Questions raised in Zalman Cohen's verdict. Article from Daat Torah

 

 

 

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2014/12/nachlaot-case-questions-raised.html

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Nachlaot Case: Questions raised regarding conviction of Zalman Cohen

Guest Post

Was the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen biased in the judgment of Zalman Cohen?

Recently, Zalman Cohen was convicted and sentenced to 9 years as one of the Nachlaot Pedophiles from the alleged "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring".

All of the material in this article is taken from either the Court Document of Zalman Cohen's verdict, or as a comparison, from the Court Document of Ben Tzion P. who was acquitted of all charges against him.

The verdict for Zalman Cohen was based entirely on the testimony of four minors who testified against him, along with their parents, the child investigators, and psychologists. There was no physical evidence of molestation (such as the presence of DNA or doctors' findings of physical damage to the bodies of the children). The type of evidence presented against him was quite similar in nature to what was presented against Ben Tzion. The children spoke in a way that seemed believable; that is, they did not appear to be intentionally lying. However, there were contradictions and impossibilities in the children's testimonies. The judges in Ben Tzion's case felt that this presented a doubt as to whether Ben Tzion ought to be convicted, and therefore acquitted him.

In the case of Zalman, the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen explained away any problems with the children's testimonies as being due to their confusion since they must have been traumatized by experiencing the sexual molestation that had allegedly occurred.

The defense did not bring any personal eye witnesses in Zalman's favor. Zalman claimed that no one wanted to endanger themselves by testifying, but the judge dismissed that. (However, it is understandable that people would not want to get involved out of fear that they would also be accused of being members of the "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring".) The defense also brought two expert witnesses, who stated that children under pressure are likely to generate false memories that are indistinguishable from memories of actual events which transpired. The judge also dismissed the expert witnesses' statements about false memories.

The judge acknowledged that there had been some contamination of the children's testimonies in the Nachlaot Pedophile Case, and that there had been panic and gossip in the neighborhood, but decided that this did not invalidate the testimony of the four children who testified against Zalman in the case. The four minors who testified against Zalman were:

1. "Dalet", who also testified against Ben Tzion. She was the child who testified that the children undressed outside Ben Tzion's house. The judge decided that since she did not live in the neighborhood, but only came to visit her cousin, she would not have been exposed to the gossip. That is simply not true. She definitely heard the gossip from her cousins and relatives, regarding Zalman and others. Here is a quote regarding her testimony with regards to Zalman which appeared in the decision made by the judges in Ben Tzion's trial:

בתשובה לשאלות נוספות התבקשה לתת תיאור של זלמן שהיה בחדר ואמרה שהוא נראה חרדי מחופש. כאשר נשאלה מנין היא יודעת שהוא מחופש, אמרה: "אבא של בת דודה שלי אמר" (עמ' 18, שורה 29).

[Translation: In answer to additional questions, she was asked to give a description of Zalman who was in the room, and said that he looked like he was disguising himself as a Chareidi. When she was asked from where she knows that he

In contrast, in his statement regarding the conviction of Zalman, the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen did not even mention the above statement.

"Dalet" also contradicted herself on the two occasions in which she was interrogated regarding Zalman. The first time she said he didn't do anything but just watched. The second time, she said he did participate to some extent. The judge, in point 37, dismissed the contradiction and stated that the fact that she contradicted herself increased her reliability as an witness.

The judge did mention the fact that "Dalet" was discussing the events with others in between the interrogation sessions by the child investigators (in point 46). Also, he mentioned how the mother of "Dalet" pressured her to say something about the possibility of being molested (in point 47). But in the end, in his point 48, he decided that the contamination of "Dalet's" testimony by these outside factors was not of any significance.

2. "Yud" was the second child who testified. He stated that he was forced to touch a girl's genitalia during an event when boys and girls were paired up. When asked what the girl's genitals were like, he said they were just like a boy's genitals. The expert child investigator expressed his opinion that at least this part of the boy's testimony represented an event which had not occurred. However, the judge decided to disagree with the expert child investigator's opinion in this instance, and stated that he believed the event must have really occurred but that since the child was so traumatized he didn't remember that a girl's parts are different from a boy's parts.

