Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Shomrim Member Gets Probation in Beating

Eliyahu Werdesheim, a member of a volunteer Orthodox Jewish neighborhood watch group, will serve three years probation for assaulting a black teenager in Baltimore.

Werdesheim, now 24, avoided jail time for the November 2010 beating of Corey Ausby, then 15, the Baltimore Sun reported. Werdesheim was a member of the Shomrim watch group at the time of the assault in the Upper Park Heights neighborhood, which is largely Orthodox but is adjacent to heavily African-American communities.

He and his now 22-year-old brother, Avi, originally were charged with false imprisonment and second-degree assault. Eliyahu Werdesheim was convicted on the two charges and faced up to 10 years in jail. His brother was cleared of all charges in early May.

The case had been the buzz of some local African-American radio talk shows and prompted a series of meetings between local African-American and Jewish leaders who were concerned about tensions between their communities.

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.