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Satmar Grand Rebbe visits convicted sexual abuser Nechemya Weberman in prison
(New York Jewish Week) — The Satmar “Grand Rebbe” Zalman Teitelbaum paid a visit to convicted sexual abuser Nechemya Weberman in prison last month, according to a Yiddish-language newspaper serving the Satmar Hasidic community that has published a series of favorable articles about the former therapist accused of sexually abusing an adolescent girl starting from when the victim was 12 years old.
The visit, and the weekly series of articles in Kiryas Joel Vochenshrift, have riled advocates for sexual abuse victims in the Hasidic community. They say the community’s leadership has a pattern of downplaying abuse charges and in this case convictions, further traumatizing the victims.
A sexual abuse survivor who lives in Kiryas Joel, the Orange County, New York seat of Zalman Teitelbaum’s Satmar faction, told the New York Jewish Week that abuse victims like her feel they are “being stabbed” when they see support for accused abusers in the Hasidic media and among their leaders.
“It’s retraumatizing victims,” said the survivor, who asked not to be named for reasons of privacy and safety. “It’s being stabbed every week, again and again, and knowing that if you’re ever going to open your mouth you’re going to be kicked out.”
The woman said that other survivors within the community told her “that they are not going to come forward so quick again because they see this every week.”
“It’s the most horrific thing,” the source said. “I am reliving all the hell that I’ve gone through. They are taking a molester, who did the worst thing, and they are promoting him, and calling him holy.”
An article from Kiryas Joel Vochenshrift, which is publishing a weekly series about convicted sexual abuser Nechemya Weberman. (Courtesy)
The newspaper serves the faction of the Satmar community that is loyal to Zalman Teitelbaum. It published an article about his visit on Nov. 11.
A weekly series sympathetic to Weberman has been running since August. The articles are written accounts from organized visits to Weberman’s jail cell by members of the community, including prominent rabbis. They include letters from Weberman himself and letters from people in the community to him.
“They say he’s wrongfully accused,” Shulim Leifer, a member of the Hasidic community who has read the articles, told the New York Jewish Week. “It’s written in a sense that it’s a foregone conclusion, that it’s a lynching that he went through.”
Accrding to the article about Teitelbaum’s visit, the rabbi spent over an hour with Weberman and “offered words of faith and belief in God” while the convicted sexual abuser was at Rikers Island for an appeal, the article said. Weberman is now at Shawangunk Prison in upstate New York. “Thanks to Hashem, after much advocacy, we did manage to prevail and we managed to get a visit from the [Grand Rebbe] who was able to come into the dark walls,” the article reported.
The United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, whose leaders act as spokespeople for Teitelbaum, declined a request from the New York Jewish Week for comment.
The articles are written by Rabbi Abraham Yehoshua Fraynd. Neither Fraynd nor the newspaper responded to a request for comment.
Weberman, was an unlicensed therapist who served the fervently Orthodox Satmar community, was 54 when he was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing a young woman over the course of three years beginning in 2007. He was given a 103-year sentence in 2013, close to the maximum permitted by law.
The victim spent 15 hours on the witness stand recalling how she had been repeatedly raped and forced to perform oral sex in Weberman’s counseling office, where she had been sent because of her alleged immodest dress and rebellious behavior.
Many members of the Satmar community stood behind Weberman, who had served as the driver for the late Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, the father of Zalman Teitelbaum and his brother Aaron, who now lead rival factions of the Hasidic movement. Aaron Teitelbaum went so far as to suggest that Weberman’s accuser was “a zona,” which translates to “whore.” The victim claimed that after going to the district attorney, she received both bribes and threats in an attempt to convince her not to testify. The Hasidic community has long discouraged members from going to outside law enforcement, a practice long decried by advocates for victims of sexual abuse and other crimes.
In an article published Dec. 6, Weberman is quoted saying that his prison trial was “a mesira,” an act in which one Jew informs on another in contravention of Jewish law.
“Yes it’s true that there was a jury trial,” Weberman said in the piece. “It’s true in the course of nature, you can expect to get a prison term from a jury in such a case, but I got something that’s over 100 years. And that is something that’s outside of the ordinary.”
Weberman then laments that he doesn’t have a way to advocate for himself while stuck behind bars.
“I’ve been trying to appeal three or four times, that’s not normal,” Weberman said. “What am I left to believe? Am I supposed to believe that I’m never getting out of here? No.”
