A year ago the entire Chabad community was up in arms. An organization called Call of the Shofar (COTS) was having too much influence on members of Chabad and had to be silenced. The leadership of Chabad organized a gathering in which COTS was mercilessly attacked and then banned from Chabad.
COTS was an organization which has had a profoundly positive influence on the lives of hundreds of men over the past two decades. Men who had felt angry and inadequate and who then attended COTS workshops (and even more so those who followed up with regular weekly group attendance) learned how to find their inner selves and redirect their lives. A number of those who attended had been victims of abuse as children, and it was COTS that empowered them to confront the traumas of their youth and re-engage with life in a healthy manner.
I will not engage in speculation as to why Chabad found it necessary to attack this organization which, based on the numbers of Chabadskers who were participating, was clearly filling a need within Chabad that was hitherto unmet. Suffice it to say that Chabad demonstrated then that when they saw something they perceived as evil they had the resources and willpower to publicly protest it. And the Chabad online press did an excellent job of reporting what was transpiring.
Contrast this with the current events in Australia. Yosef Feldman has become the poster child for the daily Chilul Hashem being played out by the Chabad leadership in Down Under. Jewish leaders and newspapers have called for his and others' resignation in the wake of their testimony before the Royal Commission and the lack of institutional control. Yet you will find nothing of this in the Chabad press. You will not hear of any gathering in Crown Heights in which Chabad leadership will castigate those who abused children and their enablers.
Instead there is complete silence.
For shame.
Those who heal the victims of abuse are attacked. The abusers and their enablers are not subject to any censure.
COTS was an organization which has had a profoundly positive influence on the lives of hundreds of men over the past two decades. Men who had felt angry and inadequate and who then attended COTS workshops (and even more so those who followed up with regular weekly group attendance) learned how to find their inner selves and redirect their lives. A number of those who attended had been victims of abuse as children, and it was COTS that empowered them to confront the traumas of their youth and re-engage with life in a healthy manner.
I will not engage in speculation as to why Chabad found it necessary to attack this organization which, based on the numbers of Chabadskers who were participating, was clearly filling a need within Chabad that was hitherto unmet. Suffice it to say that Chabad demonstrated then that when they saw something they perceived as evil they had the resources and willpower to publicly protest it. And the Chabad online press did an excellent job of reporting what was transpiring.
Contrast this with the current events in Australia. Yosef Feldman has become the poster child for the daily Chilul Hashem being played out by the Chabad leadership in Down Under. Jewish leaders and newspapers have called for his and others' resignation in the wake of their testimony before the Royal Commission and the lack of institutional control. Yet you will find nothing of this in the Chabad press. You will not hear of any gathering in Crown Heights in which Chabad leadership will castigate those who abused children and their enablers.
Instead there is complete silence.
For shame.
Those who heal the victims of abuse are attacked. The abusers and their enablers are not subject to any censure.
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