Author’s note: on July 3rd 2025 the Plaintiff, Dr. Henny Kupferstein, was awarded $250,000 in damages from Avigdor Kupferstein, Kehillas Belz, and Rabbi Cheskel Akiva Gross. The judgment was awarded at a damages inquest following a ruling of default judgment against all defendants for non-participation in the lawsuit. The allegations below are written as fact because the parties were all found liable for the allegations in the complaint by default.

In November of 2023, Dr. Henny Kupferstein filed an Adult Survivors Act lawsuit against her ex-husband, Avigdor Kupferstein, as well as Kehillas Belz, and one of its dayanim, Rabbi Cheskel Akiva Gross, alleging that her ex-husband had repeatedly raped her over the course of their marriage and against Gross and Belz for enabling and enforcing it.

The lawsuit describes how Henny, from a young age, was sexualized and groomed for a forced, arranged, religious marriage, and encouraged to marry before age 18 because after that age she wouldn’t be able to get a good shidduch. She was told that her purpose as a woman was to serve her eventual husband and give birth to as many children as she could for the benefit of Belz.

In October of 1996 Henny was introduced to Avigdor Kupferstein, a Belzer chassid from Montreal, who was also 18 at the time. They had a beshow at her home. A beshow is part of the chassidishe shidduch process where the prospective spouse along with their parents meet at the house of the other prospective spouse. The parents meet each prospective spouse, meet each other, and the two prospective spouses are placed into a room for a short amount of time, usually not exceeding an hour, to talk to each other and get a feeling for each other while the parents talk and get to know each other in the next room. After that brief meeting between the two prospective spouses the parents come in.

Some sects or families do several of these meetings, for alternate lengths of time, but the gist is usually the same. By the end of these meetings the expectation is that the two will get engaged.

When Henny had her beshow with Avigdor Kupferstein she was told that the purpose of the meeting was to ensure that Avigdor Kupferstein didn’t have a stutter or limp, even though he did have a stutter and teeth stained from heavy smoking. Henny was told that the marriage had already been approved and that she had no choice but to marry him anyway. Henny was given a script to follow during the beshow and not to ask any questions because a modest girl waits for the man to speak first.

Their beshow lasted 15 minutes, followed by an exchange of gifts and a l’chaim for the parents where the engagement was finalized. Henny did not know what sex was at the time so she was sent to kallah classes where she was taught about her marital obligations. Henny and Avigdor Kupferstein didn’t see each other until seven weeks later at their wedding. In the intervening time Henny made it known that she didn’t want to marry Avigdor Kupferstein but was forced to consent to the marriage arranged for her.

After the wedding, in February of 1997, Henny and Avigdor Kupferstein were driven to their apartment at 3:30 AM where Rabbi Shloma gross instructed Henny to lead them to an attic room with a lock where they were tasked with consummating the marriage. Rabbi Cheskel Akiva Gross was on call all night that night to ensure it was consummated.

Later that night, per the directives of Belz and Rabbi Gross, Avigdor Gross tried to force himself onto/into Henny’s vagina, however he could not get an erection. Henny, as an autistic person with heightened sensory sensitivities, felt especially trapped and violated by Avigdor Kupferstein’s forced touching and attempted rape as he mounted her over her objection. Henny states that she recalls experiencing horror from his body odor as a chain smoker with stained teeth and the hair spray he used on his beard which aggravated her sensitivities.

Four days later, Henny contacted her mother crying, asking for a way out of the marriage, but her mother yelled at her for being a non compliant wife and hung up on her. Henny was forced to comply with a sex calendar orchestrated by Belz rabbis and a midwife per her mother’s reports on Henny’s menstrual cycle. Rabbi Cheskel Akiva Gross in particular was tasked to monitor and ensure Plaintiff’s compliance with the sex calendar which mandated that she have sex with Avigdor Kupferstein even Tuesday and Friday evening. In addition to this calendar, Avigdor Kupferstein raped and molester her on non-scheduled days in additional to raping and sexually assaulting her on the calendar dates.

