A month after his arrest for rape and possession and distribution of CSAM (child sexual abuse materials), Zev Steen submitted an appeal to the Baltimore circuit court of the judge’s decision to hold him without bail until trial. Steen had initially been arrested for possession and distribution of CSAM and granted bond, but was rearrested and denied bond when police found evidence that he had sexually abused a child and filmed it. As part of his appeal seeking bond pending trial, Steen submitted a letter written by Rabbi Shraga Neuberger, a prominent and well respected rebbi at Ner Israel.

The letter, written on NIRC letterhead, describes Steen as “honest and dependable.” In his request for bond he stated that he would likely be living close to NIRC while out on bond.

At the time ZA’AKAH called Neuberger out for writing the letter, but Neuberger issued no statement in response. The letter was unfortunately typical of rabbinical leaders in the Orthodox community who often tend to show much more concern for abusers than they do for survivors. This trend continued recently with RCA head, Rabbi Menachem Penner, writing a letter on behalf of Judah Karkowsky who was convicted of forging a court transcript for the purpose of regaining membership at a shul that had expelled him for allegedly abusing a child on an EMT call. Contrast this with SAR which, under threat of termination, forbade employees from writing letters of support for former principal Jonathan Skolnick who had been convicted for blackmailing students into sending him sexual images and videos.

Yesterday a former student of NIRC contacted Rabbi Shraga Neuberger to ask him about the letter he wrote on behalf of Steen. Below is their exchange with commentary.

Neuberger’s Response:

What’s notable about his rationale is his claim that he was unaware if the accusations were true. Later on in the email exchange he seems to believe that the extent of the charges are related to CSAM possession and distribution, and claims that CSAM possession and distribution only directly harms the perpetrator, a dangerous misconception that leads many to minimize the actual damage it causes its victims. David Pelcovitz made the same error when he wrote a letter on behalf of Evan Zauder. In later statements addressing his writing of that letter, Pelcovitz claimed he didn’t know about the charges added against Zauder in a superseding indictment of trying to lure children to sexually abuse.

The problem is twofold: Either he actually didn’t know about the new charges, in which case he was grossly negligent when writing such a serious letter on behalf of a person accused of such serious crimes, or he knew and didn’t care and is only now claiming he didn’t know. Either way his rationale is a serious problem.

Furthermore, innocent until proven guilty is a copout. It’s a legal standard that exists to protect people from having their civil liberties violated by the government without due process, it is not meant to force us to pretend like we aren’t aware of the allegations or the evidence presented with them. A man who shoots another person in the face in broad daylight is also entitled to a legal presumption of innocence even as he stands there with the smoking gun in his hand. That doesn’t require that the bystanders help him reload.

The former student then responds:

Neuberger’s response:

In this response Neuberger, in Trumpian fashion, tries to turn the accusation around by claiming that he in fact cares more about abuse than the former student does and cites his connection to Shimon Russell, a well known therapist in the community who trusts him to consult on sexual abuse cases. He probably doesn’t realize that what he’s saying reflects very poorly on Russell who should not be consulting rabbis on sexual abuse cases, let alone rabbis like Neuberger who clearly don’t get it. Incidentally, Russel is director of training and development at Kesher Nafshi, an organization providing support to at-risk youth and their parents which has had Rav Mota Frank as a speaker several times despite his staunch and public support for convicted serial rapist, Rav Eliezer Berland. Birds of a feather.

Also notable is this allusion to inside information that he claims to have about a prior CPS interview of Steen’s children. The relevance of a CPS investigation that’s over a decade old is anyone’s guess.

The former student then asks:

Neuberger’s response:

Typos aside, there’s a lot to unpack in this response. At the beginning of his response he claims that the only damage done in this case was to Steen himself, and that he has been going for help for years, whatever that means. This is a common tactic taken by abusers and their enablers who try to minimize the effects of CSAM on their victims. Victims of CSAM are directly damaged by the possession and distribution of the images of their abuse.

They live with the constant knowledge that an immeasurable number of people have seen their abuser and derived sexual satisfaction from it. They live in constant doubt about whether the people looking at them are just looking at them or are recognizing them from the images of their abuse. They can never fully heal because their abuse is never fully over. Every time it’s shared their abuse intensifies. Every time they are recognized by law enforcement in another collection discovered in an investigation and are notified that their images have been found their abuse continues. CSAM is the opposite of a victimless crime.

Another common tactic used by abusers and their enablers is claiming that the abuse they engaged in is no longer relevant or reflective of their character because they went to therapy. There are no treatments that can reliably remove the risk a pedophile poses to children, and pretending otherwise simply puts children in the community at risk. Enablers like Neuberger will do anything but center the victims in their calculus, instead feeling sadness for the abuser and expressing concern for their wellbeing.

The rest of the response is addressing the former student’s leaving of Orthodoxy. The juxtaposition of Neuberger’s expression of concern for Steen and his attacking the former student’s life away from Orthodoxy as empty and meaningless is jarring and disturbing. If the meaning Neuberger finds in frumkeit leads him to side with abusers and minimize the effects of sexual abuse then what is any of it worth?

Neuberger’s response:

In other words, you’re too stupid and misguided to understand the complexities of this case, so I’m done engaging.

The former student tries again:

Neuberger’s response:

Here we see that after being informed (perhaps for the first time although that’s unlikely) that Steen actually was accused of directly sexually abusing a child, recording, and distributing it, Neuberger again engages in deflection. He doesn’t see value in discussing it because the only move left for him in this conversation is to acknowledge either his ignorance or his indifference, and that’s off the table for him. Instead he pretends that he cares about sexual abuse victims equally if not more than the former student does when all he’s done in this exchange has been center the abuser and defend and advocate for him. They are very clearly not in agreement, but Neuberger has nothing further to say for himself.

And of course, as with all of these rabbis and community leaders who defend and support abusers, there will be no consequences for his involvement in this case. No one will make him sit down and be educated. None of his peers and colleagues will tell him he’s wrong and explain why. Nothing will change.

Below is a screenshot from Steen’s plea agreement that Neuberger was sent by the former student. He has yet to respond to it.