Victim of Sexual Abuse Booed Out of Satmar Shul in Williamsburg

Image by YOUTUBE

By Anne Cohen September 9, 2013

The young Orthodox woman whose testimony of sexual abuse was the basis for the arrest and conviction of counselor Nechemya Weberman was booed out of synagogue on Rosh Hashana, the New York Post reported Monday.

The 18-year-old victim was praying in a Williamsburg synagogue during the holiday when a man reportedly yelled out: “*Moser *, out of the shul!” — a shaming term for a Jew who betrays their community to secular authorities.

“They stopped the praying until she left,” the victim’s husband, Boorey Deutsch, 26, told the Post. “Some woman tried telling my wife to stay there and not leave. She shouldn’t care what they say. But my wife ended up leaving.”

“She felt horrible and mistreated. They treat survivors as if they are the abusers,” Deutsch added.

Deutsch said that he and his wife have been under constant pressure from the community ever since she first came forward about her abuse at the hands of Weberman, an ultra-Orthodox community counselor in Williamsburg.

According to the Post, a man pleaded guilty last month to offering the couple $500,000 to leave the country and drop the case.

Weberman, 54, is currently serving a 50-year sentence at the Shawagunk Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

At the time of the trial, the victim explained that she had been reluctant to report the abuse that started when she was first sent to counseling at the age of 12, because of the ultra-Orthodox Satmar community’s reluctance to believe stories of abuse.

“Satmar would have kicked me out, and if Satmar kicks you out, nobody accepts you,” she testified last year.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO