Horrifying testimonies seek to lift shroud of silence around ritual sex abuse claims

[IwantToRetire]

Police have opened an investigation into multiple allegations of organized ritual sexual abuse after accusers relayed harrowing testimony of torture, rape and other horrors to lawmakers late last month.

The July 27 hearing included testimony from alleged victims, now adults, regarding abuse they had experienced as children, primarily in the ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Haifa, Safed and elsewhere.

Accusers recounted tales of gruesome sexual abuse they experienced as children, usually by groups of people, involving ritualistic, religious rhetoric and iconography. The abuse took place in schools, synagogues, private homes, warehouses, cemeteries and forests, they alleged.

“The police received material about this a year ago, and said they would investigate, but they didn’t,” said Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, who has been working with victims of organized ritual sexual abuse for over a year to bring their claims to light.

Extracts from quite a long article at https://www.timesofisrael.com/horrifying-testimonies-seek-to-lift-shroud-of-silence-around-ritual-sex-abuse-claims/

Please note some details of abuse in this article maybe hard for some to read.

Closed religious communities often perpetuate these horrors, hope that police investigations and persecutions bring justice to victims.

Sadly this is such a familiar story.

Not just the abuse within religious groups, but the police doing nothing.

The bortherhood of the patriarchy.

I thought this was going to be about the apparently debunked cases in the uk. I have always worried that they might pop up again- that something real may have been at the heart of it.

Apparently is the operative word in that sentence imo. Given how much of human sexual behaviour is quite ritualistic, coupled with the amount of csa which we know happens, the occurrence of ritualistic csa is more than likely. Could that be dressed up as some form of religion, of course it could. Do I believe in Satan, no; but i do believe that some people pretend to be satanists? Yes I do

This is a UK based report https://www.hydrantprogramme.co.uk/assets/NPCC-Organised-ritual-abuse-and-its-wider-context-Degradation-deception-and-disavowal-July-2025-v2.pdf

Not sure how many of the cases have a religious context.

Yes. This thread has reminded me to look out the Yasmin Mohammed youtube; she has a couple of videos about sexism and misogyny in orthodox communities.

Here's one:

I was reading a 2008 Guardian article on the Haredi Jews of Stamford Hill, and this comment underneath caught my eye :

'No analogy between Haredim and Islamic extremism. Haredim want to seperate themselves from the world, not take it over.
Having said that the Haredi community has a lot of problems, many of which it does not deal with itself too well, including child abuse, poverty, poor levels of education.
Should they be "allowed" to mind their own business?. Absolutely yes, so long as they are not breaking the law while doing so
Certainly the last think any 'community' needs is a load of self interested social workers and other local authority nobodies coming along trying to impose some 'strategy' or other on their every day lives.'

So essentially, this commenter acknowledges the child abuse and poor education, but then appears to say the government should not intervene unless criminal, though obvs the first is that, and the second is certainly worrying.'

Could be anti-social worker sentiment, but also illustrates my suspicion that a lot of people don't really care about how the behaviour of too much of the Haredi community affects their children, because unlike fundamentalist Muslims, it usually doesn't endanger people outside the community.

V disturbing article, as is the podcast from Yasmin. Thank goodness it's being exposed, at least....

I’ve felt the same. I always had doubts about the way that was all cleared up and it turned out there was no truth to it at all, or so we’re told. On the one had I totally believe social services and other agencies are capable of getting the wrong end of the stick, overstepping and being swept along by trends when they should be able to take a step back (cf genderwoo) - but on the other there is nothing so sexually abusive and grim that there isn’t someone somewhere who’ll do it, and anything involving cultish, secretive or extreme belief and ritual is a risk for sexual abuses also happening.

One of the problems with articles like this, is that it pushes the narrative of it happening "over there" in different places and different people, not here and not like us.
One of the difficulties imo with the "satanic panic" was that some of the social workers involved were religious themselves and this allowed msm to portray the situation as being one of religion, rather than one of sexual abuse.
Abusers will use any cover to legitimise their behaviour and to silence their victims.

