Jewish Camps, Schools Pressed to Adopt Child Sexual Abuse Policies
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — Over two dozen philanthropists and organizations have pledged to fund only Jewish day camps and schools taking “adequate steps to prevent, report, and investigate sexual abuse of minors.”
The was introduced on Sunday, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles reported Wednesday.
Some of its most prominent signees include Lynn Schusterman, co-founder and co-chairwoman of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; Dana Raucher, executive director of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation; and Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation.
“Without an open, urgent and broad-based communal conversation about this issue, we will continue to see headlines about children being molested while in the care of our community’s organizations, which are supposed to keep them safe,” said Jumpstart CEO Joshua Avedon, who co-organized the pledge with Los Angeles-based philanthropist Rochel Leah Bernstein-Deitcher.
According to the Jewish Journal, the pledge was started in response to an unnamed study conducted over the past year that found “uneven policies at Jewish schools and camps aimed at preventing sexual abuse.”
The pledge website said the “one thing that all Jewish organizations have in common is that they depend upon charitable gifts and grants to function.”
“By creating an expectation that organizations comply with certain standards, we can require them to act responsibly or face major impact to their bottom line,” the pledge website reads.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
