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Investigation into Conservative movement’s youth programs identifies ‘hypersexualized culture’
(JTA) – An investigation into sexual abuse and misconduct in the Conservative movement’s youth group programs over the past seven decades identified an “overly sexualized culture” and collected accounts of alleged abuse from 40 victims.
Most of the allegations included in the investigation took place between 1987 and 2019 in the New York City area, and the alleged perpetrators are no longer affiliated with the Conservative movement, according to the report. The report urges the movement to keep its current practices around protecting children in place. It also urges the movement to improve its implementation of safety measures and record-keeping, and to “advance a healthier culture for teens.”
The investigation commissioned by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s umbrella organization for congregations, was based on documents and interviews with the victims. It turned up allegations of “wrongful sexual contact, reports of grooming, reports of an over sexualized culture, and other boundary-crossing behaviors” at programs run by the movement’s youth group, United Synagogue Youth, known as USY. (The Conservative movement’s network of Ramah camps is not under the United Synagogue’s auspices.)
One section of the 20-page report is dedicated to the culture of sexualization within the Conservative movement’s youth programs and includes reports of inappropriate games and pressure on teens to engage in sexual activity with one another. The report comes amid a time of reckoning over child sexual abuse in the Jewish world. It is the latest in a series of similar investigations commissioned by major Jewish religious organizations that examine sexual misconduct against teens in Jewish youth movements, camps, schools and other institutions.
The investigation did not corroborate the allegations and did not discover “widespread or systematic abuse,” according to the report, which was written by UCSJ and approved by Sarah Worley, the attorney hired to gather information and draft recommendations. No one implicated in the investigation currently works or volunteers in the movement, according to Worley’s investigation. Every adult accused of sexual misconduct has been barred from future participation.
The report doesn’t name anyone, victim or perpetrator. At least one former employee of the youth group, former USY Nassau County, Long Island, divisional director Ed Ward, is the subject of multiple lawsuits accusing him of sexual abuse of multiple teens. He worked for USY until 2020.
Following an initial report on one of the lawsuits in the Times of Israel in 2021, additional allegations against Ward emerged. USCJ is a co-defendant in that lawsuit. A second suit alleges that Ward’s abuse took place as recently as 2018. Days after those allegations were published, USCJ launched its investigation into misconduct at USY. The Times of Israel said Ward did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
“USY must ask itself what about its own identity allowed this to transpire, and what must it do to ensure that it can never happen again,” Rabbi Jordan Soffer, one of Ward’s alleged accusers, told the Times of Israel in 2021. Describing a time when he says Ward took him into a bathroom and masturbated in front of him, he said, “I came up with every excuse I could think of. I’m tired. I can’t. I’m embarrassed. I told him I wanted to leave. He told me to stay until he finished.”
Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of the USCJ, said in a statement on Wednesday’s report, “We fully condemn past misconduct as reported to Ms. Worley and we remain committed to providing a safe and enriching environment for our Jewish teens without exception.”
The bulk of recent misconduct reported to Worley took place in the New York City area and was allegedly committed by two perpetrators, while the programs on the West Coast saw more cases in earlier decades.
Among the cases summarized in the report was a victim who said that an adult staff member threatened to blackmail them with a graphic photograph while at camp in the 1980s. In the 1990s, one unnamed adult staff member allegedly sexually assaulted teens across four separate incidents. Five reports to Worley said that a single staff member encouraged teen campers to masturbate as a group in the 2000s, an allegation that was made against Ward in 2021. Allegations in the 2010s included groping of a teen by a staff member and sharing of a graphic video.
The report also describes a culture in which teens felt pressure to engage in sexual activity with each other. In particular, the report describes the “Point System,” in which participants in USY activities received a certain number of “points” for “hooking up” with another USY member, based on that member’s position in the youth group. Similar systems exist in other Jewish youth groups as well. “Multiple victim/survivors and others reported their concern with the Point System and offered it as an example of the hypersexualized culture that they believe pervades USY and its programs,” the report says.
