Comments on: Were the Nachalaot Parents Negligent?

By: mother in israel

mother in israel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:29:07 +0000

I am closing comments on this post.
mother in israel recently posted..Were the Nachalaot Parents Negligent? (dofollow)

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By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:24:41 +0000

This is EXACTLY what I am thinking.
I also live in a neighborhood that is about the size of nahlaot, and fairly isolated. We all know our neighbors. Our kids play together and go to the same schools and gans.
When my son got bronchitis, it took about three hours before I knew that my upstairs neighbor’s daughter came down with it and the twins across the street have been home all week too…
We are talking about 100 kids from probably 30-40 families who live within a square kilometer of one another. Over the span of just one year, all these kids started exhibiting major psychological issues like having bowel/bladder control problems, anxiety, strange compulsive behaviors and fear of strangers and NO ONE suspected this???
This doesn’t add up.

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By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:48:26 +0000

OK, so we know that some of the perpetrators are still at large and living in that neighborhood.
We know that the parents in the neighborhood are aware of what has happened and that these people are still at large.
At this point – when the danger is known, parents absolutely bear the responsibility for keeping children safe from that danger.
I don’t blame parents whose children were victimized.
But I cannot understand the mother who allows her child out the door knowing there is a lion living next door.

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By: mannie

mannie — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:21:16 +0000

No, the parents of Nachalaot were not negligent in any way. They trusted the haredi,the supposedly “G-d fearing people” that they lived amongst; they believed that their children were safe. But as you now see, the times have now changed. Your children are not safe anywhere without you. Now you have to protect your children 24 hours a day. If you want to have children, you are responsible for them and that means you have to give up on your activities to care for your children’s lives and well being. If you don’t want to do that then don’t have children.

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By: Hadassa

Hadassa — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:52:15 +0000

There’s a difference between blaming and pointing out that the cultural norms are problematic and should change. Nothing would have prevented all of the abuse, but the number of young and in some cases very young children left with insufficient supervision boggles the mind. Currently parents in Nachalaot are being super-protective because of the horrific trauma their children experienced. Is this going to be a wake-up call that will save other children, in general, from future abuse? Or is everyone except for the personally affected going to forget about it?

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By: ruth cohen

ruth cohen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:04:14 +0000

shalom
all this blaming parents is muding the water of the plain ugly truth. and that is that perverts in israel have protection from way up high in the powerful men who run this country into the ground. one of the well known tricks is to let the simple public destroy each ther,crime,drugs,sex,perversions while the big boys plan and manipulate the real affairs.
so wake up out of your false dreams with false promises of peace and we are a land of hok. yah where. really who thinks that ???
you have all been made fools of especially those who split hairs pointing fingers in the name of fairness and free speech.did the babies have freedom of anything besides being raped. stop blaming the parents. it does not make you more innocent arm chair critic. it is cruel and vicious. i saved my girls from these things, i did not want them to live my life,abuse,beatings. so what????does that make me super angel or just maybe lucky???????
i am fighting this war with no regard for any thing except how to save the children.. i am never going to be haradi and yet who cares their children are my children. i am never going to accept many things they do but so bloody what ? their babies cry like mine did, why should my heart be a stone to their screams of fear and terror? what will i gain be being so vicious and cruel???????

stop sticking knifes in the parents who are totally destroyed by all this. your words can cause people to give up all hope and commit suicide -do you want to be on the same level as mondrowitz, now his photo is up on my wall, 3 shirizly, he also caused boys to kill themselves. do you want to kill the parents by your cruel words.

today orlev came past my house with a big group of journalists. i was inside and saw his expression of worry while he was looking at my posters and newspaper clippings in the garden. i went out and arutz 10 did a long interview with me. i expressed my outrage at the lack of police protection and justice for the babies. at the end the young journalist shook my hand. he also does not his children raped.supposedly it will be tonight on tv.

please help the parents, if you dont know how to, come to me – i am in touch with the haradim or otherwise please dont make it worse. i will never forgive those who kick the downtrodden when they are totally broken into a million pieces.

