No eulogy for abusers: psak

Fingerprint option unused by yeshivot

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of June 4, 2010 / 22 Sivan 5770

Of nearly 400 Jewish schools in New York State, only one, North Shore Hebrew Academy High School, uses a state law that allows private schools to check fingerprints to weed out potentially abusive faculty and staff. Elliot Pasik, an attorney and president of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, who championed the law through Albany, filed a freedom of information request and is very upset about what he discovered.

“I’m genuinely shocked that this basic child protection law and idea is not being utilized to the fullest,” Pasik said. “Fingerprints work. They screen out dangerous convicted criminals who should not be in close proximity to children,” and who have been known to seek out work near children.

30,000 sex offenders are registered in New York State; half a million in the U.S. 12 states require non-public schools to fingerprint. In New York it is optional. The employee pays $95 to have it done and copies of the prints are sent to state criminal justice agencies; another goes to the FBI.

Some schools may perform background checks through private companies, Pasik said, but he believes that is not enough.

“There’s a lot of identity fraud today,” Pasik said. “Name checks may not reveal out-of-state and federal convictions, and, name checks may only reveal NY felonies and not some serious misdemeanors.”

In a related story, the Av Beis Din of Israel’s Eidah Hachareidis, Rav Moshe Sternbuch, has made a halachic (Jewish law) ruling that abusers should not be eulogized.

“That’s what they did in the old days,” confirmed Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn, who posed the question. “Not child molesters, but people who were considered to be problematic for whatever reason.”

“What Rav Sternbuch is saying is not an innovation in Jewish law, it’s just an innovation to apply it to child molesters.”