The interior of the boys’ gym at Yeshiva University High School in Los Angeles, better known as YULA. Photo by Louis Keene

By Louis Keene May 28, 2024

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the name of the staff member accused in the case.

Two students at an Orthodox Jewish high school in Los Angeles have come forward to report “an inappropriate relationship of a sexual nature” with the same female staff member, according to an email from the head of school obtained by the Forward.

Yeshiva University of Los Angeles, generally known as YULA, did not identify the employee identified by the students in the email sent on Tuesday to the school community, but said it was a woman working at the boys’ campus.

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Julie Tichon, a guidance counselor at the school, was later charged with three felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor more than 3 years younger and one count of oral copulation of a person under 18.

Rabbi Arye Sufrin wrote in the email that YULA received the first student’s allegation on Monday and the second student’s on Tuesday. He said the school had referred the matter to the Los Angeles Police Department.

“It is impossible to comprehend and beyond devastating that students would be facing this situation,” wrote Sufrin, who has worked at the school since 2008.

He said the woman is no longer on campus and has been directed not to communicate with anyone in the school community.

It is unclear how long she had worked at the school, or how old the students were at the time of the alleged contact.

The Forward obtained a copy of Rabbi Sufrin’s email on Tuesday from someone who got it from a parent who was on the original distribution list. When contacted about it, YULA administrators declined to comment further.

Located in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Pico-Robertson, YULA is the oldest and largest modern Orthodox high school in Los Angeles, with some 400 students between its two campuses.

The accusation follows a report in November regarding accusations of sexual misconduct at a Houston school that involved the longtime former head of LA’s Shalhevet High School, Rabbi Ari Segal. In a similar community-wide email, the board president of the Houston school said that a private investigator had found credible evidence that Rabbi Segal had “engaged in sexualized, persistent, emotionally charged communications” with two students during his tenure at Beren Academy from 2004 to 2011, though no sexual relationship was alleged.

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