“Some explained that sexualized ‘traditions’ had been developed and passed down over generations, and in some instances, victim/survivors said they felt torn between their reluctance to participate in these traditions and their sense that, as teens in the Conservative movement, their participation was expected,” the report says.
Only one of the allegations of sexual misconduct occurred since 2020. The misconduct involved an adult staff member grooming a teen through text messages.
The Conservative movement’s investigation overlapped with a similar reckoning taking place in the Reform movement, which carried out three investigations into sexual misconduct, including one that was focused on Reform youth programs.
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The post Investigation into Conservative movement’s youth programs identifies ‘hypersexualized culture’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Over 300 rabbis and Jewish leaders call for removal of UN official who denied Oct. 7 rapes
(JTA) — Over 300 Jewish leaders, including women’s rights advocates and rabbis, urged the United Nations on Tuesday to remove Reem Alsalem, the U.N. rapporteur on violence against women and girls, for denying that rape occurred during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The letter, which was addressed to U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres, came two weeks after Alsalem claimed in a post on X that “No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October.”
In the letter, its signatories express their “horror and outrage” at Alsalem’s rhetoric, and cite two U.N. reports from March 2024 and July 2025 that concluded that there was “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence had taken place during the attacks “in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape.”
The petition was organized by Amy Elman, a professor at Kalamazoo College who has authored books on antisemitism and state responses to sexual violence, and Rafael Medoff, the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. It was shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency soon after being sent to Guterres.
“The targeted sexual abuse of Israelis by Hamas and its supporters is one weapon in the arsenal of those seeking Israel’s obliteration,” Elman said in a statement. “It’s outrageous that deniers such as Reem Alsalem are aiding and abetting the sexual violence by claiming it never happened. These apologists should be ashamed of themselves.”
The letter’s signatories include Deborah Lipstadt, the former antisemitism envoy; Judith Rosenbaum, the head of the Jewish Women’s Archives; Rabbi Irving Greenberg, the former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Rabbi Deborah Waxman, the president of Reconstructing Judaism; and Hebrew College president Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld.
Dispute over whether sexual violence took place as Hamas murdered about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 has solidified as a point of sustained interest for some of Israel’s staunchest critics who allege that Israel and its supporters are using claims of rape as propaganda. Even the United Nations, frequently maligned by Israel and its supporters over its record toward Israel, has drawn allegations of complicity in the propaganda campaign from pro-Palestinian voices — though the U.N. rapporteur on Palestinian rights, Francesca Albanese, who has faced her own calls for dismissal from the Trump administration, has also publicly questioned the claims.
In addition to the U.N. reports, independent reporting and research by an Israeli nonprofit have validated claims of sexual violence on Oct. 7.
In the X exchange that spurred the new letter, Alsalem was arguing with another user about the Israeli government’s prosecution of soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian detainee.
A day later, Alsalem posted a link to a Substack podcast from October where she criticized the credibility of the March 2024 U.N. report and said she had sought contact with the Israeli government to confirm its findings but had not received a response.
“The media, certain organizations and the world basically fell into the trap that Israel set up, which is to project that there was barbaric sexual violence being committed by these barbarian Palestinian men, and it was spun around and disseminated and very much used in order to then justify the genocide,” said Alsalem on the podcast.
Medoff said in a statement that Alsalem’s continued employment reflected inconsistent standards when it comes to Israel and antisemitism.
“If a UN official made such a remark concerning rape victims from any other ethnic or religious group, there would be an international uproar,” he said. “The same standard should apply to Israeli Jewish women who were sexually assaulted by Hamas terrorists.”
The post Over 300 rabbis and Jewish leaders call for removal of UN official who denied Oct. 7 rapes appeared first on The Forward.
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Rome synagogue memorial for 2-year-old killed in 1982 Palestinian terror attack vandalized
(JTA) — A synagogue in Rome and a memorial for a 2-year-old boy killed in a 1982 attack by Palestinian terrorists on the city’s Great Synagogue were vandalized on Monday by unknown individuals.
