Back in 2002 – it feels like another world doesn’t it – a senior figure on the Israeli religious right and a leading pundit/ideologue of Israeli settlers and their extreme anti-gentile religious ideas and political ideology was accused of engaging in sexual abuse.
It is worth quoting the ‘Awareness Center’s’ profile on Aviner:
‘Rabbi Shlomo Aviner was born in 1943 in German Occupied Lyon, France. There he was active in Bnei Akiva youth movement; and at one time became the leader. Aviner also has been active in the religious Zionist youth movement, eventually assuming the role of national director.
Rabbi Aviner holds a M.A. in Mathematics and is an Electrical Engineer by profession.
After relocating to Israel in 1966, Rabbi Aviner studied at Yeshivat Merkaz Harav which was under the direction of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, son of Israel's first Chief Rabbi, Avraham Yitzchak Kook.
At one point Rabbi Aviner became the rabbinical leader of Kibbutz Lavi in the Galil and Moshav Keshet on the Golan Heights. Since 1981, he has been the rabbi of Bet El.
He is also a Reserve Lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces.
Rabbi Aviner's known for providing spiritual counseling to youth and young couples to Prime Ministers and heads of the Security Establishment.
In 2005, two women accused the Aviner of creating emotionally intimate relationships with them. These relationships included his expressions of his love for them during regular late-night phone conversations, extracting details from them of their sexuality and promoting an unhealthy emotional dependence on him.
Today, Rabbi Aviner serves as the head rabbi of Beit El and as Rosh Yeshiva (Dean) of Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva, which is located in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem and a leader of the Religious Zionist movement. Rabbi Aviner has hundreds of published works. He has columns that appear weekly in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, and in the Machon Meir weekly newsletter "BeAhava U'Bemuna"; and currently has a regular radio show with Arutz Sheva.’ (1)
Aviner then is no small fish, but the sexual abuse he is alleged to have engaged in – up to and including rape – has been heavily suppressed in both the media and among the jewish community itself in both Israel and the Diaspora.
As Barbara Sofer wrote in November 2002 on her own personal website:
‘First, there was the question of the magazine cover story in Ma'ariv about the alleged sex-related misdeeds of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a leading religious Zionist leader. Some asked if defamation of character ( Aviner was not charged with a crime) is allowed. While the radio publicized the supposed expose, posters appeared in our neighborhood urging religious Jews to boycott the newspaper as punishment, and to discourage reading the reputation-damaging implications against Aviner.
This raised the question of whether anyone should be telling us what to read, particularly on such a sensitive subject. Some at our table argued that those of us identified as "religious" need to show solidarity with a rabbi and assume he was being persecuted by a scoop-motivated reporter. But then, knowing how rarely women's grievances concerning sexual harassment are taken seriously, should we laud a paper that takes them at face value? Would fear of exposure encourage rabbinical figures to follow stricter rules of conduct or, just the opposite, would it discourage them from interceding in family problems? And finally, should we practice self-censorship and not read the newspaper?’ (2)
This kind of mass suppression – no doubt invoking the concept of the ‘informer’ (‘Moser’) via the principle of Mesirah (basically you cannot tell non-jewish authorities about the goings on in the jewish community unless a rabbi approves it first – (3) of the accusations against Aviner is nothing new (4) but in the case of Aviner we know more far more about the cover up than the actual charges themselves beyond sexual molestation, possible rape and general abuse.
As Ruth Sinai wrote in ‘Ha’aretz’ on 31st March 2003:
‘They warned her mother that her sisters' chances of a good match would be damaged, claims B.G. They tried to turn her brother and her husband's family against her. Over 100 rabbis, she says, including at least three candidates for the post of chief rabbi, signed notices that appeared in newspapers calling her a liar. Speeches have been made denouncing her, she claims, while Rabbi Moshe Bleicher, head of the Shavei Hebron Yeshiva, has published an article saying she suffers from mental illness and from hallucinations.
This is only part of the degradation B.G., a settlement resident, has suffered since a newspaper interview five months ago in which she alleged that she had been the victim of "improper behavior of a sexual nature," as she puts it, on the part of Beit El rabbi, Shlomo Aviner, who also heads the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva.
