O PINION
Too Many Chose to Look Away from Chaim Walder’s Crimes.

We Can Make Other Choices Now
BY RAHEL BAYAR
DURING MY FIRST MONTH
as an assistant district attorney
in the Bronx, I spent most of
my time engaged in an inten-
sive orientation. As part of
that training, a senior ADA
taught us the art of an eff ective
opening argument. Whether
you are prosecuting a child
rape case, robbery or homicide,
your ability to seek justice is
aff ected by the words you
choose to use.

To illustrate this, the
ADA shared an eff ective and
impactful opening argument
in a case involving a drunk
driver, which started like this:
Choices. Choices are what
we make every day. We walk
through each moment deciding
what to do and how to do it.

Choices are how we make it
from point A to point B; they
are why we are here. In the
case of a DWI, the choices are
your road map. Th e choice to
drink. To leave the bar. To pick
up those keys. To walk to your
car. To open the door. To get in.

To put the key in the ignition.

To turn it. To shift into Drive.

Th ose small choices are what
led to this moment. To crash.

To kill.

Every single person who
has sexually abused a child has
made a choice. So too have
the adults, parents, teachers,
coaches, role models, clergy,
spiritual advisors or communal
leaders who have chosen not to
act — or not to act in the right
way. The
recent scandal
surrounding Israeli children’s
book author Chaim Walder,
accused of sexually abusing
dozens of people, including
minors, is rife with people
making the right and wrong
choices. The revelations
inspired a surprising and
welcome backlash within the
Orthodox Jewish community
in which Walder was a celeb-
rity, with retailers and media
companies severing ties with
him. On the other side, too many
rabbis, communal leaders and
educators kept silent, chose to
say little or cautioned against
“gossip,” especially after
Walder’s apparent suicide in the
wake of the allegations. Some
publicly blamed his accusers
for going public, appeared at
Walder’s funeral and shiva
house or, as the Jerusalem-
based teacher and author
Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller did
on her Facebook page, spoke
of Walder as having “lost his
balance.” He did not “lose his balance.”
He preyed on children. And
the choice to use such benign
words only infl icts more pain,
trauma and harm.

In all my years of prose-
cuting child abuse and sex
crimes cases, the impact of
choices was apparent in every
case, every day. Choices made
by others meant I could not
indict a perpetrator or take
them to trial because of the
trauma infl icted on the victim,
in many cases — a young
child. Choices had an impact
on every person who could not
testify because the pain and
trauma were too raw and real.

Choices made by some meant
a child could not disclose their
suff ering for years because
there was no safe space to do
so. Other survivors couldn’t
come forward because they
knew they would be ostracized
in communities that choose to
blame the victims.

It is a choice to remain
uneducated about what a
child’s experience of abuse
might feel and look like. It is
a choice to ignore red fl ags,
boundary-crossing behavior or
grooming tactics by adults in
positions of power or trust. It
is a choice to attribute sole
authority to religious and
spiritual fi gures to determine
whether something should be
reported, to whom and how. It
is a choice when our communal
leaders choose to impart — or
withhold — knowledge about
the reality of sexual abuse.

Th ese choices change lives and,
many times, not for the better.

So now, we have another
choice. For communal leaders, the
right choice means saying this:
“We stand with and believe
survivors and victims. We are
committed to learning more,
to reporting abuse to law
enforcement and to educating
our communities — the adults,
teachers and rabbis who should
bear the onus of preventing
abuse. We are committed to
providing the tools to commu-
nicate and empower our kids,
without placing the burden of
preventing abuse on them. We
are sorry. We must do better.

We will do better.”
Th e wrong choices include
suppressing eff ective talk and
knowledge of sexual abuse by
invoking the so-called dangers
of “lashon hara” (speaking
badly), false allegations,
rumor-mongering or smear
campaigns. Th e wrong choice
is using your social media
platform to share inaccurate
information or play the “both
sides have suff ered” argument.

Th e wrong choice means
leveraging the power of spiri-
tual trust and guidance to
downplay reports of sexual
abuse. Th e wrong choices
include spreading the harmful
canard that a child adhering to
the Jewish laws of “yichud” and
“negiah” — sexual modesty —
will be protected from sexual
abuse. Such choices are dangerous,
erroneous and put the onus
of child protection on the
children themselves.

It is our communal respon-
sibility to be the protectors. To
be a protector, we must make
Be heard.

better choices.

Eff ective abuse prevention is
about the little moments. Th e
choices we make in sharing
information at the dinner or
Shabbat table. Th e words we
choose, especially when we
think our kids aren’t listening.

If a parent’s fi rst reaction to
these reports is “innocent until
proven guilty,” or that “Walder’s
books did so much good in the
world,” their children, whether
they have witnessed abuse,
experienced abuse, or just want
to understand more about it,
are unlikely to come forward.

Anyone who does this work
professionally will tell you that
it won’t matter how oft en you
tell children that they should let
you know if something unsafe
ever happens to them: Th ey are
unlikely to share if they sense
that “I won’t be believed” or “I
did something to cause this.”
So, make a choice.

Choose guidance from
real experts in the fi eld over
spiritual leadership with no
expertise. Choose to use your platforms
to convey accurate information.

Choose to be educated and
informed, and to ask a profes-
sional when you don’t know
enough. Choose better.

Choose to save a life. ●
Rahel Bayar is a former sex crimes
and child abuse prosecutor and
the CEO of The Bayar Group,
which works with schools, camps
and faith-based organizations on
eff ective abuse prevention.

letters@jewishexponent.com Email your letters to the editor.