The plaque dedicated to Stefano Gaj Taché, who was killed in the attack that also left 37 injured, is located on the Monteverde synagogue, also known as the Beth Michael Synagogue, in Rome.
The unknown vandals spray painted black on the memorial, and also wrote “Free Palestine” and “Monteverde anti-Zionist and anti-fascist” on the facade of the synagogue, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The vandalism was condemned by Victor Fadlun, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, who said in a post on Instagram that the incident came amid a “a climate of intimidation” where antisemitism has “become a tool of political protest.”
“We place our trust in the police and call for the government’s strong intervention to halt this spiral of hatred,” Fadlun continued.
The incident comes amid a recent series of antisemitic vandalism in Rome, an epicenter of pro-Palestinian activism that has continued to see large demonstrations even after the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In October, the words “Dirty Jews, may you all burn” were spray-painted on the shutters of a kosher bakery, and in June a sign at another local synagogue was defaced with the words “Sieg Heil” and ”Juden Raus.”
“This is an act that outrages the Jewish community and deeply wounds it, because the plaque is dedicated to a child murdered by Palestinian terrorism and because this is a meeting place where young people and children meet, where they pray and create a sense of community,” Fadlun told Corriere della Sera. “Attacking the synagogue in this way means disavowing and violating the right of Jews to be able to come together and lead a normal life.”
In a subsequent post on Instagram, Fadlun said Italian President Sergio Mattarella had spoken to him over the phone to express his “solidarity” in relation to the synagogue vandalism.
Antonio Tajani, the Italian minister of foreign affairs, also condemned the vandalism in a post on X, adding that he has called Fadlun as well.
The European Jewish Congress also condemned the vandalism in a post on X. “This is not ‘anti-Zionism.’ It is antisemitism: the targeting of Jewish memory, Jewish mourning and Jewish history,” the group said. “Stefano’s name is a symbol of one of Italy’s darkest terror attacks. His memory should be protected, not desecrated. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community of Italy and call on authorities to investigate this hate crime and ensure that such acts are treated with the seriousness they deserve.”
The post Rome synagogue memorial for 2-year-old killed in 1982 Palestinian terror attack vandalized appeared first on The Forward.
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Danny Wolf will see you now
When the Brooklyn Nets drafted Danny Wolf this summer out of the University of Michigan, scouts said they were getting a versatile big man who could get buckets, create for his teammates and rebound.
But the last few days of NBA action have shown the Jewish seven-footer picking up a surprising new habit: putting his opponents on posters.
After scuffling through the first two months of the season with a bum ankle, Wolf announced his arrival Saturday with a thundering jam on the Milwaukee Bucks’ Kyle Kuzma, for two of the forward’s career-best 22 points.
He claimed his next victim, in a 10-point, 7-rebound outing two days later, driving from the top of the arc before leaping off his left foot and dropping the hammer on the Charlotte Hornets’ Miles Bridges:
“That may get two howls!” Nets play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco cried.
Early returns have been limited since the Brooklyn Nets grabbed Israeli point guard Ben Saraf and Wolf with the 26th and 27th picks this summer. The learning curve for young floor generals is notoriously steep, and Saraf — who wears the number 77 to represent the Hebrew word mazal, meaning good fortune — has struggled to stay in the playing rotation.
But Wolf, an American-Israeli who was bar mitzvahed in Israel, is finding his footing — at least when he’s not taking off for a dunk. He dropped in five high-arcing three pointers against the Bucks, eliciting excited howls from Nets color commentator Sarah Kustok; before the Charlotte game, he apparently told teammates he was going to posterize somebody.
“I was kinda saying that as a joke,” he said, “but looking at it as an opportunity, and just trying to attack the rim, I did it, with rewards.”
“He manifested it,” said teammate Nic Claxton.
Let’s enjoy one more picture of Claxton and Wolf:
And here’s a Danny Wolf meme for good measure, courtesy of the Nets social media.
The post Danny Wolf will see you now appeared first on The Forward.