Iriya gan scandal | Imamother

black sheep

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:13 am

it doesn't sound like anything was disproven. just that there is no physical evidence of a religious cult. not even that there is no religious cult, just that it hasn't been proven.

the story doesn't change, has never changed since the first time we heard of it from nachalot a few years ago. it is the exact same story, with the exact same skeptics questioning it.

here is a breakdown for anyone who is confused:

1. children ARE being abused in yerushalaim. let's clarify: young children are being violently s-xually abused during school hours in the chariedi schools in yerushalim. this is not speculation, this is fact. even though all the proof we have is the marks on their bodies and their testimony, it is still a fact.

2. over time, doctors and some other professionals started noticing that a large number of these young CSA victims are describing a very similar story. they starting wondering if a pedophile ring is operating in yerushalaim. and since so many children were abused during school hours, they started wondering if school personnel were involved. in at least one school, cameras were put in to monitor the staff. this is also fact and not rumors or speculation.

3. police involvement did not help catch any of the perpetrators. this unfortunately was misinterpreted by many people, who assumed it means the crime never happened. (which is so odd to me. I mean, a friend of mine said her house was robbed, and everyone believed her. I have no proof that anything was stolen, and the police never caught anyone, yet no one questioned her mental stability or said she might be exaggerating or dreaming the whole thing.)

4. next comes the speculation part. piecing together a few facts, rumors started as to what else might be going on that we don't know for sure. lets remember that we do know for certain that children are being abused during school hours, and not "just" normal abuse (I can't believe I even just said that, as if any abuse is normal.) but violent s-xual abuse and torture. fact. now the speculation: "how could it be? who would do such a thing? it must be some external force, like some cult, some satanic cult, and how could rebbeing give over children to such a cult? it can't be, must be made up, the whole thing makes no sense, the whole thing must be made up, maybe the mother is crazy...." the speculation part of the story seems so crazy that people start wondering if it was all made up from the beginning.

but go back to point number 1. children ARE being abused in yerushalim. in a violent manner. during school hours. no perps were caught yet. this doesn't make it any less true. it only leads to greater speculation about who the perps are.

when you hear someone say, yet again, that nothing has been proven, let me clarify for you. something HAS been proven. children are coming home from yerushalaim schools with bruises and stories of s-xual abuse. that is all the proof you need that it is happening. beyond that, the source of it all, how to catch the guys, we are not there yet. but lack of solving the case doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

deena19k

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:18 am

black sheep wrote:

How are you so positive for a fact that abuse is going on in yerushalayim?

MagentaYenta

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:19 am

I kept coming back to the McMartin case when reading this thread. That case was the longest most expensive trial in US history. And, a total failure when it came to the prosecution proving it's case.

There have been documented cases of small rings of ritual abuse here in the US, and two (IIRC) resulted in convictions.

McMartin was the wrong example to use in this instance. Decades later scientists have not been able to validate the claims of tunnels. Child s@ex crimes prosecutors learned a great deal from this trial. The one thing it did prove is that suggestive questioning is not appropriate to use in these cases.

Sanguine

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:35 am

youngishbear wrote:

Who cares about the headless cats? What about the tortured children? There were mothers who mentioned their children had severe marks on their bodies.

I am honestly not happy with either the satanic ritual abuse cult theory or the mass hysteria version. I think neither makes a good case for itself. The latter rubs me the wrong way because its main argument is "it's never happened before in history." That's not good enough.

Perhaps there is a sadistic pedophile ring in Jerusalem. Perhaps there is mass hysteria. Neither side has much proof that I can use to decide the truth.

Do you live there? Me neither. It's not affecting my children. If it did I would need to know the truth. And I would take (public) steps. What kind of parents would allow those things to continue? What kind of community would helplessly let it continue? For more than 2 years? I don't believe any would. Not in this country. Not civilized Jewish parents. How many people have told us factual stories? (maybe 2). Everything else is rumors. We don't know what really happened to their kids. Could be abuse. It happens. But if it's such a big ring or cult with 400 stories, how come the other mothers know almost nothing about things that are happening in their own gan? How many people here said that they never heard about this before Imamother? A large Jewish community without even one Yente? (and add Israeli to that = X2 Yenta)

How can these parents not be demanding action by the ganenet, the Rav or the police? How can the people involved be doing nothing? That's the hysteria. If it's as big as the stories here claim, no one would be sitting by quietly. The Rav is investigating? He's heard 400 stories and he knows that there's a sadistic pedophile ring and he's playing detective while more and more Jewish children are going to the Devil?

What makes sense to you here?

black sheep

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:35 am

deena19K, I will answer your question in a different way, why everyone should be positive for a fact that this is happening. we have read at least two imamothers in this thread say that their children were victims. yael validated earlier in the thread that these imamothers are real. they are real mothers who have/had children in gan in yerushalaim, and they are saying that their children were s-xually abused during school hours. so I believe them.

you can also easily google nachalot child abuse scandal, and read articles talking about the same thing happening there about 2-3 years ago. some of the articles will say that it was never proven, but they will all say that quite a number of children's parents came forward to authorities and said that their children were s-xually abused during school hours. I believe those parents.

I have more reasons to believe this story is real, but just based on imamother and google, there is enough "evidence" for anyone to know for certain this is happening.

youngishbear

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:42 am

Sanguine wrote:

Something is going on. That makes sense.

