Newsweek Article on Alleged Hasidic Child Abuse Sparks Brooklyn Yeshiva Protest

Newsweek Article on Alleged Hasidic Child Abuse Sparks Brooklyn Yeshiva Protest
By Lucy Westcott On 3/18/16

About 40 protesters holding signs and chanting gathered outside the Ohlei Torah yeshiva in Brooklyn on a snowy Sunday evening in response to a Newsweek exposé on the alleged sexual and physical abuse of students by rabbis at the school.

Chaim Levin, the protest organizer whose story of abuse at Oholei Torah was chronicled in the Newsweek article, on Sunday spoke about the physical and sexual abuse he says he and other students at Ohlei were forced to suffer, saying: "It's unfathomable to me that the people who did this kind of violence are teaching."....

A statement on the Facebook page for the protest read: “For too long, teachers and principals in this school have ignored children being abused physically and sexually. There is evidence to suggest that in most of these cases the school knew about these crimes and chose not to act."

“Furthermore, three of the people mentioned in the Newsweek article, people who either abused children themselves or oversaw it, are still employed by the school,” the statement said.

The protesters were demaing an end to child abuse, the replacement of abusive staff and apologies to victims of childhood sexual abuse. Organizers also want victims to be paid compensation “for the damage caused by abuse,” they said in a press release....
http://www.newsweek.com/yeshiva-child-abuse-newsweek-protest-438482