Jewish Teacher Questioned in Dutch School Abuse
Dutch police asked Israel for help in investigating the actions of a Tel Aviv teacher suspected of molesting pupils at an Orthodox Jewish school near Amsterdam.
The man, identified only as Ephraim S., immigrated last year to Israel after being fired from his job as a teacher at the Cheider school in Buitenveldert near Amsterdam, De Telegraaf daily reported on Friday. The school has 200 pupils aged two to 18.
According to De Telegraaf reporter Iris Cohen, the suspect, who is in his twenties, was fired from the Dutch school for “inappropriate conduct” but currently gives private lessons in Israel.
The paper reported that a number of families and pupils filed complaints with the police against the teacher, including a 16-year-old who said he had “sexual contact” with the suspect. The man left the Netherlands for Israel after the complaints were filed, but before authorities had issued an arrest warrant.
Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, Holland’s chief interprovincial rabbi and a member of the school’s board, said the school, which also sought charges against the teacher, went by the book as soon as the allegations surfaced.
“From the second the first complaint came in, we consulted the lawbook and did everything in accordance to it so nothing gets swept under the carpet here,” he told JTA.
The suspect worked for about a year as a teacher for the primary school, he added. Jacobs told De Telegraaf that the case “aroused panic in some teachers, who are now afraid their children have also been molested.”
De Telegraaf contacted the suspect through his attorney, who declined to comment on the allegations. Jacobs said the man had denied the allegations when they first surfaced.
There was no indication yet whether the Netherlands would seek the man’s extradition.
A message from our Publisher & CEO 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