Yeah I think it’s closed communities. Yasmin Mohammed has had other interviews where she’s spoken to people from other religious groups about abuse thats covered up. Any group that tries to isolate from wider society is a high risk of this kind of thing. It encourages cult like loyalty to the group, horrifying for vulnerable populations within those groups. I really hope anyone who’s been harmed gets justice.

I just started to listen to a podcast about Pitcairns abuse. A police officer is interviewed about the initial allegation and it’s an 18yr old accused of raping an 11yr old. He immediately starts talking about how the 18yr old wasn’t as mature as some and so “the age gap narrows”. He was talking about what is legally a man having sex with someone very much a child at 11yrs old and was immediately trying to minimise. This was in 2006 not the 70’s btw. It tells you a lot about male police officers imo and explains a lot about the blind eye turned to sexual abuse of children in the UK so it doesn’t surprise me when police officers in other countries don’t seem to care much either. Made me fucking miserable and despondent.

Great point @User37482

If anyone's interested, Lost Paradise by Kathy Marks is a brilliant book on the Pitcairn abuse saga. It's a grim read but really gets to the core of the abuse.

Often the setting is a religous one - the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews have a pretty terrible record, and I have knowledge of some breakaway Mormon groups - but really it's a matter of closed communities. It's just that, in our society, closed communities are usually (but not always) minority religious groups.

I've read a bit about the Pitcairn abuse - horrible.... Could you let me know the name of the podcast- I'd be interested in listening?

Thanks for the rec. I have quite a strong interest in Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, sadly there's quite a lot of evidence for abuse there in the US, but I didn't know about Satmars specifically.

I'll link a couple of articles, w TW for abuse ofc.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.vice.com/en/article/the-child-rape-assembly-line-0000141-v20n11/&ved=2ahUKEwj-tLvnuLePAxU5VEEAHXKBHbUQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3ryGRKy6DzQRLKoGuLAxYQ

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/nyregion/ultra-orthodox-jews-shun-their-own-for-reporting-child-sexual-abuse.html&ved=2ahUKEwipnqD7uLePAxW-REEAHe_3A6EQFnoECGYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3xMfL4t1BEe2xHr2-YMql6

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/nyregion/14abuse.html&ved=2ahUKEwiaooSfubePAxUjWkEAHcGXBWoQFnoECCQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2EIri8LcLO-MYoK0M54TEF

I think the point about isolated communities, or those that chose to not engage in wider societies or by geography are isolated is the common link.

Look at all those hippie communes where sooner or later male dominance led to sexual abuse.

I suppose the difference is that sometimes young, but adults chose to join the cult or group. Unlike children born into one.

But the pattern of men creating the "rules"under the guise of religion, lifestyle or whatever, all seem remarkably similary.

Women (and children) exist for men to dominate and abuse

I think w Ultra Orthodox Jews, the issue is complicated by anti-Semitism. There are old tropes linking Jews with child abuse, and so victims & others feel uncomfortable that their testimony/support could be used to defame Jews as a whole.

I lurk sometimes on the subrredit for exjews. They are mainly US Ultra Orthodox, or at least Orthodox. Obvs it's SM and plenty could be lies, but there does seem to be a continual theme of extreme fear of the general community. Eg. One poster reported being told by a yeshiva rabbi, ' Hashem (God) invented sports for the goyim so they'd be busy with that and not with killing Jews.'

Also by the fact that in the USA, NY in particular, some Ultra Orthodox groups are quite politically influential. So another reason making it hard for victims to speak out.

I think this is common with any number of minority communities. That their experience of discrimination because of their race, religion or whatever, means that even those suffering abuse are not going to go to the wider dominant community for help.

This is why many women's refuges or rape crisis support lines were set up by and for women from minority communities. To give women needing support help from those who share their life experience.

