Yet another case of jewish child molestation that never really made the news is that of Rabbi Baruch Lanner then of New Jersey and now of Israel (1) has been making the news recently after Lanner and his second wife turned up in Israel in June 2022 and claimed citizenship based on the Law of Return (i.e., they made an informal version of Aliyah) and have been living there on a ‘temporary residence visa’ ever since (2) despite some muted protests from a few jewish groups. (3)
Now happily Kelly Heyboer writing for ‘NJ.com’ in 2021 did a lot of the heavy lifting writing about Lanner’s activities so rather than I recount it myself I will simply quote her for the details of Lanner’s case as required:
‘In the summer of 1974, a girl went on a youth group trip to Israel led by Rabbi Baruch Lanner, a popular New Jersey rabbi who headed the state’s chapter of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth.
On each night in Israel, the young rabbi asked a teenager to join him in a secluded area, according to a newly-filed lawsuit. Each time one of the girls, identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe #3, was selected, she said Lanner kissed her and touched her breasts.
By the end of the trip, the girl refused to be alone with Lanner or speak to him.
“Lanner responded by punching her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her,” the lawsuit said.
When the girl told Lanner’s boss, a prominent rabbi, about his behavior, he dismissed her allegations, saying, Lanner “does so much good; it’s important what he’s doing,” according to the lawsuit.
Nearly 50 years after that summer trip to Israel, five women have filed lawsuits in New Jersey accusing Orthodox Jewish organizations of ignoring allegations for decades that Lanner was sexually, emotionally and physically abusing children.
Lanner, the former principal of Hillel Yeshiva High School in Ocean Township, was convicted in 2002 of endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated sexual contact and sexual contact after he was accused of fondling two female students in his office.
The former principal, now 72, was released from prison in 2008 and now lives in Elizabeth, according to the lawsuit.
The five unnamed women — identified in the lawsuits as Jane Doe #1 through #5 — say the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the National Conference of Synagogue Youth and its New Jersey chapter failed to protect young people from the rabbi.’ (4)
Heyboer further provides a detailed breakdown of the most recent accusations regarding Lanner as follows:
‘The newly-filed lawsuits provide additional details about Lanner’s alleged abuse. The allegations include:
Jane Doe #1, who lives in Israel, said she was a 13-year-old who had just moved to New Jersey when she met Lanner through her synagogue youth group, according to her lawsuit. She alleged the rabbi kissed and groped her at her house and at weekend youth events at least 20 times over more than two years. When she rebuffed his sexual advances on a trip to Israel in 1974, she said Lanner punched her in the chest. She said she reported the alleged abuse to a rabbi and a national director of the youth group organization, but nothing was done.
Jane Doe #2, who lives in Israel, said she attended “Shabbatons,” youth events for Jewish teens run by Lanner, in the 1970s while he was overseeing youth groups in New Jersey. At an overnight event in Asbury Park when she was 16, she said Lanner attempted to sexually assault her in the middle of the night. When she threatened to tell his wife, the rabbi strangled her until she was about to pass out, then walked away, the lawsuit said.
Jane Doe #3, who lives in New York, said Lanner convinced her mother to allow her to go on the 1974 summer trip to Israel he was heading instead of one organized by her summer camp, the lawsuit said. After kissing and touching her breasts at least a dozen times on the trip, Lanner punched her in the stomach when she refused to speak to him. Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #3, who were roommates on this trip, eventually began making excuses to avoid being with Lanner.
Jane Doe #4, who lives in New Jersey, was 12 when she met Lanner at a “Shabbaton” event in the early 1980s. Over three years, he regularly called her at home, told her she was special and said he wanted to marry her, the lawsuit said. When she was in eighth grade, Lanner asked the teenager to take her shirt off in a car while driving her home, then began yelling at her to kiss him. She said she eventually told her parents about the abuse and quit the youth group.
