Emily Wax at the Washington Post writes:
Increasingly, victims’ advocates are taking to the Internet.
“We are breaking the silence in the frum [religious] community, and more people are getting online to tell their stories every day,” said Chaim Levin, 22, who was raised in the Chabad-Lubavitch community, an ultra-orthodox branch of Hasidic Judaism. Levin recently began blogging about the sexual abuse that he says he experienced at age 19 at an Orthodox Jewish counseling center in Jersey City. (The center — JONAH, or Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality — did not return calls or e-mail requests for comment.) Levin, who is now openly gay and no longer religious, still lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which is the Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
“Our goal is to capture the eyes and ears of the world,” said Levin, who earlier this month traveled to Georgetown University to speak about abuse on “Faith Complex,” a campus TV talk show about religious issues.
TWO thanks Chaim Levin for having the courage to speak out and stand for justice. He is an important voice in our community and a rising star in the LGBT movement.
As for JONAH, this is a slippery group run by convicted felon Arthur Abba Goldberg. Any parent that sends their child to this group, given its unspeakably poor track record, is begging for trouble. Here is the experience Levin and Ben Unger had at JONAH.
