Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

New York JCC Camp Counselor Faces Child Pornography Charges

(JTA) — A camp counselor at a Jewish community center in Tarrytown, New York has been accused of possessing and distributing child pornography.

Benjamin Bojemski, 20, was arrested and charged with possession and distribution of child pornography in Greenburgh town court, the Shames JCC on the Hudson in Westchester County said in a statement Friday.

Shames Jewish Community Center said it had conducted a background check before Bojemski was hired as a counselor at its River Friends Day Camp in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

“We take our responsibility to our members and community very seriously; in particular as a provider of services to children,” the JCC’s executive director, Rabbi Andrew Ergas, said in the statement. “Creating safe and secure environment is at the core of our mission and values as an agency.”

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.