>Hassidic sect's "child-rape assembly line"
>"Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy."
>"This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face—fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn't stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, 'It's a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy's soul? You're destroying this boy!' He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. 'How dare you interrupt me!' he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen."
>The alleged abusers are schoolteachers, rabbis, fathers, uncles—figures of male authority. The victims, like those of Catholic priests, are mostly boys. Rabbi Rosenberg believes around half of young males in Brooklyn's Hasidic community—the largest in the United States and one of the largest in the world—have been victims of sexual assault perpetrated by their elders. Ben Hirsch, director of Survivors for Justice, a Brooklyn organization that advocates for Orthodox sex abuse victims, thinks the real number is higher. "From anecdotal evidence, we're looking at over 50 percent. It has almost become a rite of passage."
>the rabbinate seeks to cover up the crimes, quiet the victims, protect the abusers, and deflect potential criticism of their institutional practices. Those who speak out are vilified, and the faithful learn to shut their mouths.
>"I have children come to me with their parents, and the blood is coming out of the anus," Rabbi Rosenberg told me when we met. "These are zombies for life. What are we to do?"