14 JANUARY 13, 2022
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
Pro-Semitism: A New Path
BY GAVRIEL KAUFMAN
IF YOU WERE SHOCKED by
the alarming growth of anti-Is-
rael sentiment after Israel’s
spring 2021 engagement in
Gaza, you haven’t been paying
close enough attention.

For years,
America’s “finest” institutions have been
promulgating an anti-Israel
agenda. Most schools seem as
committed to promoting the
notion that Israel is a colonizer
as they are to their students’
post-graduation employment
outcomes. I had the opportu-
nity to witness this firsthand as
an undergrad at the University
of Pittsburgh, where a sociology
ignored Israel’s many peace
offers and gestures of good
faith. Allow me to provide a
couple examples of these gross
distortions: In one video, its
creators opine that “Israelis
receive vaccinations ... that
Palestinians typically do not
get.” In fact, in June of this
year, the Palestinian Authority
rejected a deal in which Israel
would have provided 1 million
COVID vaccines to those
living in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. The Palestinian
Authority valued optics more
than its citizenry.

Another video claims that
“between 250,000-350,000
Palestinians were expelled
from their homes by Zionist
paramilitaries” between
November 1947 and May 1948.

Although this number may
be accurate, its purpose is to
confuse, not clarify. In truth,
Israel did its best to avoid
conflict in the years before
1948; in 1937, when the Peel
Commission announced that
Israel would be provided with
likely realized that most of the
Palestinians’ problems stem
from corrupt, inept leadership.

But for most anti-Israel
activists, this realization has
not come. It never will. They
will continue to demonize
Israel and spew disinformation
about the world’s only Jewish
state. Hatred of Am Yisrael is
not new; it has been with us
for as long as our people have
existed. My intention is to not
depress or dishearten. My
intention is only to point out
that what we’ve done up until
now has not reaped the rewards
we hoped for. When we decry
the horrors of antisemitism, we
are met with only more hate,
more vitriol.

So, what’s a Yid to do?
Should we just accept that
people will always hate us and
smear us?
For many, the solution has
been to spread awareness of
antisemitism. We delude
ourselves into thinking that
if we teach our neighbors
about enough pogroms and
If we are serious about combating antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred
— which are really the same thing — we ought to launch a campaign
of pro-Semitism.

emphasis on antisemitism and
focus our attention elsewhere:
on the beautiful inheritance we
have, on the G-dly message we
have for the world.

If we are serious about
combating antisemitism and
anti-Israel hatred — which are
really the same thing — we
ought to launch a campaign
of pro-Semitism. If we wear a
Magen David around our neck,
we should replace it with one
that is twice the size; if we wear
a kippah full-time, we should
wear one that is larger and
more colorful.

If we are serious about
combating the hatred of those
who seek to distort our truths,
we must be proud and resolute.

We’ve tried for years to combat
our enemies with the reali-
ties of antisemitism and its
dangers. It has not worked.

Maybe it’s time for
something new. l
After graduating from the University
of Pittsburgh, Gavriel Kaufman
pursued Jewish studies at Mayanot
Yeshiva, a Chabad yeshiva in
Jerusalem. The Philadelphia native
is a student at Rutgers Law School.

KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
Article Overlooked Local Resource
I READ WITH INTEREST your front-page article about
Yiddishists seeking community (“Yiddishists Search for
Community to Preserve Revered Language,” Jan. 6). No mention
was made of the living, vibrant resource found at Gratz College
in the person of Rita Ratner, who single-handedly founded the
Yiddish program there and, like the eternal light, keeps it alive
and growing.

My classmates and I began our Yiddish studies there and keep
going as an intermediate study group going on our fourth year.

What are we, chopped liver (gehakte leber)?
No mention was made either of the the Yiddish Book Center
in western Massachusetts where Stephen Spielberg has under-
written the digitized Stephen Spielberg Library where you can
find any existing Yiddish book online and can print it out for no
charge. l
Betty-Jeanne Korson | Hatboro
STATEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER
professor assigned a book, “The
Making of a Human Bomb,”
that justified suicide bombings,
claiming they were a rational
response to having occupiers
in your homeland.

Although I’ve heard this
rhetoric for many years, it still
hurts to hear people demonize
a country and a people that
have done so much good in
the world. Recently, much to
my disappointment, Rutgers
Law School — where I am a
student — posted 22, minute-
long videos about Palestine.

Unsurprisingly, these videos
slandered and demonized the
Jewish state. In so doing, they
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM a tiny, discontinuous piece of
land, the Jews quickly accepted
the offer. The Arabs, who
would not abide by a Jewish
state of any size, categorically
refused. Such refusals would
become a recurring theme in
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2001, after eight years
of failed peace negotiations,
President Bill Clinton met with
Yasser Arafat, then chairman
of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization. Arafat praised
Clinton and called him a great
man; Clinton responded, “I’m
a colossal failure, and you
made me one.” After years
of disappointments, Clinton
the Holocaust, perhaps they
will start to support Israel as
staunchly as we do. Our efforts
have not worked.

After seeing the videos
posted on Rutgers Law’s
YouTube page, I contemplated
sending the creators an email,
explaining their videos were a
false portrayal of what’s going
on in Israel and Palestine. But
then I would be falling into the
trap that we always fall prey
to: Maybe, just maybe, I can
convince the person who hates
me of the truth by using facts
and logic.

Instead, it’s time that Jewish
people turn away from their
JEWISH EXPONENT
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