Jerusalem rabbi suspected of leading a sect and sexually abusing boys

Rabbi Menachem Yaveh, 51, was arrested this week on charges of leading a sect in Jerusalem and sexually abusing boys who were members of the sect. Yaveh is a student of Rabbi Eliezer Berland and the father of 17 children. At least four of Yaveh’s former students have filed complaints about him with police.

One witness said, “Yaveh had permission to do anything, including the most despicable acts written in the Torah. It could go on into the night, and I wouldn’t eat or drink.” The student pointed to the old apartments in Jerusalem where these acts took place and said, “The cover story was that he opened a yeshiva, but he wanted employees to serve him.”

Mordechai (pseudonym) claimed that Rabbi Yaweh had sexually abused him. “He kept warning me, ‘You know you can’t tell anyone about this, because something might happen to you. This is something I did only with you and for you, something I don’t do with anyone else.’”

He said that Yaveh took him into a room, while he was sitting, closed all the doors and told him that his grandfather was “in very, very low places in heaven because you are sinning.” The student said that he was scared and felt that he would “die” of shame. After that, Yaveh told him that he would make sure that nothing would happen to him. Yaveh then began to hug him and kiss him on the lips. “It was such an intimate feeling that he made me feel that I did not need anything in the world, that I only needed him. And that is where the worst journey of my life began.”

Mordechai said the sex crimes were committed “in the name of our holy Torah,” and Yaweh used verses from the Torah to justify his actions. According to Mordechai, “He kept making me feel like I needed someone to support me and depend on. He just took my innocence and exploited it for about four years.”

Mordecai said 80% of the acts took place in the same room, which was “small, dark and scary.” He added: “I didn’t understand anything about sex and all that stuff, he just took me and said, ‘Tell me what else you like, what else you want.’ I told him, ‘We’ve done everything,’ and he said, ‘What else do you want me to do?’”

Mordechai added: “Menachem, let it be known that you have wounded my soul and ruined my life and the lives of my family. The evil you have done to me has destroyed my life and you have trampled it. You ruined my life the day I realized that you were not righteous and used me solely for your personal interests. I know more people who have been through this.”

Another witness, Tzachi Zeitlin, waived his anonymity and said he studied at a Hasidic yeshiva in Mea Shearim. According to him, Yaveh hung around the Breslav Hasidic synagogue and crowned himself a “true disciple” of Rabbi Berland. He claimed that Yaveh had brainwashed him with “long hours of endless conversations that create an addiction.” Zeitlin said, “Yaveh started with the most serious sexual assaults, in every form and in every way,” he described. “My family realized that there was a problem in the relationship and with great effort separated us.”

Moshe, who also chose to waive his anonymity, said, “When I entered the room with him and he asked, ‘Do you feel that I love you?’ Then he started kissing me on the cheek, and then it progressed to kissing me on the lips. He talked to me about intimate things that I had no idea about. I shouldn’t have been exposed to that as a 14-year-old ultra-Orthodox boy.”

According to Moshe, “He told me several times that if I could find him innocent guys who didn’t ask questions, he would pay me NIS 2,000 for each guy. At one point I asked myself, ‘Is this the rabbi who is supposed to lead you?’

Nathan (pseudonym) said the rabbi sought out 13-year-old boys because “at that age they have no opinions. He said outright that he was looking for guys like that, without any sense.” Another testimony claimed that he “completely cut off the boys from their parents and their environment, slowly marrying them off and building a whole community around him.”

Another witness, Hodaya (a pseudonym), described Yaveh giving his students giant photos of himself as gifts after their wedding. “The goal was to look at him and think about him all the time, so that the kids would come out as righteous as he was. So that he would be in your thoughts all the time,” she said.

Police said: “This is an ongoing investigation. We will continue to investigate the suspicions with the required professionalism.” Yaveh continued to lead the yeshiva during the investigation. The rabbi declined to comment on the investigation, but his wife said he was “a righteous man who is being slandered.”