A second woman also alleged in the same interview that Aviner had sexually harassed her, both physically and verbally, and that she had been forced to move away.
"The mask of abuse and scheming that we lifted simply astounded us - 123 rabbis claimed that the two women were crazy and liars without knowing a thing about them, just because of what Rabbi Aviner and Rabbi Bleicher said," says Hannah Kahat, head of "Kolech" ("Your Voice") a forum for religious women that seeks to improve their status within the community.
The mass mobilization of the rabbinical institution to defend Rabbi Aviner has been coupled with a campaign not meant merely to silence the allegations, but also to eject these women from their community. Their full names have been diffused throughout the settlements along with supposed details of their lives.
B.G. felt like she had been backed into a corner. The two women filed a complaint with the police, but it was made clear to them that in this case, the matter was only borderline on the criminal. Even their appeals to a number of top rabbis, including Mordechai Eliahu, former Sephardi chief rabbi, were rejected. Only Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, head of the Rabinnical Court, was prepared to look into matters, but only on condition that they did not go to any other body. By talking to the papers, and thus exposing the allegations against Aviner, however, they broke the rules.
"Everything that I underwent emotionally until it all came out is steeped in pain," said B.G. a few days ago. "But what hurts most can be summed up in six words - my voice is not being heard. No one in my camp ... people I grew up with, whose opinion and honesty I always valued, is willing to listen to me."
The mere thought that these allegations will be hushed up and that Rabbi Aviner will be protected and remain a favorite of the Hassidim, while she is left with all the pain and embarrassment, has given B.G. little rest. Just last week, she filed a petition with a district court of the Kiryat Araba religious council in which she alleges that Aviner caused "severe and prolonged emotional distress ... involving sexual innuendo, prohibited affectionate touches and expressions." She also alleges that Aviner and Bleicher have given her a bad name and she asks the court to order the rabbis to publicly recant what they said and to compensate her. When it comes to such petitions in religious courts, however, the defendant must be in agreement before a trial is launched.
Aviner said in response that he is happy that there will finally be some sort of clarification of the case. He claims to have suggested such a discussion in a rabbinical court or some other such forum before the case was made public, which would have saved a lot of suffering on both sides, he adds, but his suggestion was rejected.
In her interview with the Ma'ariv newspaper, B.G. relates how 15 years ago, she went to Aviner seeking marriage counseling. This continued over the course of eight years, involving dozens of conversations, often late into the night, frequent meetings and letters. In the article, it is alleged that Aviner told B.G. that she had a beautiful body and allegedly said that "penetration is a very nice thing."
Aviner in response did not deny some of the statements attributed to him, but claims that they were taken out of context. He told Haaretz that the claims were all lies that had already been investigated by rabbis and other officials and found to be totally groundless.
B.G. is stunned by this claim, which also appeared in a statement by Bleicher, as neither she nor the other woman were asked to testify. What kind of investigation could have been held without consulting the two women, she asks. Sources close to Rabbi Aviner said in response that Rabbi Bleicher knows a thing or two about the complainant as he knows her brother-in-law and one of her brothers. Bleicher himself was unavailable for comment.’ (5)
We should notice the strategy that jews use for defence here is quite simple: they use the concept of the ‘informer’ (‘Moser’) to intimidate other jews via social pressure, they libel the victim(s) as liars/mentally ill (etc) and then they proceed to go on the offensive them within the jewish community and outside; while also issuing public denials of any wrongdoing whatsoever.
This is a classic ‘good PR’ strategy and something that comes almost naturally to jews such as Aviner via the concept of ‘chutzpah’; which means simply brazening out an issue/problem (and often lying in so doing) resulting in the arguable appear of innocence and/or of telling the truth.
Adolf Hitler was commenting on this when he famously talked about the ‘Big Lie’ since the ‘Big Lie’ is in truth just another name for chutzpah.
References
(1) https://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2002/11/case-of-rabbi-shlomo-aviner.html
(2) http://www.barbarasofer.com/html/nov82002.html
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/rabbis-informers-and-paedophiles
(4) Cf. Michael Lesher, 2014, ‘Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities’, 1st Edition, McFarland: Jefferson
(5) https://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2002/11/case-of-rabbi-shlomo-aviner.html