Chaim Walder dies

[TimT]

A Rabbi in the dati leumi community in Israel.

Is R’ Eliyahu aware of this ?

[JlmBoi]

As PG said upthread, had the issue been Shabbos and not married women, would those who knew remained silent? What if it had been married men? I'd wager anything he'd have been blacklisted with extreme prejudice.

Honestly, when things are a קול, never proven in public, and it's about someone so powerful, I don't think it matters what it's about. Shabbos is a weird one, that's a very weird scenario that has never happened, but if it was with men I don't think it would have been any different. It take alot to get blacklisted in that position.

[WonderingYid]

Idk if people knew about his deeds with minors, the issues with married women were well known (not sure to what degree, people knew to say keep away from him).

Well known to who?

[JlmBoi]

Is R’ Eliyahu aware of this ?

He was very involved in dealing with that affair. People have a way of letting some time go by and then pulling out all the old stupid sayings of "he is a very warm person" "they were just trying to take him down". There's some place where rational people's understanding of irrational people ends. There's a man who sat in jail for many years for the rape of a family member. He is now a Rebbe and goes on the regular Rebbe tours, raising money and giving out brachos. Many people have reservations, but noone calls this out on a public level.

[WonderingYid]

He was very involved in dealing with that affair. People have a way of letting some time go by and then pulling out all the old stupid sayings of "he is a very warm person" "they were just trying to take him down". There's some place where rational people's understanding of irrational people ends. There's a man who sat in jail for many years for the rape of a family member. He is now a Rebbe and goes on the regular Rebbe tours, raising money and giving out brachos. Many people have reservations, but noone calls this out on a public level.

Can we get the name?

[JlmBoi]

Well known to who?

Part of the general public. I am very loosely associated with someone whose workplace very loosely overlaped with his, I heard from them a few years ago that the women know to stay away. The worst part of people saying well its two consenting adults is that this guy was a master manipulator and preyed on the vulnerable. Just because it might have not been clear physical rape doesn't make it into a romance.

[JlmBoi]

Can we get the name?

SA Rebbe of KG.

[ExGingi]

He brings out a point I was wondering about. In what capacity did he have patients? Was he a social worker? Psychologist? Something else? An untrained "mentor"? He seems to say it was the last. Is that the case?

I saw that questioned/raised somewhere in the past week or so (probably somewhere in the Hebrew twitterspace, or it might have even been here on DDF). Unfortunately, it seems to be commonplace in our communities to trust various people for counseling, where they don't have any accredited credentials or training.

[flyingace]

Part of the general public. I am very loosely associated with someone whose workplace very loosely overlaped with his, I heard from them a few years ago that the women know to stay away. The worst part of people saying well its two consenting adults is that this guy was a master manipulator and preyed on the vulnerable. Just because it might have not been clear physical rape doesn't make it into a romance.

Are the episodes with the young girls from before that was known or are they recent cases? I cannot believe a parent or Rav or educator who knew that he had issues with married women would send a young girl to him.

[JlmBoi]

Are the episodes with the young girls from before that was known or are they recent cases? I cannot believe a parent or Rav or educator who knew that he had issues with married women would send a young girl to him.

I don't know from when. I hope your right.

[123-Rosh]

Can we get the name?

https://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/no-rebbes-child-left-behind-in-jail/

[aygart]

Are the episodes with the young girls from before that was known or are they recent cases? I cannot believe a parent or Rav or educator who knew that he had issues with married women would send a young girl to him.

Yet he was employed by the Bnei Brak municipality to work with children

I saw that questioned/raised somewhere in the past week or so (probably somewhere in the Hebrew twitterspace, or it might have even been here on DDF). Unfortunately, it seems to be commonplace in our communities to trust various people for counseling, where they don't have any accredited credentials or training.

I would have thought it to be more the people whose main source of medical info is the health food store and not set up by the municipality.

[avromie7]

Interesting Prospective
https://nefesh.org/YitziHorowitz/vilifying-chaim-walder.html

Interesting, but a very dark road to go down, and now isn't necessarily the time for that discussion.

I was actually somewhat thinking about this before reading this article, and it's something I have thought about in the past but more specifically after I watched the long video from Rabbi Russell. After watching his video I understood that the overwhelming majority of abuse does not come from bad people.

As Rabbi Russell said, originally, when counseling abuse victims he would refer to the perpetrator as the bad person, but at some point he realized that a lot of victims would close up when that happened because 30% of victims had already abused others. Eventually he changed to referring to it in terms of responsibility so whatever happened until now is not your fault, but now that you are in therapy you are responsible for whatever happens going forward.

Without accepting the perpetrators are human beings, they are forced to hide whatever happened and make believe it never happened. It's entirely possible that all (or almost all) of CWs victims could have been saved if he would have gotten the help he needed. By vilifying it he was forced to "toughen up" and deal with it alone.

Finally, as I heard from R' Gershon Weiss, he was once talking to R' Moshe Feinstein about a bachur who was a kleptomaniac, every time he referred to it as a machla R' Moshe corrected him and said Yetzer Horah. I think the same applies here, I don't think these people are evil or sick (what they do is sick), they have a yetzer hara and left unchecked it evolves into something evil.

[yuneeq]

The Yeted article stated ז״ל not זצ״ל.

Also very important to note, if you read Rav Eliyahu psak carefully you will note that they didn’t hear testimony FROM 22 victims, only ABOUT 22 victims.

Read it better. He heard testimony from 22 witnesses, which included several victims.

[Dawie]

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Zimmerman Speaking Out Against Abuse
https://www.torahanytime.com/#/lectures?v=173791

[AsherO]

I was actually somewhat thinking about this before reading this article, and it's something I have thought about in the past but more specifically after I watched the long video from Rabbi Russell. After watching his video I understood that the overwhelming majority of abuse does not come from bad people.

As Rabbi Russell said, originally, when counseling abuse victims he would refer to the perpetrator as the bad person, but at some point he realized that a lot of victims would close up when that happened because 30% of victims had already abused others. Eventually he changed to referring to it in terms of responsibility so whatever happened until now is not your fault, but now that you are in therapy you are responsible for whatever happens going forward.

Without accepting the perpetrators are human beings, they are forced to hide whatever happened and make believe it never happened. It's entirely possible that all (or almost all) of CWs victims could have been saved if he would have gotten the help he needed. By vilifying it he was forced to "toughen up" and deal with it alone.

Finally, as I heard from R' Gershon Weiss, he was once talking to R' Moshe Feinstein about a bachur who was a kleptomaniac, every time he referred to it as a machla R' Moshe corrected him and said Yetzer Horah. I think the same applies here, I don't think these people are evil or sick (what they do is sick), they have a yetzer hara and left unchecked it evolves into something evil.

Abusers are human beings too, but humanizing them too much is dangerous as it can be interpreted by their/other survivors of abuse as defending them or somehow rationalizing how they got to where they did, or worse yet what they did. Especially since Russell is doing it with an individual in therapy, and you’re broadcasting it on a public forum.

The topic here (as well as kleptomania) is a Machla, so let’s please call a spade a spade. Every sin is insanity in a sense: אין אדם עובר עבירה אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות. At the same time, they can’t just “plead insanity” and no longer be accountable.

[mgarfin]

[WonderingYid]

Can someone translate?

[Euclid]

Official letter with R Gershon Edelshtein approval

[YossieW]

Can someone translate?

https://vinnews.com/2021/12/30/rabbi-issues-letter-praising-chaim-walder-questioning-rabbi-shmuel-eliyahu/