Sadly, because of funding cuts, many of the women's groups that first lost their funding, were these groups.

You don't even have to have a commune in the middle of nowhere. I sometimes wonder why the SWP, and its franchises in other countries, has such a chronic problem with rape coverups. It's some combination of a strict hierarchical leadership; a sense that it's us against the world; an immersive activism, so many members have literally no friends outside the organisation and are terrified of losing their whole social circle if they get kicked out.

Is it impossible that similar things could happen in, let's say, the Green Party or Plaid Cymru? I'd say it's relatively less likely because the hierarchy isn't as strict and the fanaticism isn't as intense... but on the other hand, we've got the examples of certain Labour local authorities.

Awful. I know about the important work minority women did, that must continue..I guess donations are something, but the gov should also prioritise.

With regard to UK Ultra Orthodox Jews, I listened to a Radio 4 program recently

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04n1x7p

The man interviewed had difficulty with English, as his life had been spent among people who mainly spoke Yiddish. Obvs not just language is the barrier there, but just communicating w people who aren't in your specific group.. And these were people who luckily had not been abused, just wanted to live a less restrictive lifestyle

I need to check, but I think at least some Ultra Orthodox Jews risk losing their family contact if they leave.

I've read similar about the Amish community, and also the UK gypsy community : not always, but often people seem to lose contact with family if they leave.

It’s “The Pitcairn Trials” on wondery (can be found on spotify, you can get a free trial period as I think you have to be a subscriber). It is treated quite lightly imo by the podcast but it is still interesting.

Yes absolutely, every cult I’ve heard of is fundamentally similar in that inevitably control over women and abuse of minors. I think closed religious communities of any stripe are similar, the level of control and secrecy is the same.

I remember reading an article by Matthew Syed in the Times (a very sensible man) where he talked about a biobank employee who found very high levels of children born of incest in Bradfords muslim population compared to the average numbers but no-one wanted to talk about it because of accusations of racism. Similar no doubt to hesitations to expose abuse in Jewish communities.

I think that you will find that this is not particular to anyone community.

eg the number of daughters made pregnant by their father or brother.
https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2010/03/11/social-workers-reluctant-to-face-reality-in-incest-case/

Let alone the well known cliches of inbreeding in what were once remote parts of the UK.

The pattern is always the same. Women trapped in a small community are at risk.

This is quite old https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7422843/More-13-000-Britons-born-illegal-extreme-inbreeding.html

But a more recent one in France showed much the same.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/nov/26/uk-crime-father-rape-sentenced
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/daughter-tells-of-incest-and-brutality-was-made-pregnant-1578582.html
https://www.innertemplelibrary.com/2015/04/derby-man-who-got-daughter-pregnant-is-jailed-for-life-bbc-news/
https://metro.co.uk/2017/01/25/father-had-sex-with-daughter-and-got-her-pregnant-twice-in-incestuous-relationship-6406358/

Thank you. I've read a little about the Pitcairn case & what disturbed me the most was the way they older women acted to the victims. I just couldn't rationalise how you could be like that : maybe since it was so ingrained that had been abused themselves and wanted to believe it was OK?? Well, I shall find out from the podcast, I expect ☹️

That is horrifying. The religion and ritual must be being used to disguise their lust and sadism. Those poor children, now adults, not being able to do anything - and the thought that it will still be going on. The cover ups and the police not bothering!

There's actually been a recent movement to talk about siblings sexual abuse : sadly it's way more common than anyone would think. Decca Aitkenhead did a v good but hard to read article for The Times, which mentioned several other resources, including the US podcast SiblingsToo, which gives survivor testimony but also advice from various authorities on how to prevent or failing that, deal with it

There was also a v sad Atlantic article about many incest cases being revealed by genetic searching in 23andMe.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/&ved=2ahUKEwjYs_2rtbiPAxWUUkEAHcHeGegQFnoECCcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw345AlQlePWnUVK658J8NvQ