|
|
June 30, 2000/27 Sivan 5760, Vol. 52, No.43
NCSY chapter resigns over rabbinic controversy
GARY ROSENBLATT
The New York Jewish Week
NEW YORK - The nation's largest synagogue-sponsored chapter of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth seceded this week from the youth arm of the Orthodox Union, sending a powerful message to national leadership over how the Baruch Lanner situation was handled over the years and indicating the crisis is not over.
Even after Rabbi Lanner's resignation as NCSY director of regions was announced last Friday, wide-scale communal fallout continued from The Jewish Week's special report on the rabbi's alleged long-term abuse of teens - physical, emotional, psychological and sexual - and the failure of the OU to take decisive action over a period of three decades.
In addition to hundreds of letters, e-mails and phone calls to the newspaper from individuals expressing outrage at the OU, there were signs of dissension within the OU and its synagogues.
Congregation Beth Aaron of Teaneck, N.J., a large and active Orthodox synagogue led by Rabbi Ephraim Kanarfogel, voted overwhelmingly at its annual membership meeting Sunday night "to immediately withhold all monies to be paid to the Orthodox Union and to national and regional NCSY" until it was satisfied that provisions for supervision of young people at NCSY events are improved and that responsible OU and NCSY personnel are in place.
The mood of the congregation was described as "fighting mad" by one congregant who attended, adding that the OU and NCSY have "zero credibility around here."
This congregant said members were deeply concerned over what they observed to be a lack of proper adult supervision in NCSY programs in other regions and chapters, where some advisers reportedly tell youngsters to put religious observance above parental instructions and ties.
The wider complaint, according to several insiders, is that Rabbi Lanner has molded and trained a number of rabbis and youth leaders who emulate his charismatic style and sometimes eccentric behavior, encouraging advisers to do whatever is necessary to make youngsters more observant.
An OU spokesman said the response in Teaneck, with its strong connections to the Lanner case was atypical of NCSY chapters around the country, which number in the hundreds.
Dr. Mandell Ganchrow, president of the OU, the national central body of Orthodox synagogues, left for meetings with political leaders in Israel on Sunday and was unavailable for comment this week. But in a statement released last Friday in response to The Jewish Week article, he said "we regret and are greatly saddened by the charges contained in" the report.
"Having decided, in light of the seriousness of the allegations made against him, that he can no longer continue in his position with NCSY and its parent body, the Orthodox Union, Rabbi Baruch Lanner has tendered his resignation, which has been accepted, effective immediately."
|