Their first three attempts at mandated sex failed because Avigdor Kupferstein was not instructed about erections and/or was unable to have or maintain them. Despite this, it was Henny who was rebuked by Gross and a Belz midwife for not instructing Avigdor Kupferstein where her hole was. Henny states that she told them that she was unaware of having a hole that was to be used for that purpose.

That June, when the two of them were vising Avigdor Kupferstein’s parents in Montreal, Avigdor Kupferstein came home from shul in an elated move, telling Henny how he had spoken with a friend at shul who had told him about how when this friend and his wife have sex she goes crazy. This other couple was also married in an arranged marriage, and was in fact married on the same day the Kupfersteins were. Henny characterized this friend as someone known in the community as a pervert.

Avigdor Kupferstein demanded of Henny that she perform the same sex acts his friend had described to him. Henny said that she didn’t like sex as she understood it and didn’t want to do what he was asking. That evening, after the Shabbos meal, their first child was conceived.

At various times throughout their marriage Henny was frequently woken up to find Avigdor Kupferstein mounted on top of her, penetrating her without her consent. At numerous times throughout the marriage he sexually assaulted her on Shabbos when she would not be allowed to shower. This harmed her self image as she couldn’t clean up afterward. As a result she was forced to constantly change her dirty underwear as Avigdor Kupferstein’s semen leaked out of her. This deeply traumatized Henny.

Henny attempted to escape the marital apartment and these relentless sexual assaults numerous times. Each time she would go to her mother’s home, and Rabbi Gross would come, kidnap her in a minivan, and return her to Avigdor Kupferstein against her will.

Despite Rabbi Gross generally only being assigned to manage young newlyweds for the first year of marriage, he stayed involved in the Kupfersteins’ marriage for the entirety of its 14 years, appearing every Thursday to force her compliance. Henny was forced to provide sex to Avigdor Kupferstein even during pregnancy and nursing, or when she was unwell from Crohn’s disease, hernia surgeries, or miscarriage. In December of that year, when Henny was pregnant with their first child, she begged Avigdor Kuferstein to stop penetrating her because the pain was unbearable and causing her to wet the bed, but there was no reprieve despite her pleading.

When Henny was pregnant with her third child, in the summer of 2004, she was diagnosed with a possible hernia. Following the birth of that child, in January of 2005, Henny spent some time in a Kimpeturin (recuperation) home that Belz sent new mothers to for care and recovery. When Henny returned home with the newborn a surgeon confirmed the hernia, and the pain increased as a result of the examination. Despite this pain she was experiencing, Avigdor Kupferstein laughed at her when she laid in the bed writhing in pain.

The following month Henny’s doctor had scheduled her hernia repair. Despite this, Avigdor Kupferstein told her that nothing was wrong with her and that she didn’t need surgery, complaining that nobody would be able to care for the children if she had surgery. He called her surgeon and cancelled the surgery because he didn’t want anything interfering with his sexual access to her. Approximately four days later, when Henny’s pain was so unbearable that she could not move from the fetal position to even go to the bathroom, she was hemorrhaging on the bathroom floor, and was severely anemic, Avigdor Kupferstein finally allowed her to get the surgery.

This repeated itself in 2005 when Henny was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and Avigdor Kupferstein refused to allow Henny to go to a GI for a colonoscopy, ridiculing her, calling her names, telling that she didn’t have Crohn’s, but “husbanditis.”

Henny contacted rabbonim at Belz begging them for a separation from her husband, reporting to them that Avigdor had given herpes to the two oldest children which had appeared orally around their mouth and chin, and for which they’d been prescribed medication. Avigdor Kupferstein’s own herpes also began around his mouth and had progressed to his esophagus and stomach. The rabbonim found that Henny’s allegations were true and forced Avigdor Kupferstein to leave the home. For the first time Henny described feeling stability and reprieve from the constant abuse, and that her children began to thrive.

