Accused Rabbi’s Supporters Clash With Protesters
Two ultra-Orthodox Jews were reportedly arrested after a confrontation between supporters of a Brooklyn rabbi accused of sex abuse and protesters.
The Daily News reported that scores of demonstrators faced off against a much larger crowd of supporters of Rabbi Nechemya Weberman, who is accused of abusing a teenage girl, in Williamsburg.
Police were called after scuffles broke out between the rival groups and the pair were charged with disorderly conduct, the paper said.
Weberman was arrested last year after a 16-year-old girl complained he had forced her to perform oral sex and other acts. Supporters say the girl concocted the accusations of abuse, which she says took place when she was 12.
Signs supporting the rabbi and promoting the fundraiser were plastered on main streets in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood.
The controversy over child sex abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community has exploded in recent weeks as the Forward and other publications have questioned Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’s strategy for countering the problem.
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