HaLevi Willig is an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University in Washington Heights, Manhattan. He is often known to his students as the Ramu, which is the transliteration of the acronym of the Hebrew letters Reish, Mem, and Vav, which spell out the first letters of Willig's title and name.
Zvi Sobolofsky is a rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University in New York City.
Yeshiva Torah Temimah is an Orthodox yeshiva with branches in Brooklyn, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey.
Marc Gafni is an American philosopher, author, and rabbi who became a New Age spiritual teacher with a focus on Integral Theory, Eros, and "outrageous love". He is the president of the Center for the Integral Wisdom, which he co-founded with Ken Wilber and he is the president of the Office for the Future. He is the author of twelve books including the USA Book News Award for Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment and Radical Kabbalah He hosted a National television show in Israel called Tachat Gafno from 1999 to 2002.
Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb is an ordained rabbi, a qualified psychotherapist and the Executive Vice President Emeritus of the Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish organisation in North America; a position he has held since 2002. Rabbi Weinreb serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Koren Talmud Bavli with commentary by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.
Jonathan I. Rosenblatt is an American Modern Orthodox rabbi, teacher, lecturer, and counselor.
Gary Rosenblatt was the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week of New York, a position he held from 1993 through 2019. Previously he was the editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times for 19 years. Rosenblatt is the father of musician Dov.
Baruch Alter HaCohen Taub is the founding rabbi and Rabbi Emeritus of the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Congregation (BAYT), the largest Orthodox congregation in Canada. He also served as the de facto chief rabbi of Vaughan, Ontario, and is the former National Director of NCSY. He currently lives in Netanya, Israel.
The response of the Haredi Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York City, to allegations of sexual abuse against its spiritual leaders has drawn scrutiny. When teachers, rabbis, and other leaders have been accused of sexual abuse, authorities in the Haredi community have often failed to report offenses to Brooklyn police, intimidated witnesses, and encouraged shunning against victims and those members of the community who speak out against cases of abuse.
Menachem Leib "Manny" Waks is an Australian activist. He was previously part of the Orthodox Jewish community in Australia and later became known for his activism against child sexual abuse in the Jewish community worldwide. He founded Tzedek, an organisation to fight child sexual abuse in Jewish communities. Waks assisted the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in investigating Melbourne Yeshivah centre of the Orthodox Chabad movement of Judaism on their handling of child sexual abuse cases. After publicising child sexual abuse in the Jewish community in Australia, Waks moved to France. He is the father of three children.
The Adass Israel School sex abuse scandal is a criminal case and extradition dispute regarding allegations of child sex abuse at a Jewish religious school in Melbourne, Australia. A former principal, Malka Leifer, faced trial on 70 sex offence charges laid by Victoria Police, with accusations from at least eight alleged victims. Leifer, a dual Israeli-Australian citizen, fled under suspicious circumstances shortly before a warrant could be issued, and remained in Israel from 2008 until January 2021, under varying levels of police and court supervision, pending the resolution of her extradition case. Leifer's trial did not address other alleged sex crimes in Israel and the West Bank because they did not occur in Australia.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), Avi Robinson, The Commentator (Yeshiva College student newspaper), March 6, 2003