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By: Sharon Saunders

Sharon Saunders — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:37:09 +0000

To everyone who reads Jenny’s blog: Please be ultra-sensitive about this issue. No one was negligent or ‘just asking for this to happen’ as somebody callously commented to me. These parents, along with their children, are in a waking nightmare. The community is in lock-down and we are all on edge. The only ones to blame are the perpetrators. Please keep that in mind.

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By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:29:53 +0000

“Really I get it. If you want to think those things, that’s fine. Do you have to write them where they can hurt the parents?”

This is attitude is part of the problem. No one want’s to upset the apple cart. If communities can’t learn from past mistakes they are destined to repeat them in the future. I am sure that if you ask these parents would you have done things differently if you had the chance to do it all again they would answer yes. Why would you deny this opportunity for people to learn from other peoples experiences in the name of not “hurting” the parents. I am sure that any comments on this blog will not come even close to causing the kind of pain that the predators caused.

I will continue to keep my children away from people that make me or my children uncomfortable (and yes I know that this will not guarantee that my children will always be safe). If my children or I sense that something is not right I will make the decision to err on the side of caution. The experiences of the families Nachlaot has taught me that this is the right decision to make.

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By: Rabbi Michael Tzadok

Rabbi Michael Tzadok — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:55:34 +0000

I understand feeling the need to blame the parents. Psychologically I get it, its called transference. You project your own guilt onto an easy target, and blame them for whatever happens to them. Really I get it. If you want to think those things, that’s fine. Do you have to write them where they can hurt the parents?
First Nahalaot is a majorly diverse neighborhood with many more than 10 people who can easily be labeled as weirdos. I even know one Rosh Yeshiva that has earned that title, because he actually goes out of his way to put Tzedaka into every pushka in sight. There are hippies, there are neo-Chassidim, there are Karlinerrs, there are seculars, there are Sephardi mekubalim(a whole Yeshiva of them as a matter of fact), Carlebachians, NaNachs, and just about everything you can name in Judaism. So the weirdo thing really doesn’t work as a distinguishing factor of possible danger.

Second to that not all of the predators were “weirdos”, yes some were, some were also well respected and long standing members of the community. One so much so that he committed suicide rather than put himself and his family through the shame of a trial(I don’t know whether to respect that or call it cowardice).

Some children were attacked while walking the half block from the school bus drop off. Some were attacked while under the supervision of their 16yr old sister(since when is a 16yr old not capable of watching children). Some were attacked by adults who were trusted enough and normal enough to be babysitters in the neighborhood. The pervasiveness of the abuse, is actually astounding. Other children were attacked while attending their gan(but since the ministry of education requires no fewer than 25 students to one teacher, which in most countries doesn’t count as adequate supervision).

It’s really easy to sit in your armchair and point fingers at parents who are already suffering, while being ignorant of the details and circumstances. I guess the chiyuv of dan l’kaf zecut is dead.
Rabbi Michael Tzadok recently posted..Terror of the Children of Nachalaot (dofollow)

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By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:43:47 +0000

There are many factors that went into these children being harmed. Unfortunately children can be harmed by strangers AND people they know very well and should be safe with. I think there needs to be a two pronged approach to keeping your children safe. One is not to leave your children under supervised. Leaving your 7 year old to watch your toddler is not a good idea nor is letting your 8 year old walk 6 blocks alone the first time you let him walk anywhere alone. Two, you need to teach your children that no matter what no one is allowed to touch them where they should not touch them and that there are bad people out there that are liars and that they will say things to scare them that are not true. This includes people who they think that they should be able to trust (such as a relative, teacher, friend or rabbi).

In 1979 when Eitan Patz disappeared things changed drastically in NYC. When I was 6 in 1972 I remember going home from school on the public bus with my friend’s older sister who was 9. Today no one would allow this. With everything that has befallen the Haredi communities over the past few years they need to change the way they supervise and teach their children about safety. At some point it will be very difficult not to blame the parents of the victims.

This is a very complex problem to fix and I’m not sure that everyone will be able to stomach the changes that need to be made. These include addressing the problem of poverty and addressing the issues of having large families and not having the means to properly supervise and care for all these children. It is very nice to lead a your life in an alternate universe of only mitzvot and Torah. However, one needs to live in the real world even if it includes ugliness so that you can protect your children from that ugliness.

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