Jewish Blogger Tries to Focus on the Good in a Pedophile

[longskirts]

I couldn't believe this, from a blogger Lina links to:

 

"And for this month, as I have over the years, I have tried to focus on the "nekudah hatova" the dim spark of goodness within Sammy."

 

She also won't give the pedophile's real name, even though this could help people identify other victims.

 

jewishmom.com/2011/09/07/my-neighbor-the-pedophile/

[debrand]

Earlier this year, 5 Nachlaot residents, all single men in their 50s, were arrested for luring young children with candy and then molesting and raping them. And then this past Sunday, the man accused of leading this neighborhood network of pedophiles was arrested as well. Several friends whose children were abused by this man, whom I will call “Sammy,â€* have told me of his particularly cruel abuse of the children, and his threats to beat up the children if they dared to not return to him for more abuse or dared to tell their families.

As far as we know, all of Sammy’s victims were religious (even though Sammy was not) and to date the authorities know of over 50 children who were raped by him and his cohorts. And I have a hunch that now that Sammy is behind bars those numbers will go even higher.

How sad for those families. :cry:

For the past month, I knew that Sammy was going to be arrested, but I still had to grit my teeth underneath my fake smile during these gross conversations so that he wouldn’t realize the police knew what they knew and flee before his arrest. And for this month, as I have over the years, I have tried to focus on the “nekudah hatova,†the dim spark of goodness within Sammy.

But now, as a psychologist friend recommended, I’m just trying to finally allow myself to feel this nuclear reactor of anger that burns within me–against Sammy for being so evil, and for committing these crimes against the purest, the most innocent, the holiest children in the world.

May Hashem heal those children who Sammy and his cohorts managed to harm so terribly, and may He reward our careful vigilance by completely protecting all of our children from harm, always

It sounds as if she had to interact with him because she knew that the police were going to arrest him. She couldnt' let him know that something was up. That must have been very difficult and I understand why she felt the need to find something, anything, decent in the man. How do you continue as normal with such a despicable person?

[Guest Anonymous]

Yeah, it doesn't sound to me like she is trying to protect the man.

I don't really understand why she was in a position of being aware of his impending arrest for a month before it happened, though.

I also don't understand anyone's compulsion to make small talk with people they don't want to talk to. My neighbours are all (AFAIK) reasonable decent people, but if I am busy/distracted/not in the mood to chat, I just smile, say 'good morning' and move swiftly on my way, when I am leaving the house.

[longskirts]

For context, this blogger wrote a post a while back in which she express sympathy for someone who was caught on videotape withholding food from her children:

jewishmom.com/2010/10/20/meeting-meah-shearims-starving-mother/

After reading that, I'm suspicious whenever she talks about finding the "good" in an abuser. At the very least, it's irresponsible to give the abuser a pseudonym. If people know someone who has harmed children, they need to spread the word about his identity so that victims can get help.

[JesusFightClub]

In trial conditions there are many things the police will ask you not to reveal. If he has not been found guilty she's doing the absolute right thing. If he has, she runs the risk of giving away her own location. I can't fault her for wanting to share the story without compromising anything or anyone.

[longskirts]

She has already revealed her location on the blog. This was not the police asking her to conceal the information. Her rabbi asked her to cover it up. Some Jewish communities have had a major problem of rabbis insisting that the identities of abusers be kept secret. It looks like that is going on here.

[JesusFightClub]

Because of crappy smartphone :( can't get to blog. Has he been tried and convicted?

[longskirts]

JesusFightClub, I don't know. However, her rabbi's order was the reason she cited for not giving the name. If she had said, "the police told me not to reveal this information" I would not question that.

[Guest Anonymous]

Someone called Sarah (is this you, long skirts?) has asked for the name and it seems she is willing to share it on request. So, technically, anyone could get hold of it and name him if they wanted?

I don't think that paedophiles should be protected or that Rabbis should order adults about, but I don't think there is any duty on this woman to name him if she chooses not to.

As per the post title, I was expecting the blog post to be publicly emphasising the 'good' in the man, but this blogger seems rather to have been using her internal focus as a means by which to keep the lid on her anger, until justice had run its course.

As I said before, the strange thing in this story for me is that she knew about his offences for a month before he could be arrested. If the police told her that this was necessary then it makes (a little) more sense. If the rabbi told her to wait that month then I'd be super-concerned, but there is nothing in the blog to confirm the reasoning for the wait.

[Kelya]

I mean, I read Imamother regularly and after seeing repeated threads where people ask questions like "I saw my brother in law with his penis in my five year old niece, how do i know if it is what is looked like? I don't want to ruin his life!" I'm very annoyed.

[Guest Anonymous]

I don't know if that post was a response to mine Kelya, but I just wanted to clarify something I said: going on what I have read, I don't think that particular blogger has a duty to name him on her blog, but I think everyone has a duty, every time, to report anything at all that relates to child abuse to the appropriate authorities.