3. "Shin" was the third child who testified.  The mother of Shin admitted to trying to force her child to say something for several hours, with such force that "Shin" ultimately had her eyes roll back and fainted. Subsequently, the mother took "Shin" to repeated therapy sessions in order to get her to talk about being molested. Although initially "Shin" denied being molested and said she didn't remember anything ever occurring, after the extreme pressure from her mother, and the repeated pressure from the therapist, "Shin" finally said that she "remembers". Rather than recognize that the mother was putting a strong amount of pressure on her child, which in and of itself was a traumatic experience which would be a strong inducement to generate a false memory, the judge felt that the child's fainting must be evidence that she had undergone sexual molestation by Zalman Cohen and others.


The judge's reasoning was that the mother and therapist didn't tell her what to say specifically, but just asked her to tell about being molested. Also the judge decided that because of the numerous details that "Shin" gave when she "remembered" the alleged molestation, it was unlikely that she had made it up. However, the research on false memory generation indicates that it is not necessary to ask specific questions in order to generate richly detailed false memories of events which did not occur in young children, and that the children actually believe the richly detailed stories that they tell. For example, some research was done in which it was suggested to children that they had experienced a number of events, some true and some false. One of the false events was the experience of having a finger caught in a mouse trap and having to go to the hospital to be treated for that. A number of children generated richly detailed storied about having their finger caught in a mouse trap even though the event had never occurred. (See the scientific research article: http://www.shoreline.edu/dchri s/psych209/Documents/Ceci% 20and%20Loftus.pdf)

"Shin" described in detail how she went from one apartment (Ben Tzion's) to another apartment (Binyamin's) and then a third apartment (Zalman's). The judge felt that the detail of how she went from one house to the next was quite impressive. But almost every child in the neighborhood would have been able to describe how to go to each of those houses (regardless of whether they had been molested or not), even if their parents had not taken them on a tour to see where they were. And the parents did take the neighborhood children on tours to ask them if they had been in those houses (as the judge mentioned at several places in his statement). The neighborhood is quite small, and gossips a lot. It would be amazing if there would be any resident of the neighborhood, child or adult, who didn't know exactly where those three individuals lived.

In addition "Shin" described in detail similar though not identical events that allegedly occurred in all three apartments. In all three apartments, there were similar details about watching a soccer movie, being in a bathtub, and the presence of a stick of some kind. (See point 112 in the judge's statement.) The events seem absurd and pointless. The judge stated that the reason for the similarity was that the three individuals, Ben Tzion, Binyamin, and Zalman acted together in most circumstances and that is why the events described are similar. However, nowhere did "Shin" say that all three men were present together at the time of watching the soccer movies, sitting in the bathtub, or during any of the alleged events. So I don't know how the judge arrived at that conclusion. Also, the judge made much of the fact that "Shin" did not say that Ben Tzion tried to sit on the stick "Eastern style", but instead used the stick to hit her, while the other two men sat on the stick. Therefore since the events she described were similar but not identical, they must be true, according to the judge.

4. "Mem" was the fourth child who testified. "Mem" stated that he was in Binyamin's house and that many of the other alleged pedophiles who were on the "list" were there, including Zalman. A movie was watched in which there was "Pritzut" (in English: "Immodesty"). One has to be knowledgeable about the Chareidi outlook to understand what "Immodesty" means to them. A movie with "Immodesty" would not necessarily mean a pornographic movie, but could simply be a movie in which girls were wearing short sleeved shirts and pants. Also, perhaps this is not common knowledge, but most Chareidim forbid the watching of any movies whatsoever, which makes it much more tempting for a child to want to go to someone else who has a computer where he can watch a movie for entertainment. I have no doubt that many Chareidi children whose parents forbid the watching of movies, probably do go to the houses of other people to watch movies.

"Mem" also acknowledged that there was extensive discussion of all the alleged pedophiles in the neighborhood, between himself and others.

The judge discounted the possibility that the panic and discussions in the neighborhood could have caused "Mem" to have a false memory. However, he didn't discuss at all the possibility that there could have been a real memory that was distorted. Perhaps at some time "Mem" did go to Binyamin's house, and watched a movie. But were all those other people (including Zalman) present? Did they undress?

The judge found support for "Mem's" testimony, from his mother's testimony. His mother said that "Mem" used to wet his bed up until the age of 12 years, and that after he gave his testimony, he was able to get over that problem. Therefore, the judge concluded that this proves he must have been molested and that giving his testimony made him feel better. However, there could be other explanations for why "Mem" got over his bed-wetting problem. Perhaps he simply matured and grew out of it.

In contrast, the judge also found support from the fact that after "Mem's" siblings testified, their mother stated that they seemed to get worse and develop more emotional problems than they had before. According to the judge, if a child's behavior and emotional state improved after giving testimony, that meant the child must have been molested. But if a child's behavior and emotional state got worse after giving testimony, that also meant the child must have been molested.

