In attempting to assess the new reforms instituted by the Rabbinical Council of America via its appointment of a special commission chaired by Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, JLBC wanted to know if there would be other far-reaching changes in the community dealing with issues of concern to women.

Rabbi Barry Freundel was charged with six counts voyeurism for placing a hidden camera in the National Capital Mikvah adjacent to his synagogue, Congregation Kesher Israel in Georgetown, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Marcus Kurn said Freundel had violated the laws up in the Heavens and down here on Earth.

Rabbi Benjamin Yudin of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn agrees. “The experience of going to the mikvah is, “one of the most significant, personal, spiritual, activities of a married Jewish woman and it has always been maintained safeguarded in an aura and environment of sanctity,” he said.

Rabbi Yudin said, “When something like this happens, it’s nothing less than sickening, and just like other incidents that have pierced a veil of safety and security, it will affect the experience of going to a mikvah for women for years to come.”

Congregation Kesher in Englewood reviewed the security and the halacha of the mikvah with a security agency and halachic experts. They also intend to insure the validity of the conversions of those impacted by the reforms, directing those who need it, to go where they can get victim support, offering them counseling services and working with Nechama Price, a yoetzet halacha (certified to answer questions on taharat hamishpacha, the laws of family purity and mikvah rules).

Price told JLBC, “What allegedly occurred is horrible and unimaginable and leaves women feeling insecure. Every woman needs to feel safe in the mikvah and have the ability to leave feeling pure and cleansed. “

Price said that her biggest fear is that women may hesitate to go to the mikvah, or even worse, stop going. If any woman has doubts, they should reach out to their Rabbi or the Mikvah attendents or to Yoatzot Halacha to reaffirm their trust.

Price says she’s received calls from women asking about what changes will take place and she’s been working with the rabbis concerning those changes. Last week’s JLBC detailed the changes at the Teaneck mikvah, which included a chaperone for men in the building at all times and using a lock that requires a combination, with different combinations for different people.

Rabbi Shmuel Goldin of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, honorary president of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), said Freundel was a brilliant man, and that prior to criminal charges being brought against him, there had been issues of boundaries with conversions that were brought up when people complained about him asking converts to do clerical work at his home. It turned out that he had also asked regular congregants to do that same kind of work.

Rabbi Goldin said the RCA felt that in this connection with converts, Fruendel was taking advantage of the situation because someone was dependent upon him for the conversion. Those individuals, said Goldin, felt somewhat put upon because they were afraid if they said no, that refusal would hinder their conversion. Members of the RCA and the Beth Din of America spoke with Freundel about this, said Goldin, and “he acquiesced and said he would no longer do that.”

But when Freundel was arrested for misdemeanor voyeurism, said Goldin. “We were as shocked as the next person…this is a man who I’ve known since high school. He was my study partner in high school and college.”

Goldin told JLBC, “This was a betrayal of trust in the most sensitive and in the deepest possible way. The mikvah is a holy place. It’s a place where people are supposed to feel safe. If these allegations are true, for a rabbi to allow that safe place to be used in the way it was used is a betrayal of trust on all levels.”

He said it’s the job of the rabbis to make sure that the community understands that the actions of one do not reflect upon the actions of the rabbinic community and that women feel safe, particularly about going to the mikvah. “We’re very concerned that people who were on the fence are going to think twice.”

Because the preponderance of alleged victims are converts, Goldin, and the members of the committee he chairs at the RCA, said they are involved in reviewing the conversion process, the network of conversion courts under the aegis of the RCA to insure that there’s oversight. “We’ve wanted to do this for a long time. This is just pushing us to do it.”

Goldin said part of the problem has to do with power and the perception of power attributed to Freundel. That is one of the issues that Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, Executive Director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance said women have to deal with.

“The time has come to rethink all areas of rabbinic authority,” she said. “For some, it took this watershed moment to realize that women need to serve in leadership roles. Transparency and checks and balances are necessary to prevent abuse of power, and JOFA is here to protect and empower the community.”

Goldin explained the misuse of power that allegedly took place in this case. “When it comes to conversion, the conversion candidate has a discussion with the rabbis in the waiting room before she goes into the mikvah. Once she immerses, the rabbis are called in to make sure that she is in the water. There is an element of rabbinic presence there that we’ve tried and will continue to try to make as comfortable as possible.”

Rabbi Yudin said that while procedures differ from mikvah to mikvah, women should be made fully aware of every step to be taken. He said that in Fair Lawn, female converts are never alone in the presence of the tribunal of three rabbis without another woman present.

He also said that they make sure the rabbis are never able to see more than the woman’s head and that all they have to see is that it has gone underwater. “As soon as they see that, they go into another room.” The balance of the ritual is supervised by a woman with no men present.

While the focus right now is on abuse of women, Rabbi Asher Lopatin, president of the Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in Riverdale, NY said men have had to deal with abuse as well. “Men have been treated terribly, without sensitivity at all.” He said because one conversion candidate chose Lopatin’s synagogue over another he was told by the other rabbi who sat on the conversion commission, said he would never be converted. There are many incidents of men being put through the wringer, and being cross examined if they want to have their children converted.”

