The saga of Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles “Joe” Hynes, and sex abuse in the “ultra orthodox” Jewish community has raised an interesting problem.  It seems no matter what his office does, it can’t win, and yet at the same time, the demand remains (as well it should) that he prosecute those who molest children.  And Hynes is taking a beating for his efforts.

Part of the problem is demonstrated by Jonathan Turley’s post, castigating Hynes for giving “preferential treatment” to Hasidic defendants by not revealing their names publicly, which follows up on an earlier post  with the same complaint.  This reflects a common mistake, where we try to understand problems derived from exceptionally peculiar cultural norms though our own experiences. Unless you were raised in Williamsburg, you’re not likely to get it.

The issue largely stems from a series of New York Times reports that were so badly off-based as to leave every reader stupider for their effort. Notably, Turley’s complaint, that Hynes is concealing the identities of child molesters, is factually wrong. The names of every defendant charged with a crime remains a matter of public record in court, a fact over which the prosecutor has no control. The complaint is that Hynes isn’t giving press conferences or sending out press releases to announce the names of those being prosecuted. This is a totally different animal.

Then, the DA has set up a hotline, Kol Tzedek (Voice of Justice), to encourage victims to come forward.  The media has gone nuts because Hynes hasn’t immediately turned over the names of cases that came into his office over the hotline because both the media and other victims demand to know.  It’s understandable that the public wants to know the identities of those accused of rape and molestation within their community, albeit that these are accused and still presumed innocent, but it comes at a price that significantly undermines the ability to prosecute.

There are, despite refusal to acknowledge, some unique problems dealing with this community.

1. The victims often go to their rabbi rather than the district attorney because they eschew the secular legal system.  The rabbis do not want victims to use the secular legal system and use their influence to persuade victims to allow them to deal with it.

2. There is a belief within the community that it is a sin to reveal a crime about a fellow member of the community to someone outside the community. In other words, they don’t rat on each other.

3. If someone in the community goes to secular authorities, and the community learns of it, there is overwhelming pressure to put a stop to it, whether by persuading them not to cooperate or testify, or if they’re not to be persuaded, by destroying them within the community. For example, in the case of a young woman who alleged she was forced to engage in oral sex by a rabbi, a bribe of $500,00 was offered, and then a threat of withholding kosher certification of her boyfriend’s restaurant.

4. Even after a victim has reported a crime, they commonly refuse to testify as they will not “go public” with their accusation and bear the consequences within the community, leaving the prosecutors dangling in the wind without any witness for trial. But this doesn’t mean they don’t want their molester to walk, and they rage against Hynes’ office for their failure to prosecute or the plea deals cut.

There’s an additional core problem that few would appreciate without a deeper understanding of this community. The normal assumption is that religious people behave in a manner consistent with the normal Christian ethic of being truthful in their lives.  With the ultra orthodox Jewish community, the cultural and religious expectation is that they are truthful to each other, but that anyone outside the community doesn’t count. 

There’s an adage, goyim are for practice. The cultural sense is that they can lie to outsiders with impunity as we are not worthy of the honest treatment expected within their community. We are heathens, and there is nothing wrong with lying to outsiders at will.  Even when the outsiders are Jewish.  To the ultra orthodox, anyone not part of their community isn’t really Jewish, and get the same treatment as non-Jews.

Because of this, there is no qualm about haranguing the Brooklyn District Attorney for its failure to obtain punishment when the people doing the haranguing are the people who refused to cooperate or testify, but then deny their role.  

Try putting all this into the usual paradigm.  It makes no sense to us, but that’s how it comes down.

This leaves the line prosecutors in Brooklyn facing a constant series of conundrums, with secrecy, lies and threats on the part of both accusers and accused, while trying to stop and prosecute rape and child molestation within a community that does everything possible to thwart a system that requires evidence and provides a process with which they refuse to comply.  It ain’t easy.

No one wants to see sex offenses either ignored or perpetuated, but at the same time the ultra orthodox community refuses to work with the secular criminal justice system to do anything about it.  Certainly, the criminal justice system can’t convict defendants in the absence of evidence, a far more “special” treatment than not throwing a party for the media every time a victim comes forward.  But if the victim refuses to testify, options for the prosecution suddenly disappear. 

And when the victim subsequently complains that the prosecutor gave the accused “special treatment” while lying about their refusal to testify, the media eats it up. There is no serious challenge to the veracity of a victim of rape or sex abuse, and, frankly, Joe Hynes is no media darling and pretty much every reporter in the city loves to give him a smack whenever possible.

But that doesn’t mean he deserves the castigation he’s received this time.  More importantly, the line prosecutors who actually handle these cases are dancing as fast as they can to deal with the conflicting and, from our outside secular perspective, irrational conduct by both the victims and the community.  Like it or not, these are the problems facing the prosecution, and they’re dancing as fast as they can.