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July 12, 2002/Av 3 5762, Vol. 54, No. 43
Sex-abuse conviction closes a chapter
JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The recent sex-abuse conviction of Rabbi Baruch Lanner for groping two teen-age girls closed a highly disturbing chapter for the centrist Orthodox world.
But it remains to be seen how deeply the controversy will transform the community.
Lanner was found guilty June 27 in a Monmouth County, N.J., Superior Court of endangering the welfare of two girls between 1992 and 1996, while he was principal of a New Jersey yeshiva.
He also was their supervisor at the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, the youth wing of the Orthodox Union.
Lanner, 52, who has long maintained his innocence and whose lawyers said he will likely appeal, was also convicted of aggravated criminal sexual contact and sexual contact against one of the girls.
Freed on $100,000 bail, he is set to be sentenced Sept. 13. He faces between 10 and 20 years in jail and a maximum $300,000 fine.
The Lanner case not only stirred a rare public airing of the issue in the Jewish community, it also provoked intense debate in the community because Lanner allegedly abused scores of teen-agers over 30 years.
The scandal surfaced in June 2000 when the New York Jewish Week first reported the complaints against Lanner.
As public reaction swelled, the O.U. appointed the NCSY Special Commission on the Lanner case, and in December 2000 the panel released part of a scathing 332-page report blaming O.U. leaders for ignoring reports of Lanner's abuse and urging major organizational reforms.
Lanner, who worked for the Etz Chaim, N.J., branch of the NCSY and was principal at the Hillel Yeshiva High School in Ocean Township, N.J., left the yeshiva in 1997 and resigned from his NCSY position the day the Jewish Week story appeared.
Shockwaves reverberated through the O.U. after the charges became public and the group's executive vice president, Raphael Butler, eventually resigned.
Some say that under Butler's successor, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, the O.U. has worked hard to repair its reputation by instituting measures ensuring that complaints get aired and addressed.
Richard Joel, president and international director of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, who chaired the Lanner commission, said the O.U. has begun to act.
"The best thing to be said is that changes are still a work in progress," Joel says. "Weinreb really understands the dimensions of the challenge and has really begun the process of making the changes necessary at NCSY."
According to the O.U.'s new president, Harvey Blitz, the NCSY has instituted mandatory sensitivity training for all teen advisers, has created "ombusdmen" to hear complaints and has put in place formal procedures regarding sexual misconduct.
"I think there's been a significant change in attitude," Blitz said. "I think we're making substantial progress in changing the overall culture, but it takes time."
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