Although the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen does not mention Ritual Abuse, he does mention the strange nature of the abuse as seen in the testimony of "Shin" but this does not seem to bother him. What is not seen in the Court Document of Zalman Cohen is what the parents claim occurred.

In order to understand the underlying point of view of the parents making the accusations against Zalman Cohen and the other alleged "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring" members, I think it is important to look at the lengthy documents which have been published by someone on the "rotter.net" website, under the pseudonym "Sheleg". In particular, the claim is made that the purpose of the "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring" was to perform ritual child abuse in order to convert the children to Christianity. The reason to understand the underlying point of view of the parents is to truly understand that either: 1) everything they say is true (including the claims of tunnels and secret rooms) and the Nachlaot Pedophile Ring really exists and the diabolical purpose of it all is to try to convert their children to Christianity, or 2) nothing they say is true at all and they are totally insane in their beliefs and outlooks, or 3) some of what they say is true, but their beliefs are mixed with a lot of crazy thoughts and one must be very careful before condemning anyone based on the testimony of these parents and their children.

What also needs to be looked at is not only the evidence presented regarding these four children who testified in the case against Zalman, but also the testimonies given by the other children which were not presented. These four children were among approximately 80 children that testified, and only these four were accepted by the child investigators. (In Ben Tzion's trial the judges requested to look at the testimony of the other children which the child investigators had rejected, in order to get a better overall picture of what actually happened.) The parents claim that all of these children were also molested, as well as others that did not testify. This supposedly went on for years. Nachlaot was one busy place and yet no one noticed.

An Analysis of Then and Now.

Recenty there have been several posts on the blog Daat Torah related to the issue of Satanic Ritual Abuse, among them the following:

1) Satanic Child Abuse - Is there a ring of such pedophiles operating in Sanhedria Murchevet?

2) Dorothy Rabinowitz - Why your friends, psychologists, and rabbis want to believe clearly impossible false accusations of child abuse - and why so few see that the Emperor has no clothes

3) Nachlaot: Panic in Jerusalem: Parents in a tight-knit neighborhood believe a pedophile ring is terorizing their children. What if it doesn't exist?

Clearly there are some real differences between the Satanic Ritual Abuse which was alleged to occur in daycare centers in the the US, and the accusations about ritual child abuse which have been made in Nachlaot, Sanhedria Murchevet, and various other neighborhoods of Jerusalem:



For one thing, most of the claims being made in the US were about events that were alleged to have been perpetrated at day care centers, nursery schools and the like, by child care givers and their associates. That is not the case at all, about the claims being made in Jerusalem.
Also, the claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse in the US included descriptions of children being forced to participate in bizarre rituals, presumably as part of a system of worshiping the Devil. This was particularly offensive to the majority of the US population -- who are mainstream Christians. In contrast, the claim being made in Jerusalem is that the children are being forced to participate in Christian rituals!
The claims about Satanic Ritual Abuse in the US were made back in the 1980s, in an era when the experts didn't understand the extent to which leading questions asked of children in an interrogation could lead to them giving false testimony, and therefore, people naively believed those claims. In contrast, the claims about the abuse in Jerusalem are occurring currently in 2015, at a time when all knowledgeable experts in the field of child abuse (therapists, lawyers, police, etc.) should already be acquainted with the mistakes made in the US in the 1980s, and therefore should not repeat such mistakes.
Does that therefore mean that although the claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse in the US were eventually debunked and no longer regarded as real by most experts, that the claims being made in Israel may be true -- since they are not identical?

In order to answer that question, one first needs to analyze the underlying causes of the false accusations. Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt by Debbie Nathan and MIchael Snedeker, is a book which does just that. Like Dorothy Rabinowitz' book No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times, this book deals with the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic which began in the US in the 1980s.

Satan's Silence discusses the anthropological concept of "subversion myths" as the basis for understanding the development of the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic (page 31):

"In the West, rumors of evils done to innocents date back to the ancient Greeks, and comprise part of what anthropologists call a subversion myth -- a story that attaches blame for complicated problems to scapegoats. Subversion myths apear in times of acute social stress, and typically contain several elements. Most basic is a conspiracy narrative, in which the plotters are usually racial and cultural outsiders. Or they may be members of the culture's powerful elites, such as aristocrates, politicians, priests, or the police. The crimes these culprits are charged with constitute the most evil, loathsome behavior imaginable, perpetrated against society's ultimate symbol of its own purity and self-renewal: its children."