In another article, Weberman said, “I’ve accepted that God put me through this for reasons that I can’t understand.”
“Even though I’m wrongfully accused, I think one day, I’ll be out,” Weberman said.
Throughout many of the articles, Weberman is called many honorific names, including “a tremendous Hasid” and “shlita,” an acronym reserved for revered members of the community.
Leifer said that there are sexual abuse survivors within the community who are “beside themselves and disturbed by how this guy is lionized and idolized.”
“Sex abuse victims feel hurt and betrayed by this behavior,” Leifer said. “There is sort of a widespread undercurrent in the haredi community that we don’t do a good job with sex abuse, in terms of exposing it, preventing it, or helping victims.”
A Hasidic community member in Williamsburg who is close with the Weberman family told the New York Jewish Week that “no one really knows what happened behind closed doors,” referring to the abuse charges.
“It’s a pity that he’s been in jail already for such a long time,” the community member said.
The source added that Weberman, 64, is now “an old, broken man, with a family who suffers.”
“The community felt like he didn’t have a fair trial,” the source said. “If it really happened, he’s no longer a threat, that’s for sure.”
The source also said that according to Weberman’s family, the convicted felon is being kept in “inhumane” conditions. “There’s no air conditioning, no heat, no TV, it’s freezing,” the source said. “I’m not sure why we are not allowed to give a voice to someone who is inhumanely treated.”
David N. Myers, co-author of “American Shtetl,” a 2022 book about the Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel, told the New York Jewish Week that Teitelbaum may have visited Weberman in prison due to the rabbinic principle of “pidyon shevuyim,” which translates to “liberating captives.”
“Haredi Jews take this principle seriously,” Myers, a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in an email. “There is a strong ethos of providing assistance to and seeking the release of fellow observant Jews who are incarcerated — often on the presumption that they, as good Jews, must have been treated unfairly or imprisoned under false pretenses.”
Myers added that there is a growing sense among haredi Orthodox Jews that they are under siege by the media and secular authorities. He noted the community rage over a New York Times investigation in September that reported on Hasidic schools that are not meeting New York State standards in secular instruction.
“Many New York-area haredim feel under siege,” Myers said. “To be sure, the Weberman case precedes this new wave. He has always had some supporters, as well as many accusers and critics. But the current moment is one in which people in the haredi world feel greater liberty to say that the media are biased against them.”
In August 2021, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez wrote to then Governor Andrew Cuomo and asked him to commute Weberman’s sentence. (By then, Weberman’s sentence had been cut in half under a state law that requires a maximum of 50 years for the type of felonies for which he was convicted.) Gonzalez had long sought leniency for people with lengthy prison sentences, but local activists said his request smacked of politics.
Cuomo, who resigned in August 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal, did not respond to Gonzalez’s request.
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PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors
(JTA) — The president of PEN America resigned over the weekend in protest of a report on boycotts targeting Jewish and Israeli authors, part of yet another round of internal division over Israel at the literary free-speech institution.
Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-American novelist and Bard College professor, told The Atlantic he was stepping down because he believed the PEN report, “A Silent Moratorium,” failed to defend the free-speech rights of participants in the movement to boycott Israel.
“It’s the First Amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,” Mengestu told the publication. “PEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.”
The author did not respond to multiple Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment, but in an Instagram post Monday alluded to an interest in creating a new organization to rival the prominent nonprofit, which defends the free expression rights other writers.
In response to an interview request, PEN sent a statement to JTA saying it was “grateful” for Mengestu’s leadership and would “respect” his decision. The statement also alluded to PEN’s own past turmoil: “We tell hard stories, in politically challenging moments, about writers from a range of perspectives, even when it’s uncomfortable for us given our own recent history.”
In its report, published on its blog, PEN described “Jewish and Israeli writers who feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.” Interview subjects include several Israel critics, as well as literary agents who assert that they face more difficulties signing Jewish authors after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and amid the subsequent war in Gaza. The report also repeatedly cited a JTA report about a 2024 viral list of “Zionist” authors to boycott.
Among other details, PEN’s report revealed that Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and public radio host Ira Glass had cancelled a planned live event in Australia over fears of threats and protest.
“This silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all,” according to the report.
In addition to the report, PEN also altered its institutional policy toward cultural boycotts, which the organization has long opposed. Although its report on Jewish authors asserted that boycotts “threaten the free expression rights” of their targets, the revised guidelines say that the group will also defend the right of writers to participate in boycotts.
