JTA – More than 500 rabbis and cantors signed a letter Thursday criticizing attempts to “rehabilitate” Steven M. Cohen, a leading Jewish sociologist accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and inappropriate harassment in an article 2018 in New York Jewish Week.
The letter follows a report by the forwarder that Cohen and three other longtime colleagues have been inviting Jewish leaders to post Zoom talks on contemporary issues there. the Jewish life – an attempt that some see as Cohen, a leader in the field of Jewish geography for decades, attempted to return to the fold after Jewish institutions severed ties with him as a result of the allegations.
“We have found that conversations have been called across the life span of Jewish organization and sociology with Steven M Cohen – who is a perpetrator of sexual abuse and recklessness * – and his associates. As Jewish clerics, we know that there is no active value in participating in the rehabilitation of reckless atheism, and we know that the construction of reckless atheism is not a neutral value, ”wrote the clergy.
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A McDonald’s employee holds a sign during a workplace harassment complaint on Sept. 18, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. (Joshua Lott / AFP through JTA)
The astronomical note states: “For Cohen to confess, offer reformation and apologize to those he has harmed, and work towards transformation, he is considered unsustainable in the eyes of Jewish law and tradition. ”
The involvement of several Jewish leaders in the talks with Cohen and his colleagues has raised questions about how someone accused of misconduct or misconduct can return to public life. While Cohen acknowledged to Jewish Week in 2018 that his behavior had followed a “pattern” and said that he “deeply apologized to the women who hurt me with the words or what I did, “the rabbits said that Cohen had not made enough of his victims’ correction to win community acceptance.
Before the allegations against Cohen were made public, he was a professor at the Jewish Religious Institute of the Hebrew Union College and directed the Berman Jewish Policy Archive. He was also the author of several influential studies on Jewish demography and consulted on projects such as the Pew Study Center study of the American people.
Cohen, with Sylvia Barack Fishman, former professor of Jewish studies at Brandeis University; Steve Bayme, former director of the present-day Jewish life of the American Jewish Committee; and Jack Wertheimer, a professor at the Jewish Theology Conference, had invited small groups of Jewish scholars and general leaders to the unprecedented Zoom conversations about contemporary Jewish issues.
The clerical letter, which criticized the meetings, was prepared by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, a boarding student at the National Council of Jewish Women, and Karen Reiss Medwed, dean of assistant at Northeastern University’s graduate education school, who sent her he joined colleagues for signing Wednesday night.
Signatories include key Jewish general leaders, including Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reformed Judaism; Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, Head of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Rabbinical Assembly; and Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of Rebuild Rabbinical College.
A separate letter signed by more than 100 rabbis and cantorial students arrived on Thursday in response to the clergy ‘s letter.
“Meeting reckless non-speakers not only hinders the teshuva process, which takes time and space, it also sends a message about the values of our community and shape her way, ”the students wrote. “Participants in these closed-door conversations choose intellectual study over support for survivors of sexual misconduct and other marginalized groups. “
That letter was organized by Talia Kaplan, Lilli Shvartsmann and Jessica Dell’Era, students at the Jewish Theology Conference, as well as Avigayil Halpern from Hadar and Leah Nussbaum from Hebrew Union College.
In another statement earlier in the week, the Women’s Caucus of the Jewish Studies Association said it was “disappointed” by the meetings held by Cohen and his colleagues.
“This effort has had a real effect on rejuvenating and rejuvenating a humiliated and diminished pupil,” the group wrote. “The Women’s Caucus sees these efforts as inappropriate and difficult, as they jeopardize the plight of young and casual scholars as well as rehabilitate women targeted by Cohen. . “
