Chareidi Bashing

DovBear recently linked to this important post by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz. To his credit, Dovbear has long been a supporter of Rabbi Horowitz and has linked to his artilces many times.

Unfortunately but predicitably, some of the commentors got all over Rabbi Horowitz, accusing him of fundraising on the backs of abuse victims. This charge is too idiotic to even waste my time replying to (and many of the commentors on DovBear do a fine job of defending Rabbi Horowitz).

Full disclosure: Rabbi Horowitz is my cousin. I have known him all his life and have the highest regard for him both professionally and personally.

The people giving Rabbi Horowitz grief are classic, pathologic chareidi haters. After months of appropriate bashing of the chareidi world for not taking the issue of abuse seriously, along comes a respected, progressive chareidi leader with a long track record of achievenments (who, by the way, is a sought after speaker on parenting issues in the MO world as well) who decides to address this issue head on (at great personal risk). So, do the bashers embrace him or his message? No, rather than give anyone with a long beard the benefit of the doubt (or the credit that he deserves for going out on a limb and taking action in a world where taking action can be very risky), they make preposterous allegations that he is doing this for the money.

They should ask themselves: Did he develop Project Y.E.S. for the money? Did he start a progressive yeshiva, Darchei Noam, for the money? Has he been writing articles that can be viewed as radical in the chareidi world for the money?

Instead of embracing and supporting one of the lights of the chareidi world, the chareidi haters jump all over him. Would they have reacted that way if he didn't wear the levush?