Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out: Cases of Clergy Sexual Abuse Involving Adult Victims in the Jewish Community

From The Awareness Center's Daily Newsletter:

Cases of Clergy Sexual Abuse Involving Adult Victims in the Jewish Community
© (2008) The Awareness Center
www.theawarenesscenter.org

If you know of other cases of clergy sexual abuse involving adult survivors, please forward the information to Vicki Polin, Executive Director - The Awareness Center.
vickipolin@ aol.com

Also see: Spiritual Abuse

Orthodox

Conservative

Reform

Jewish Renewal

http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Gafni_Mordechai.html

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Samuel Mendlowitz should be on the Conservative list. He gave up his Lubavitch roots and went to JTS and stayed Conservative.; January 23, 2008 4:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Ivan Wachmann, an Irishman kicked out of his pulpit in England by a bet din, also left orthodoxy after divorcing his first wife and currently heads a Conservative temple in Florida.; January 24, 2008 8:38 AM
Anonymous said...: http://www.nypost.com/seven/11272006/news/regionalnews/sin_agogue_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm?page=0

November 27, 2006 -- A prominent Park Avenue rabbi had a mistress nearly half his age sign a bizarre cohabitation contract - promising she'd get liposuction, become better educated and continue their already hot-and-heavy sexual relationship in exchange for half his house, the woman claims in a bombshell lawsuit.

Janet Pizzo says she had a seven-year affair with the married Metropolitan Synagogue Rabbi Joel Goor - which included recurring steamy sex in his rabbinical office while he lied to his wife about his whereabouts.

But their courtship crumbled when she suspected him of having another girlfriend, and he's since become vindictive. She even caught him on audio tape threatening to prance around their Bronx home naked in front of her 17-year-old daughter.

"You've got to move," Goor says, according to an audio tape reviewed by The Post. "This is my house . . . I'm allowed to walk around nude in my house. So you better tell [her daughter] Mary," Goor told Pizzo. "I'm allowed to walk round this house . . . and I'm going to."

Goor's lawyer declined to comment on the allegations.

"I truly loved this guy, I really did," said a weepy Pizzo, 48, complaining how the 73-year-old Man of God locked her out of their bedroom, removed the cushions from her couch and vowed to unplug the refrigerator.

Pizzo said she's filing a $15 million suit today in Bronx Supreme Court against Goor and his synagogue, claiming he broke his contractual promise to pay her at least $125,000 if their relationship ended.

Pizzo claims that before they broke up in July, Goor told her he planned to completely ignore the contract, a copy of which was reviewed by The Post.

It promised her co-ownership of the Throgs Neck home among other financial considerations.

The agreement, which was signed months before Goor's divorce was finalized, said, "The Parties [agree] to provide each other with all the care, companionship [both platonic and sexual], fidelity and friendship expected in a relationship tantamount to marriage and consistent with their current relationship."

An attachment also said Pizzo agreed to get "liposuction from the neck down," and that she "will agree to join Joel in his cultural experiences without complaining."

Finally, it said, "Janet will attempt with Joel's delicate guidance to speak English properly."

"It's not kosher. He treated her like a pig," said lawyer Rosemarie Arnold, who's representing Pizzo along with pit-bull litigator Joseph Tacopina.

Goor insisted Pizzo watch art documentaries so she could converse on the same level as his wise friends, Pizzo says.

"In front of my family, he would correct my grammar and he also would say, 'You're getting fat,' " she said. "I just felt like a piece of s- - -."

Still, at the beginning of the relationship, Goor wooed her by taking her to "the best restaurants" and to his New Jersey weekend house, telling his wife he was away presiding over weddings and baby-naming ceremonies, or doing poverty outreach.

"He would tell her he was sleeping with the homeless, and he was sleeping with me," Pizzo said. "I finally met a man that enjoyed sex as much as me. He just let me feel on top of the world."

She said they routinely had sex five times per week. "Once, we set a record - 23 times in eight days," Pizzo said.

Goor has been married twice, and only last spring legally ended his latest marriage. Pizzo, meanwhile, has two daughters from two failed marriages.

In 2003, her suit says, Goor moved into her apartment after separating from his wife. In June 2004, he told Pizzo to find a house for them, she said.

In March 2005, Goor bought the Throgs Neck house, and they moved in five months later. Pizzo's suit said she paid $350 each week to Goor toward the mortgage.

The couple signed their cohabitation agreement on Sept. 24, 2005.

But by last July, Pizzo suspected Goor was cheating. Anxious about her and her daughter's future, she asked him why her name was not yet on the title of the house as he had promised.

"He said, 'It's not going to happen. I changed my mind . . . You're not going to get anything,' " she recalled.

dan.mangan@nypost.com; January 24, 2008 8:48 AM

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Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out

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Cases of Clergy Sexual Abuse Involving Adult Victims in the Jewish Community

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