Jane Doe #5, who filed her lawsuit separately from the other women, said she was a student at Hillel Yeshiva High School in the mid 1990s when Lanner would regularly call her into the principal’s office and grope her. He would also sexually abuse her at “Shabbatons” in New Jersey, leaving bruises on her thighs, the lawsuit said. When she threatened to go to police, the rabbi expelled her from the high school, she said. She was one of the two women who eventually went to police, leading to Lanner’s conviction in 2002.’ (5)
Now all this points to Lanner being an extremely prolific jewish child molester, but it actually gets worse since Lanner also victimised underage boys as well as girls as Heyboer further documents when she writes:
‘The Jewish Week, a national weekly news publication, first published a story in 2000 with allegations from multiple people who alleged Lanner kissed, fondled and hit teenage girls and physically abused teenage boys under his care. The story, titled “Stolen innocence,” led to Lanner’s resignation from the National Conference of Synagogue Youth.
Additional alleged victims came forward after the story ran and Lanner was criminally charged with sexually abusing two female students at Hillel Yeshiva High School in the 1990s and put on trial in 2002.
The divorced father of three grown children never admitted in court that he sexually abused the students, but he said at his sentencing that he made mistakes and tarnished the image of God.’ (6)
However aside from the horrific and lengthy nature of Lanner’s child sexual abuse and rape on both genders what is really noteworthy is how much the Orthodox Union – that bastion of jewishness that is almost entirely funded by the kosher food tax – (7) and the jewish community in general covered up for Lanner only being forced to actually investigate in 2000 after ‘The Jewish Week’ exposed the accusations against Lanner publicly (8) which they then feverishly tried to cover up by admitting to ‘some errors’ in the same year. (9)
The truth is that Lanner’s child molestation had begun as early as 1970 (10) about which the jewish community was well aware by 1989 because a Beth Din – a Rabbinical Court that jewish authors routinely insist is supposed ‘to follow the law of the land’ but in reality never really does – comprised of prominent Rabbis Mordechai Willig, Yosef Blau and Aaron Levine – ‘investigated’ and promptly exonerated Lanner from any wrongdoing. (11)
Yet in 2002 after Lanner’s conviction in explicably despite receiving a seven year prison sentence Lanner was ‘released on bail’ till his appeal was heard – no doubt in large part because Nathan Dershowitz (the brother of famous pro-Israel lawyer and academic Alan Dershowitz) was one of his lawyers – (12) which was only heard in 2005 meaning that Lanner was completely free for three years after his conviction for sexually molesting two female children in 2002.
It was only in 2005 that Lanner was actually forced to start his prison sentence and only served three years of that being released on parole in early 2008. (13)
So put another way: Lanner got extremely lenient treatment by the judicial system despite being a convicted child molester and the served less than half of his sentence before he was quickly paroled – probably by the intercession of the jewish community - and released back into the public sphere to the risk of the American children at large.
That is not only extremely troubling but also suggestive of the simple reality that jews are a privileged class in modern America as they get lighter sentences for worse crimes than other peoples as well as inexplicable privileges like not having to start your prison sentence for three years after you are convicted!
References
(1) https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-grants-residency-visa-to-us-rabbi-convicted-of-sexually-assaulting-students/
(2) https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-07-19/ty-article/.premium/convicted-sex-abuser-rabbi-baruch-lanner-denied-israeli-citizenship/00000182-1649-dee2-a786-bf5b5fa80000
(3) https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-grants-residency-visa-to-us-rabbi-convicted-of-sexually-assaulting-students/
(4) https://www.nj.com/education/2021/12/nj-rabbi-committed-horrific-acts-of-child-sex-abuse-while-jewish-organizations-did-nothing-lawsuits-say.html
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-kosher-food-tax-debunking-the
(8) https://www.nj.com/education/2021/12/nj-rabbi-committed-horrific-acts-of-child-sex-abuse-while-jewish-organizations-did-nothing-lawsuits-say.html
(9) https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/27/nyregion/orthodox-group-details-accusations-that-new-jersey-rabbi-abused-teenagers.html
(10) Ibid.
(11) https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195242/http://media.www.yucommentator.com/media/storage/paper652/news/2003/03/06/News/Rabbi.Willig.Apology.Stirs.Campus-589918.shtml
(12) https://www.jta.org/2002/10/11/ny/lanner-gets-7-year-prison-term
(13) https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/1657262731-rabbi-convicted-of-sexual-abuse-given-residency-status-in-israel