Leiby Kletzky Murder Reignites Fight Over Reporting Abuse

Image by Getty Images

Standing Guard: Police guard home of family of Leiby Kletzky after Brooklyn boy?s murder. Image by Getty Images
The abduction and murder of Leiby Kletzky in a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn has reignited a debate over when Jews can report sexual abuse to the authorities.
Levi Aron, 35, was indicted on murder charges in the July 12 killing and dismemberment of 8-year-old Leiby. In a confession to police, Aron said he panicked after seeing flyers about the missing boy, and suffocated him with a towel in Aron’s apartment. He had picked up Leiby on a Brooklyn street after the boy had asked for directions home.
Shortly after Aron’s arrest, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said one of Aron’s neighbors claimed he had tried to lure her son into his car, just as he is accused of doing with Leiby.
Now, two leading Orthodox groups, the Rabbinical Council of America and Agudath Israel of America, have released competing and contradictory guidelines on whether Jews need a rabbi’s permission before turning a suspect in to secular authorities.
Agudath Israel issued its statement first after one of its leading rabbis, Shmuel Kamenetsky, made a remark on July 12, at an event in Flatbush, Brooklyn, while the search for Leiby continued in nearby Boro Park.
At the event, Kamenetsky reiterated the widespread Orthodox belief that Jews must consult a rabbi before reporting abuse to the authorities.
Victims should report crimes only “after you bring it to a rav [rabbi],” Kamenetsky said in a recording posted on the Failed Messiah blog. If they do not consult a rabbi, many strictly Orthodox Jews fear they will violate the law of mesirah, the prohibition against informing on a fellow Jew to secular authorities. However, law-enforcement officials and victims’ advocates have warned for some time that rabbinic interference in reporting abuse, puts young lives at risk.
In a number of well-documented cases, rabbis have failed to report abusers to the authorities. Law-enforcement officials also warn that seeking advice from a rabbi causes delays that could harm a police investigation.
Rabbi Kamenetsky is vice president of Agudath Israel of America’s Supreme Council of Rabbinic Sages, the top strictly Orthodox rabbinic authority in the country.
Within days of his speech, Agudath released a lengthy statement clarifying and reinforcing Kamenetsky’s position.
The statement said that Jews could only report an abuser to the authorities if there was “raglayim la’davar” (reason to believe) abuse had taken place. It emphasized that only a rabbi could determine whether the bar for reasonable suspicion had been reached.
“Because the question of reporting has serious implications for all parties, and raises sensitive halachic issues,” the statement read, “the individual should not rely exclusively on his own judgment to determine the presence or absence of raglayim la’davar.”
Such a position was at odds with a statement released days later by the Rabbinical Council of America, Modern Orthodoxy’s largest rabbinic association.
The RCA said that adults who suspect abuse are “obligated to refer the matter immediately to the secular authorities” without the need to consult a rabbi.
Only where “facts are uncertain” should “experts, both lay and rabbinic” be consulted, the RCA said.
The statement was based on guidelines adopted by the RCA at its annual convention, held in May last year.
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, president of the RCA, clarified the position in a telephone interview with The Forward. “I believe our position is that one has to err in favor of the protection of potential victims,” Goldin said.
“In normal circumstances, when a child comes before you, or a potential victim, and accuses someone of abuse, our position is you are under no obligation to consult with anyone. You are under an obligation to act as long as you feel there is a possibility this is real.”
Goldin added that very few rabbis are equipped to deal with allegations of abuse. “Our recognition is that the rabbi does not necessarily have to be consulted in a situation as immediate and urgent as this,” Goldin said.
Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel, said that a rabbinic degree did not, in and of itself, qualify a rabbi to deal with matters of abuse.
But he added: “Rabbis who have ministered to families for many years are very likely to have dealt with such issues, and those who have, and who have consulted with mental health professionals and other experts, are most qualified to responsibly handle questions about what constitutes ‘reasonable suspicion’ in such matters.”
He continued: “There are rabbis in most larger Orthodox Jewish communities who well fit that bill, and even in communities where there might not be, such an authority is no farther away than a telephone or computer.”
Goldin said Agudath had a right to its halachic position. But he added that the RCA felt “extremely strongly” about its guidelines.
“Do we believe we are right? Yes. Would we be pleased if Agudath took the same position? Yes, we would,” Goldin said. “We feel it is halachically correct, we want to protect victims and potential victims, and we want to be clear this position is a valid bona fide position in the Orthodox community.”
Contact Paul Berger at [email protected]
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Opinion In Trump’s war against campus antisemitism, hate the tactics but don’t ignore the problem
-
Yiddish כ׳בענק נאָך די וועלטלעכע ייִדן וואָס האָבן אָפּגעריכט אַ טראַדיציאָנעלן סדר Longing for those secular Jews who led a traditional seder
מײַן פֿעטער יונה האָט נישט געהיט שבת און כּשרות אָבער בײַם אָפּריכטן דעם סדר האָט ער געקלונגען ווי אַ פֿרומער ייִד
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.