Clergy Sexual Abuse Across Traditions

June 29, 2002

Source: The Washington Post

On June 29, 2002, The Washington Post featured an article on an Orthodox Rabbi convicted of sexual abuse. "While sexual abuse of minors by priests has shaken the Roman Catholic Church this year, a smaller-scale but still painful scandal over sexual abuse by a charismatic rabbi has reverberated through the nation's Orthodox Jewish community... A jury of six men and six women in central New Jersey found Rabbi Baruch Lanner, 52, guilty of abusing two teenage girls... Once a rising star among Jewish educators, Lanner had been principal of a private religious high school as well as a full-time, high-ranking official in the youth movement of the Orthodox Union, an association of more than 1,000 synagogues... The Orthodox Union... has been consumed by public apologies, personnel changes and establishment of stricter policies against abuse," in reaction to this one case.