[Kelya]

I don't know if that post was a response to mine Kelya, but I just wanted to clarify something I said: going on what I have read, I don't think that particular blogger has a duty to name him on her blog, but I think everyone has a duty, every time, to report anything at all that relates to child abuse to the appropriate authorities.

oh, not in response to you, just a general statement! :)

[Guest Anonymous]

Ah - OK! :)

Gave me a chance to re-read and clarify anyway!

[blisterine]

my son had to do a report on hitler in 5th grade and checked out the only book in his school library about hitler. i was appalled! it painted hitler to be a lover of music and fine art- yeah, i guess fine art they stole during world war ii!

my son's only question: "why didn't they get grandpa?" yep, my stepdad was jewish!

after he turned in his report- got a B- i went to the school library and asked them to remove it from the shelves. they refused. i ended up buying it and burning it!

[Austin]

my son had to do a report on hitler in 5th grade and checked out the only book in his school library about hitler. i was appalled! it painted hitler to be a lover of music and fine art- yeah, i guess fine art they stole during world war ii!

my son's only question: "why didn't they get grandpa?" yep, my stepdad was jewish!

after he turned in his report- got a B- i went to the school library and asked them to remove it from the shelves. they refused. i ended up buying it and burning it!

It's been said that Hitler loved and treated his dogs very well. As if dog/animal lover = good person - NOT!

[nuri]

It's been said that Hitler loved and treated his dogs very well. As if dog/animal lover = good person - NOT!

Very true, but there's something to be said for reminding people that evil isn't something larger than life or an external force. I want people to know that Hitler was a painter and music lover, that he was a vegetarian and dog lover -- it gives a very nuanced and human face to actions and beliefs that are wrong and evil.

One-sided villians suck in fiction, and even worse when they are memorialized that way in history. It leads the way for us to think that it can't happen again.

[longskirts]

More on this case is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/0 ... lp00000003

"Officials familiar with the investigation said parents tried to solve the problem themselves and took months to involve police."

[lilah]

nuri- you mind sharing the title of the hitler book? Now i'm curious.

I think your better bet would have been to donate some books to the library that explain Hitler and the Holocaust to an elementary school audience.

[valsa]

"Officials familiar with the investigation said parents tried to solve the problem themselves and took months to involve police."

Other than resorting to mob justice and killing/castrating these men (not something I support (the mob justice, I'm all for killing/castrating)), how the hell can they "solve the problem themselves"?

[Burris]

Very true, but there's something to be said for reminding people that evil isn't something larger than life or an external force. I want people to know that Hitler was a painter and music lover, that he was a vegetarian and dog lover -- it gives a very nuanced and human face to actions and beliefs that are wrong and evil.

I agree with this. In the past, research - e.g., the Milgram Experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment - has shown the capacity for evil is within everyone and can manifest when conditions are right.

Some of this research arguably shows there are circumstances where people become precisely what they're expected to be: Monsters if someone in a lab coat demands it, brutal prison guards within the context of a mere simulation involving fellow students and other innocents as prisoners.

And when people come to see themselves not merely as being capable of evil, but as being evil, then they also come to see the whispers of conscience merely is vapors of their former selves - as something that can no longer matter because they see no means of turning back.

It's good to for people to know this about human nature - that Hitler and his henchmen had interests outside of genocide, even as "Sammy" likely had interests outside of pedophilia; that these people are not cardboard caricatures but actual human beings that did this.

Knowing this may offer at least some level of protection to people who, in the face of great social pressure or when being cajoled by authority figures, can recall what they learned to maybe resist the evil impulse.

There's also something to be said for reminding people who have done great evil - e.g., "Sammy" - that the impulse for good also exists within them; that they can, through their future actions, become something more than what they've made of themselves. They should do this for the good of society, hopefully for the good of the people they've brutalized, and maybe even for their own good in time.

[2xx1xy1JD]

More information on the case here:

amotherinisrael.com/knesset-nachlaot-pedophile/

The families DID report the problem to authorities, but time was spent gathering evidence .

I just hope that there was at least some warning given to residents, and that authorities did not allow children to be used as "bait".

[valsa]

I agree with this. In the past, research - e.g., the Milgram Experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment - has shown the capacity for evil is within everyone and can manifest when conditions are right.

Not to take away from your general message (though I don't agree with it) but, iirc, there have been serious criticisms of how the Stanford Experiment was carried out. It wasn't the simple "these people turned bad with just a little bit of power" conclusion many people think it was. The researcher running it was far more involved than he should have been to get an objective result and I believe even gave instructions to the "guards" directly leading to some of what went on.

[emmiedahl]

I think it is important to remember that even the most evil people have a little good in them. Otherwise we have less of a reason to extend human rights to criminals. Who cares if we are waterboarding terrorists if they are all evil? But people are complicated, and they are still children of God, if you believe in Him/Her. This man was mentally ill, with a condition discussed in the DSM-IV, and he needs to be kept away from society because he is dangerous. It is easy to be angry, but we cannot stop being merciful as well.

[Burris]

Not to take away from your general message (though I don't agree with it) but, iirc, there have been serious criticisms of how the Stanford Experiment was carried out. It wasn't the simple "these people turned bad with just a little bit of power" conclusion many people think it was. The researcher running it was far more involved than he should have been to get an objective result and I believe even gave instructions to the "guards" directly leading to some of what went on.

