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March 9, 2001/Adar 14, 5761, Vol. 53, No.23
OU bars 6 board members, hopes to end scandal
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The Orthodox Union has decided not to discipline any of its staff for failing to stop a high-ranking professional accused last summer of harassing and molesting scores of teen-agers in its youth group.
But the organization will bar from its youth commission certain board members who - while they may not have known the full extent of Rabbi Baruch Lanner's alleged misdeeds - failed to act upon "red flags."
With these decisions, plus plans to revamp the organization and implement new safeguards against sexual abuse, the OU hopes to end the controversy that has swirled around it since the accusations against Lanner surfaced publicly last summer.
The recent decisions come more than two months after an outside report found Lanner, the charismatic former director of regions for the OU's National Conference of Synagogue Youth, guilty of abuse. An executive summary of the report was released in December. The summary also asserted that "certain members of the OU and NCSY leadership share responsibility for Lanner's misconduct."
The report called on the OU to hold "individuals who failed to take action against Lanner responsible for their conduct," but did not specify how. While no one is being fired, three key staff changes have been made since the misconduct allegations surfaced.
Lanner denied most of the charges against him, but resigned in July.
The OU's executive vice president, Rabbi Raphael Butler - who many people say was negligent in supervising Lanner - resigned in late January.
Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, the OU's senior executive, retired at the end of December. Stolper preceded Butler supervised Lanner until 1994.
The committee assigned to make recommendations from the December report "looked at the professional staff and what the report said, and decided there was no need to terminate anyone still working there," said Harvey Blitz, the OU's president.
Blitz, cited in the report as someone who failed to act upon "red flags," was careful to note that the committee did not "reach any conclusion" about whether Stolper or Butler should have been disciplined had they not retired.
He also emphasized that the decision to bar approximately half a dozen unnamed lay leaders from serving on the youth commission does not mean the OU considers them guilty of anything. Rather, Blitz said, the OU wants to bring fresh faces to the youth commission to regain parents' trust.
OU officials appeared at a recent meeting for New Jersey parents and expressed their sorrow for the pain allegedly caused by Lanner.
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