What precisely this is I don't begin to know for sure.

MagentaYenta

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:47 am

black sheep wrote:

magneta yenta, proving something in court is a separate issue. lack of evidence to convict someone does not mean a crime didn't happen.

In 7 years of trial and $15 million spent on the prosecution, not a single piece of credible physical evidence was provided. No physical evidence supported claims of forcible penetration.Prosecution witnesses were found guilty of pergury, social workers from CII used improper and suggestive interview techniques. By the year 2000 most of the now adult 'victims' recanted. The taped interviews of the children showed coercive techniques being used in the process. McFarlane, who interviewed the children, later admitted that the techniques were leading and coercive and aimed at generating a specific outcome and not the facts.

The upside is money went into research about how to interview child victims and developing new investigative protocols for this process.

Last edited by MagentaYenta on Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:52 am; edited 1 time in total

youngishbear

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:48 am

sneakermom wrote:

If what happened in nahalot was true but never proven than that's beyond sad. It invalidated the victims and provided fertile ground for the abuse to sprout again in the next neighborhood.

It does seem to occur in very close minded communities that don't trust the police. That keep quiet.

But one thing doesn't make sense. That there isn't a shred of evidence. Not a shred. In both cases. Nahalot and here. And that is disconcerting.

Not a shred of evidence that can be legally used is not the same thing as no evidence at all.

Again, going according to what was posted by amothers.

amother

Jade

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:54 am

The most telling evidence in the nachalot case is that everything was claimed to have been video taped and captured in pictures.
Yet nothing was ever found. They believe they know who did it (some were arrested, beaten or killed). But nothing was ever found on their computers which the police had. No media was ever found in the underground from this.

Much of the questing was done by parents. Much of the evidence brought of abuse was similar to regular child symptoms. (rashes, constipation, etc). The parents were terrified, and who can blame them.

In nachalot it does sound like children were abused, but the evidence does not lend itself to the size and scope of the abuse.

The fear of turning an abuse story into a huge ring is that the actual perpetrators get away because it becomes too big.

I don't think its fair to say that nachalot didn't go to the police. It sounds like the police were very involved.

In the McMartin case with so many victims and accounts you would think at least one story would stick even if not all of them did. The fact that not even one was valid is very telling.

Amarante

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:55 am

youngishbear wrote:

Not a shred of evidence that can be legally used is not the same thing as no evidence at all.

Again, going according to what was posted by amothers.

If you are responding to Magenta Yenta's post regarding McMartin, she stated that it was "credible" evidence which means evidence that is believable to a reasonable trier of fact. Both in and out of court, there is absolutely no CREDIBLE evidence to support the claim and a lot of CREDIBLE evidence indicating that it was a case of community hysteria.

Legally admissible evidence is a completely different issue and is based on statutory rules of evidence that differ in any jurisdiction. A lot of evidence is not legally admissible though because it is not thought to meet standards of credibility such as the "hearsay rule". Other testimony is excluded because of important societal concerns such as the doctor/lawyer privilege or spousal privilege.

And I am also confused because I thought this would have been settled since the "maven" who people were supposed to be contacting to learn the full extent of the conspiracy responded that there was no conspiracy or evidence of a wide spread pedophilia ring.

MagentaYenta

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 10:58 am

Amarante wrote:

Actually these were my words "In 7 years of trial and $15 million spent on the prosecution, not a single piece of credible physical evidence was provided. No physical evidence supported claims of forcible penetration."

youngishbear

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 11:06 am

Amarante wrote:

No I'm sorry if I was unclear. My reading comprehension skills are better than my writing skills apparently. I meant the evidence in Jerusalem now.

None of us have access to any of it. According to one amother a cache of it was "lost". Some of it was corrupted by bad questioning techniques. The doctors in one case refused to get involved to record the physical evidence. All this according to anonymous posters vetted by Yael.

As I said, I don't know whom to believe at this point. I maintained for a while that the satanic religious aspects of the story are unlikely, and if any evidence exists it may be a smokescreen created by the perps themselves.

But children were hurt. That seems clear. I am also not sure there isn't a ring involved.

Last edited by youngishbear on Tue, Sep 01 2015, 11:10 am; edited 1 time in total

Sanguine

Tue, Sep 01 2015, 11:07 am

youngishbear wrote:

Not a shred of evidence that can be legally used is not the same thing as no evidence at all.

Again, going according to what was posted by amothers.

Where are the "amothers" who actually went to the police? Don't take your hurt child. Who knows what they can do with that evidence? Why scare your child? But you are grownups. Why haven't the fathers of these children gone to the police to report abuse going on in their child's gan? There's no evidence cause no one has even reported anything. Do the parents in SM believe that there's widespread abuse going on? Only we know? Maybe the first few parents were shocked and confused. But everyone knows that there have been 400 cases (I know - we all read it here). So Rav Berkovitz knows about 400 cases. So what does he do? He can't call the police cause he doesn't have evidence (the police lost his computer (?)). So I guess he turns to his "people" and says. "Look guys, we need some evidence. So send your kids to gan and if your child is the "chosen" one grab your child and run to the police". "Mommy won't let her baby go? Go on your own to report it. Help me out - The police think I'm making up stories for fun"