“The second an institution matters more than the people it serves, it no longer deserves to exist.”

This was one of the first and most powerful lessons I learned when I began volunteering, and it’s a value that has struck with me and informed every step of my advocacy career. It is ZA’AKAH’s guiding principle. An institution’s job is to serve people. The institution only deserves to exist – only fulfills its own values – as long as it does that. The second it begins serving its own interests above those of the people it claims to serve, even if it believes it’s doing so in service of serving its constituents, it has violated its values and lost its right to exist.

This holds especially true if an institution’s excuse for violating its own purpose and hurting the people it serves is so that it can continue serving those it doesn’t intend to hurt. Take an institution like Yeshiva University, for example. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century its leadership was aware of a number of profligate sexual abusers like George Finkelstein, Macy Gordon, and Richard Andron, abusers who had dozens of victims, and took no action to protect students from them, bring them to justice, or help their victims heal. On the contrary, they engaged in systematic coverup so effective that all three remained respected members of the community even after finally leaving Yeshiva University.

The coverup was so effective that the rabbis involved, chief among them Norman Lamm, are still referred to with their honorifics. Lamm in particular is considered one of thee Gedolei Hador of the Modern Orthodox community despite the dozens of destroyed lives he’s responsible for enabling.

This is not new information. The Modern Orthodox community is well aware of the damage Yeshiva University and its leadership is responsible for, and yet Yeshiva University prospers. According to their most recent tax filings, they are in possession of over $1B in assets following a number of remarkably successful fundraising years. Their president, Ari Berman, was invited to deliver a benediction at the inauguration of Donald Trump, a shanda in its own right. Things have never looked better for Yeshiva University. And all the while, the dozens of children, now men, who were abused by staff at Yeshiva University, and whose abuse was covered up by its leadership, await even the barest attempt at teshuva.

When I talk to people about this they don’t express shock. They sigh and ask what choice they have. Yeshiva University is the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy, they say. It’s the only place we can guarantee our children won’t face antisemitism, they say. It’s where our whole family has gone to college and rabbinical school for generations, they say. What exactly is the alternative, they ask, as they send their children and money to step over the bodies of Finkelstein’s, Andron’s, and Gordon’s victims on their way to Yeshiva University.

Rabbi Norman Lamm Ztz”l was Gadol whom we have a lot to learn from, and who among us hasn’t made mistakes, they say, as the institution he led for decades while covering up the dozens and dozens of children molested at MTA threatens witnesses into not giving depositions, hire armies of increasingly expensive lawyers to engage in frivolous and costly motion practice, attempt to expose the names of the victims they’ve already hurt by sexually abusing, and engage in increasingly predatory and invasive discovery.

All the while they expect the community to continue sending their children and money to this place because where else are their children going to be educated in accordance with Torah values? Modern Orthodoxy begins and ends with Yeshiva University, and who really cares what crimes they’ve committed, how many lives they’ve destroyed, how many victims died fighting for justice – it’s made itself too big to fail and the reward for that is that they get to abuse children with impunity and force the rest of us to continue supporting this. The second Modern Orthodoxy becomes more important than the people it serves…

What’s maddening about this is that it isn’t some mystery what happened to Mordechai Twersky, Jay Goldberg, Barry Singer, David Bressler, Zachary Belil, Mark Lowell, Jeff Rockman, John Doe 1, John Doe 2, John Doe 3, John Doe 4, John Doe 5, John Doe 6, John Doe 7, John Doe 8, John Doe 9, John Doe 10, John Doe 11, John Doe 12, John Doe 13, John Doe 14, John Doe 15, John Doe 16, John Doe 17, John Doe 17, John Doe 18, John Doe 19 (deceased), John Doe 20, John Doe 21, John Doe 22, John Doe 23, John Doe 24, John Doe 25, John Doe 26, John Doe 27, John Doe 28, John Doe 29, John Doe 30, John Doe 31, John Doe 32, John Doe 33, John Doe 34, John Doe 34, John Doe 35, John Doe 36, John Doe 37, John Doe 38, John Doe 39, John Doe 40, John Doe 41, John Doe 42, John Doe 43, John Doe 44, John Doe 45, and the many others.

It isn’t a mystery. We know. They know. They know the full extent of it, too, thanks to a report they commissioned through Sullivan & Cromwell which they are currently fighting to prevent from being produced to the victims in discovery. They allowed Finkelstein, Andron, Gordon and the others to abuse dozens of children that we know of, covered it up, and felt no guilt for the lives they destroyed.

It’s not even like they learned anything from the experience and did better in the future. When a student at Stern was raped by a member of the basketball team they did what they have always done, pretended to care, did nothing, and fundraised a fortune off the basketball team.

To add insult to injury, RIETS board chair, Lance Hirt, is also the board chair at Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, which itself has been engaged for years in litigation related to an elementary school rebbi, Yossi Ungar, accused of sexually abusing a student. HALB, pretending to follow best practices in response to the lawsuit, hired their own defense attorney to carry out a sham investigation into the allegations. Naturally their own defense attorney was unable to find any indication of abuse. Following a public letter written to Camp Kaylie, who also employed Ungar, about another allegation made by a second victim, HALB announced they were conducting a second investigation, this time hiring a reputable outside firm.

While they claimed through that firm that they would commit to releasing a summary of that report, it’s been 3 years with no sign of any report, summarized or in full, being released from HALB. Perhaps Lance Hirt was elevated within Yeshiva University leadership precisely for his expertise in institutional malfeasance in handling sexual abuse cases.

Mordechai Twersky recently wrote an op-ed in which he detailed the disgusting, invasive, and predatory tactics being used by Yeshiva University against the victims suing them. They are spending millions on defending themselves against allegations we all know are true. By the time Yeshiva University is finished paying for their defense, through trial, through appeals, and by the time they’re finished paying judgments, many of their victims will have died never having received an apology, and never having seen them held accountable. They will have died while watching two generations of students come in as freshmen and graduate with masters degrees and rabbinical ordinations, all while never receiving so much as a “sorry” from the people responsible for hurting them.

The second an institution becomes more important than the people it serves, it no longer deserves to exist.