Decades Later, Lanner Victims Finally Will Have Their Day In Court
A sex abuse scandal from 21 years ago is again in the news, and has pulled me back into its painful hold.
This week, five women who as teens in the 1970s and ‘80s were abused -- sexually, physically and emotionally -- by Baruch Lanner, a charismatic rabbi they had respected and admired, filed a civil suit against him and the organizations he helped lead: the Orthodox Union (OU) and its youth arm,National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), and the Hillel Yeshiva High School in Ocean, NJ.
Perhaps most disturbing, the leaders of those institutions are charged with ignoring and/or tolerating Lanner’s predatory behavior.
The filing of the lawsuit with the Superior Court of New Jersey brought back painful memories for those who were shocked by the revelations when they first came to light in The Jewish Week in June 2000, as well as for those who knew too much and failed to act.
The exposure of the scandal led to Lanner’s arrest and conviction. He served nearly three years in prison for molesting two teenage girls who were students at Hillel Yeshiva in the mid-1990s.
The scandal also led to a reckoning of sorts, within and beyond the Orthodox community, about how to recognize, prevent -- and, if necessary, deal with -- sexual abuse.
Many men and women who were abused by Lanner in decades past had no legal recourse due to the statute of limitations for such crimes.
The lawsuit this week — the first such action against the organizations charged — was made possible by a two-year “lookback” window that allowed sexual abuse victims to come forward and sue their abusers and enablers. The deadline was Nov. 30, the day after the suit was filed.
As someone who first reported on the Lanner story and was asked by the plaintiffs to disclose the news of their lawsuit, I plan to post a personal piece here in the coming days on what I’ve learned from covering too many cases of sexual abuse by clergy in our community: what has changed and what hasn’t -- and still needs to be addressed.
For now, here are two reports I wrote for The Jewish Week/JTA about this week’s events:
Nov. 29: Four women file suit against Lanner, OU and NCSY
https://www.jta.org/2021/11/29/ny/orthodox-union-and-its-youth-group-sued-over-past-abuse-by-baruch-lanner-rabbi-convicted-of-sexually-abusing-teenage-students
Dec. 1: Fifth woman joins suit, which now include yeshiva as defendant
Well done, Gary, for your past and present role in bringing this nightmare into the public eye. Catholic clergy do not have a monopoly on abuse. Just awful.