Mengestu’s resignation comes at a perilous moment for Jews facing cultural boycotts, both within the standard-bearers of PEN and elsewhere. PEN’s Jewish former longtime CEO stepped down in 2024 following months of blowback from rank-and-file authors who felt the organization was insufficiently critical of Israel and caused PEN to cancel a festival for global authors.
Since the leadership change, PEN leadership has published and retracted a condemnation of a boycott effort trained at an Israeli comedian and also published a report cataloguing Israel’s “cultural destruction in Gaza.”
Mengestu had assumed the role of board president in 2025. But PEN’s report about Jewish and Israeli writers on Thursday, he wrote, “makes clear that [change] will not happen.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply troubled” by Mengestu’s resignation Monday. “Freedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,” the organization tweeted, saying that the author’s decision to leave PEN over his objections to the report on Jewish authors “sends a chilling message.” Jewish authors also objected.
“Imagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,” the author David Zweig wrote on X, musing whether Mengestu would object to boycotting authors from his birth country: “Ethiopia doesn’t exactly have a good human rights record.”
In response to The Atlantic’s story that quoted sources from inside PEN who were critical of his resignation, Mengestu wrote a lengthy Instagram post Monday in which he stated, “This piece is about trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” criticized past PEN reports critical of the BDS movement, and added, “What PEN America fails to understand is that boycott is a form of dialogue.”
He announced his intention to “help make something better,” receiving affirmative comments from notable authors including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Angela Flournoy, Jewish pro-Palestinian novelist Jess Row and Pulitzer Prize-winner Benjamin Moser, author of a forthcoming history of Jewish anti-Zionism.
Other Jewish authors on the left were among those defending Mengestu’s decision to step down.
“Dinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,” author Sarah Schulman wrote on Facebook. Calling PEN’s blog about Jews “one of those fake anti-semitism pieces,” Schulman added, “If PEN wants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel/Zionism business.”
The post PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors appeared first on The Forward.
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Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide
(JTA) — The Church of England’s legislative body voted Monday to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.
The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The vote on Monday does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.
Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked Synod members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.
“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.
Afterwards, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”
“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she said.
She added, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She said the church remained opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
The Synod debate followed Mullally’s visit to the West Bank in June, where she met Palestinian Christian communities in Birzeit. During the visit she said, “I will use my role as Archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve.”
The debate marks the ascendance of Israel-related issues in another major church, after the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV angered Jewish groups soon after being elected last year by endorsing an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
The post Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide appeared first on The Forward.
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Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown
(JTA) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in against antisemitism after officials in his Indiana town say a costly fire may have been caused by arson to an Israeli flag displayed on a local barn.
The alleged arson broke out early Friday morning, damaging a historic home in Zionsville, Indiana, where Pence lives, and causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, according to the Zionsville Police Department.
Zionsville Mayor John Stehr said during a press conference on Friday that officials believed the fire began when an individual set fire to an Israeli flag that had been displayed outside the building alongside an American flag. The town later announced that the FBI had joined the investigation and that officials were examining whether the arson “may have been motivated by bias” but said no determination had been made.
“Absolutely despicable,” Pence tweeted on Sunday. “There can be no tolerance in America for Antisemitism or political acts of violence, and it is heartbreaking to see in our adopted hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. We thank God no one was hurt and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement.”
Pence has long cast himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, including after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and has also repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism in the conservative movement and beyond.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks also condemned the alleged arson in a post on X Saturday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated. Not in Zionsville. Not in Indiana. Not anywhere,” Banks wrote. “Thank you to the federal, state, and local officials working to bring the perpetrators of this despicable arson attack to justice.”
On Sunday, the Jewish community in central Indiana hosted a rally condemning the alleged arson attack, chanting, “We will stand up,” according to local outlet Fox 59. While Zionsville does not have a large Jewish community of its own, other suburbs of Indianapolis have significant Jewish populations, and Zionsville is also the longtime home of a Reform movement summer camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute, which is in session now.
“The founding fathers founded a country where we have the ability to resolve differences among each other; we don’t do it by firebombing homes,” rally organizer David Schiller told Fox 59. “It’s inexcusable and unacceptable.”
The Zionsville Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the status of the investigation on Monday.
The post Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown appeared first on The Forward.