During the separation Henny was forced by Belz to participate in unlicensed marriage counseling comprised of a group of non-rabbis who deal with such matters in the community. These counselors refused to allow Henny to permanently separate from her husband without their approval. After 6 months of separation Belz advised Henny that they could no longer keep the two of them separated because she would be withholding her wifely duties for more than six months which was prohibited. Belz and Rabbi Gross threatened Henny that if she didn’t provide sex to Avigdor Kupferstein she would be ostracized and Avigdor Kupferstein would have the right to seek those needs from a new wife.

Henny describes being scared of divorce which would have made her a pariah in her community. These threats forced Henny to consent to allowing Avigdor Kupferstein back home. Around that same time Henny states that she learned about condoms and asked Avigdor Kupferstein if he could wear one so she would not have to deal with his semen leaking out of her on Shabbos. He refused to wear a condom and mocked her for asking by putting a hole in the condom the first time, claiming they were only allowed if the seed isn’t wasted.

When Henny was pregnant with her fourth child she began experiencing hemorrhaging due to fibroids. Following the birth, she was hemorrhaging and required surgery to remove uterine fibroids. Immediately following the surgery, Henny and her newborn again went to a Kimpeturin home to recover. In retaliation for Henny being unable to have sex with him Avigdor Kupferstein filed an ACS report claiming that Henny had kidnapped their baby, but ACS closed the report when they saw the surgery records and receipt for the Kimpeturin home. Henny states that the owner of the Kimpeturin home had raised money to cover the costs of her stay because she feared for Henny’s safety at home.

When Henny returned home she and her husband were not on speaking terms but he continually sexually assaulted her on a regular basis. The following year Dr Kupferstein, suspecting that her husband had sexually abused their oldest daughter after finding blood in her underwear, left the marital residence with her three daughters and went to a safe house while waiting for placement at an Ohel domestic violence shelter. Later that year, on the advice of an Ohel domestic violence social worker Henny contacted Henna White, at the time employed as the head of Kol Tzedek, a project of the Brooklyn DA meant to liaise with victims of abuse in the Orthodox community.

Henna White advised Henny to go to the Family Justice Center and speak with someone there to assist her with filing an Order of Protection. Henny filed an emergency custody petition for her four children on the basis of abuse and neglect, alleging that Avigdor Kupferstein was denying them needed medical care to address their special needs. After reviewing the paperwork, Henna White sent Henny to the family court, wishing her luck. When Henny returned to family court the next month, Avigdor Kupferstein appeared with his lawyer Asher White, Henna White’s husband.

They approached the court officer and Asher White whispered something to him while pointing at Henny. They entered the courtroom and were inside for twenty minutes, leaving hurriedly afterward. Henny waited outside until 5 PM and then asked the officer when she would get to see the judge. She was told that the case was adjourned and that she needed to be served. Apparently Avigdor Kupferstein had filed for an emergency protective order against Henny.

After extensive legal and custody battles Henny finally obtained a divorce in July of 2012, resulting in her excommunication from Belz. Her children would not speak to her and remained with her ex-husband. In 2022 Henny received an invitation to her daughter’s wedding. When Rabbi Gross discovered that she’d been invited he called her threatening to have her surrounded by security and beaten until she surrendered. In 2024 Henny was invited to a niece’s wedding last minute. She was prevented by the defendants from speaking with her son who was attending the wedding, told that she was a disgrace to her family, and prohibited from visiting her mother because her siblings and their children would be there.

Henny endured persistent sexual assault over the course of 14 years, almost as long as she had lived as a child with her parents before she married Avigdor Kupferstein. Each time Avigdor Kupferstein had sex with her she told him no, and when she would cry during the assaults he would yell at her to stop crying because she was making it difficult for him to climax, often threatening to slap her or threatening to anally rape her – which he did on occasion – resulting in her bleeding and suffering pain.