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(New York Jewish Week) — Baruch Lanner, the American rabbi who served practically three years in jail for sexually assaulting college students at a Jewish highschool in New Jersey, has been granted a short lived residency visa that can enable him to remain in Israel whereas the nation’s Inside Ministry evaluations his request for citizenship.
Advocates for sexual abuse victims had been aghast on the information, first reported by Haaretz. Whereas Israel’s Legislation of Return supplies each Jew on this planet the chance to use for citizenship, Israel has withheld citizenship up to now from these with felony information who’re seen as posing a hazard to the Israeli public.
Lanner and his second spouse, who was granted citizenship, additionally appeared in a video for the legislation agency that’s dealing with the case, which alerted activists to his immigration standing. Within the video, through which Lanner and his spouse’s faces are blurred, Lanner praises the lawyer and declares, “I had some authorized points in america and I by no means thought I might be capable to make aliyah,” Haaretz reported. The video has since been taken down.
In 2000, following reporting by the New York Jewish Week, the Orthodox Union, the place Lanner labored as a regional director of the Nationwide Convention of Synagogue Youth, launched a probe indicating that Lanner was liable for an array of sexual, bodily and emotional abuse involving dozens of youngsters in his cost. He was convicted in 2002 of endangering the welfare of two ladies throughout his time as principal of Hillel Yeshiva Excessive Faculty in Deal, New Jersey, within the Nineties.
Late final 12 months, alleged victims filed a civil lawsuit towards Lanner and his former employers underneath New Jersey legislation that allowed for a two-year “lookback” window throughout which sexual abuse victims may sue their abusers and their enablers.
A pending case like that ought to be motive sufficient to rethink Lanner’s request for residency, mentioned Shana Aaronson, director of Magen, an Israeli group that advocates for sexual abuse victims, particularly within the haredi Orthodox group.
“It’s greater than disheartening, it’s infuriating that regardless of efforts by organizations like mine and by numerous authorities companies, the federal government would make such a morally bankrupt resolution like this,” Aaronson mentioned.
Magen has compiled and shared with authorities lists of as many as 100 accused and convicted offenders who’ve utilized for and succeeded in getting Israeli citizenship or residency visas, Aaronson mentioned. She mentioned that she had recognized about Lanner’s intentions to maneuver to Israel since 2019.
“We had been conscious of his historical past and really useful strongly that he not be granted citizenship,” she mentioned. Whereas Lanner served his time within the 2002 case, granting him citizenship would erase the relevance of his presence on the U.S. intercourse offender registry and permit an abuser like him to “disappear into basic society,” mentioned Aaronson.
If granted citizenship, “Baruch Lanner may tomorrow stroll into any faculty and apply for a job and be given a certificates of fine standing from Israel legislation enforcement and get a job working with youngsters,” she mentioned.
In response to Haaretz, Lanner and his spouse arrived in Israel as vacationers and submitted their request for citizenship after touchdown, thereby circumventing the Jewish Company, which handles citizenship requests in america and tends to reject these with felony information. Lanner had been dwelling variously in New Jersey and Florida.
“The small print [of the Lanner case] will probably be completely examined,” an Inside Ministry spokeswoman informed Haaretz.
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