But what Rabbi Fruendel (allegedly) did that was unheard of before now, said Rabbi Goldin, “is that he told his candidates to come in and take practice dunks in the mikvah when only he was there.” However the D.C. mikvah’s website stated that it was open for ‘practice dunks,’ so it looked like he wasn’t doing anything surreptitious. “People who didn’t know better were being taken advantage of, which is why we’re looking at this whole conversion issue.”

As noted by Weiss-Greenberg, “While some of the allegations may not have been expected, there were a number of practices that could have been, and seemingly were, identified before the charges of voyeurism. In the future, it would be wise to regularly have someone checking in with men and women navigating the conversion process. This could allow for reporting of inappropriate behavior, but it could also benefit the system to solicit feedback and make use of information collected. We need an institution and/or a hotline where confidentiality is guaranteed and allegations are taken seriously.”

Rabbi Goldin said this has brought up a question that has been percolating in the Jewish community for a while–how the Orthodox community deals with abuse. “We’ve had a debate with Agudah (the more Haredi Orthodox organization) over the past couple of years. Our position is that if anybody has reasonable awareness of abuse it is their responsibility to go directly to the authorities where some of the other communities want to deal with it internally our position is that internal dealing of this kind of problem is not appropriate. It needs to be brought out in the open and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

These views are very different from those of Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck who would only say that “in Teaneck the mikvah is controlled by the women, so such a disgraceful and criminal state of affairs that allegedly happened in DC could not happen here.” His extensive remarks appear in the JLBC story in this issue.

However Rabbi Yosef Adler of the Torah Academy of Bergen County and Rinat Israel in Teaneck had a different view. “The steps taken by the board of the Teaneck Mikvah Association should provide a measure of assurance to all mikvah users that this type of behavior has not taken place here and that measures have been installed to guarantee that it will never take place. Additionally, the RCA, of which the Bergen County Beit Din is a member, is reviewing all its procedures for conversion to create a more trusting environment for potential conversion candidates.”

Rabbi Lopatin said he’s very gratified by the response of the RCA because it goes beyond just one particular rabbi acting in an allegedly despicable way. “It’s really about sensitivity and respect for people who are converts and in general, respect for people who are in positions of vulnerability in the community.” He said that for many years Rabbi Fruendel was allegedly able to get away with abusing his conversion candidates without any repercussions because there was no system to monitor this.

“We seriously need to examine Geirus or Conversion Policies and Standards.” He said this took the power and authority of conversion away from the local individual rabbis and concentrated it with a very small group. “When you have a concentration of power you run very serious risks. When you have a proliferation of different rabbis, you have to work harder to control the system, but it means that no one is quite as vulnerable.”

He said the broader issue was to be more welcoming of those who wish to sincerely convert. That’s a different attitude than in the past–which was about making people feel excluded. The other issue is that every beit din had different goals for their converts. Another change is that mikvah committees will have women included. “It’s surprising that in some cities there are mikvah committees that are all men. I think Rabbi Freundel’s alleged scandal has woken the Orthodox community up to the fact that women need to be included in decisions,” said Lopatin.

“This is a turning point,” he said. “There are so many knowledgeable women, but they’ve been excluded from the power structures, whether it’s organizationally (the RCA would not admit women) or whether it is communally. I think it’s a wake up call to the community that we need women to take positions of halachic leadership in our community and to question organizations that don’t let women in.”

Rabbi Simcha Krauss, senior lecturer at Yeshivat Eretz HaTzvi in Jerusalem who is working on developing an Agunah bet din (divorce court for women), said that committees should consist of many people, not only RCA members but women who are capable is important said

“I think that the Jewish community, whatever institution you’re talking about, has to be more transparent and the more transparent it will be, will make it more responsible. The more transparency there is in the Jewish community, the better it is. This is only the beginning,” speaking of the changes concerning gender equality that are now being discussed in the RCA. “They acted within 24 hours.

“Wherever there is a danger of something going wrong; wherever there is a danger of power–too much power corrupts. Wherever corruption is possible, we have to put safeguards in so that this should not be something in a Jewish institution–whether it’s a camp or whether it’s a girl’s school or whether it’s a boy’s school or whether it’s a congregation.”

This is not the first time that too much power, no women in positions of power and a complete lack of transparency were factors in a scandal. Rabbi Yudin, in referring to sexual abuse scandals in the late 1970s and ‘80s at the Yeshiva University High School for Boys’ Manhattan, “In that regard, our whole society has been awakened to the fact that problems of this sort can and from time to time do arise and they must be addressed immediately.” He said that while this type of behavior (covering it up) was in vogue 30 years ago, it’s a different world today.

Rabbi Goldin agrees. “Crimes must be reported to the police immediately,” he said.

By Anne Phyllis Pinzow