Yes - Zimbardo's experiment was tainted when he became too much a part of the study. I wrote about his experiment a couple of years ago, on FSTDT, while deconstructing some horseshit Lydia Sherman had written.

Although a limit had been placed on what the “guards†could do to their charges - these people were given no instruction but that they were not permitted to physically harm the inmates - it took all of a day before these boundaries were tested.

The first day had been uneventful: Prisoners were subjected to tests of physical exertion and to the dehumanizing treatment outlined above, but each group had yet to slip completely into its role. Guards were assigned shifts, and permitted to return to their own homes during off-hours

By the second day, however, prisoners had actually organized into a revolt. Guards called for reinforcement from among fellow students who had been placed on-call for that purpose, and they armed themselves with fire extinguishers to break the uprising. These men actually hosed down the prisoners before entering each cell and stripping their charges naked as a form of punishment.

Considering the experiment was only a day old by then, this behavior was remarkable - not to mention creepy. And even as the guards became more brutal in adapting to their positions, Zimbardo and his colleagues began to unconsciously take the posture of bona fide prison administrators.

The authors of this experiment were drawn into it and, instead of merely observing and recording the reactions around them, began seeing the prisoners as deserving of increasingly harsh treatment.

Otherwise sane young men were reduced to quivering masses of nerve, and a couple of them - student/prisoners - had to be removed from the experiment within the first couple of days. Zimbardo would later recall he felt some reluctance to let them go, since he believed they were conning him to get out of facing consequences they deserved.

By day four, Zimbardo was perfectly willing to counter rumors of an escape attempt by transferring his pretend inmates to an actual prison.

These guards, meanwhile, had been brought closer together by the shared experience of having put down the revolt. At night, when they believed the cameras had been turned off, a few of them demonstrated genuine sadism in their interaction with fellow students.

By the fifth day, prisoners had been forced to walk around blindfolded and shackled. They also cleaned toilets with their bare hands, and were denied “bathroom privileges†for minor infractions.

That night Zimbardo’s girlfriend, Christina Maslach, dropped in on the prison to familiarize herself with the experiment. A newly minted psychologist just hired on at the University of Berkeley, Maslach had been asked to conduct interviews with the prisoners on the following day and wanted to look around ahead of time.

At first, Maslach, who was looking at security monitors to see what was going on, didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. She even chatted with one of the guards, whom she found to be charming and open - that is, until she saw him interact with the prisoners from her closed-circuit perch:

"This man had been transformed,†she said. “He was talking in a different accent ­ a Southern accent, which I hadn't recalled at all. He moved differently, and the way he talked was different, not just in the accent, but in the way he was interacting with the prisoners. It was like [seeing] Jekyll and Hyde. . . ."

Things only went downhill from there, and Maslach fought a wave of revulsion when she saw prisoners being led around with their heads covered by paper bags. One of the researchers poked fun at her for her timidity. After all, 50 people had come to observe the experiment without complaint - among them psychologists, friends of the students, a lawyer, and a priest - before Maslach raised an objection.

History, however, would bear her out. In looking over tapes and logs from that time, researchers saw the experiment had clearly gone out of control. Zimbardo, realizing this even in the grip of his own involvement, shut things down the next morning.

The Stanford Prison Experiment had lasted six days.

Zimbardo gave poor instructions and became too involved; there's not doubt about it. But why did so many people go along with it, even after Zimbardo had lost control of the experiment?

Moving fake prisoners to a real prison because of "escape attempt" rumors? That's not merely over-involved; it's fucking insane. And yet not only did all the people involved with the experiment go through with it, whether they wanted to or not, but outside monitors - people who weren't as personally involved with the experiment as Zimbardo was - actually allowed it.

I wonder how many people would have had to be involved, either directly or indirectly, with that circus to pull off everything that went on during the Stanford Prison Experiment.

As I pointed out here, for people who want to recreate the kind of environment Zimbardo helped make by accident, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a success: The results were repeatable; and the outcomes, more or less predictable.

They learned from Zimbardo's mistake, and even from Soviet and Khmer Rouge torture techniques, how to make the toxic soup that gave the world [=http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/abughraib.htmlurl]Abu Ghraib - and other places even worse.

I'm not arguing that people will turn bad merely for having tasted a little power; I'm arguing that people will often turn bad in such cases as the environment around them is designed with that specific result in mind. (People can also turn bad when they're groomed for the role of bogeyman.)

People are still responsible for their own actions, but those actions don't happen in a vacuum, and they don't occur only with bad people who have no depth of character beyond merely doing evil every waking moment.

I'm arguing against the idea that evil is innate, all-encompassing. and something that happens only to "someone else."

[Patsy]

Tangentially related to what you're saying, Burris - that "there but for the grace of God..." holds true for a lot of things, including this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01549.html ("Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?")

It's been massively popular since it was written, but I'm linking it for those who haven't seen it. I think acknowledging that we all have the capacity to fuck up massively, to allow pressure to override what we know to be right, to do evil things, is one of the best ways to try to avoid getting sucked into such things in the future.