Satan's Silence gives several examples of past "subversion myths" -- which interestingly enough include several accusations against the Jewish people, such as the "blood libels" in Europe during the Middle Ages. The book then turns its attention to the particular scapegoats in the Satanic Ritual Abuse cases (page 33):

"Why satanists? This latest scapegoat is explainable via the anthropological concept of the demonology: the narrative, specific to every culture, that identifies the ultimate evil threatening the group. During periods of social turmoil and moral crisis, societal preoccupation with its demonology intensifies. In Christian cultures, the demonology is based on the concept of a threat from Satan and his mortal agents."

Satan's Silence also details why parents were particularly uneasy about sending their children to day care in the United States during that era. Women in the United States had traditionally stayed at home to care for their children while their husbands went out to work, but for a variety of reasons --such as economic necessity and the influence of the women's movement -- more mothers were enterring the work force during the 1980s and as result were placing their young children in day care centers and preschools. But the society as a whole was not entirely comfortable with that change.

Thus, the anthropological concepts of "subversion myth" and "demonology", as applied in the United States during that period of time, were the underlying backdrop to the false accusations that day care workers were involved in Satanic Ritual Abuse.

What about the current accusations being made in Nachlaot, Sanhedria, and elsewhere about ritual child abuse? On the surface, as stated previously, these are quite different from the accusations which were made in the US during the 1980s about Satanic Ritual Abuse in day care centers. But if we examine the accusations from the perspective of anthropological concepts such as "subversion myth" and "demonology", it seems clear that Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have quite a different concept of what the "ultimate evil threatening the group" would be.

We can discern some of the factors at play by examining Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz's speech. One of those factors appears to be a fear of "technology". He states "...this is what's most frightening, they use all sorts of technology, and systems, for compartmentalizing their brain, so that whatever they're experiencing remains subconscious, conscious on only a certain level, and the other part of their brain is totally unaffected by it, so that they won't talk." Whereas day care centers seemed to be the focus of fears in the US in the 1980s, "technology" is the focus of fears in Jerusalem in 2015. What technology is he talking about? Computers? The Internet? There is certainly a fear of technology on the part of many people, as well as an ignorance of technology. People have unclear ideas of what technology is and what it is actually capable of.

If we read between the lines of Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz's speech, we can also get an idea of what the underlying fear is really all about -- that there is a Christian missionary plot to convert the children to Christianity: "Whether or not they actually baptize them is hard to know. Kids have talked about pools. It's hard to know. And we have to be very clear: let's not jump to conclusions on our own. I know imaginations run wild. We don't know. There are things out on the street that this is all a plot, and it's the pope that's on top of it. Rabbosai, rabbosai, the more we use our imagination, the less credibility we're going to have. But we do know that they're attacking religion." While he doesn't want to come out and say that he knows for sure that there are Christian missionaries performing acts of child abuse in Sanhedria, he does acknowledge that many "on the street" are saying just that. Thus, whereas in the US in the 1980s, the suspected child abusers were accused of being Satanists who were attacking Christian values, in Jerusalem in 2015, the suspected child abusers are being accused of being Christian missionaries who are attacking Jewish values.

Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz seems to have a limited understanding of the extent to which leading questions can cause children to give contaminated, false testimony. He makes the following statement: "The kids are not talking, they don't talk at the police. What goes on at the therapists, doesn't matter to them, it's called eidut mezuhemet - for all you know, the therapist told them what to say. And there are people around Yerushalayim that claim that the therapists made this whole thing up. A therapist with a lot of imagination is getting the kids to say these things. I have one problem with accepting that theory - too many kids have told their parents the whole story before they got to a therapist." Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz doesn't realize that if parents and/or therapists question their children using leading questions, that can lead to the generation of eidut mezuhemet - contaminated, false testimony. That was what happened in the US in the 1980s, yet the same mistakes are being made again in 2015 in Jerusalem. If those who take responsibility for conducting an investigation are not knowledgeable about the potential pitfalls and the mistakes which others have made in the past, they are bound to make similar mistakes themselves.

 

When the rumor began that there is a cult to convert children to Christianity and who started it (according to a compilation of the parents claims)

Shortly after the death (murder?) of Y. S. in December 2011 (this is the person who was found hanging in his Nachlaot apt. who was also accused of being part of the alleged Nachlaot pedophile ring), two women came to the neighborhood and made claims.   One of the women mentioned, I am not familiar with.   However, the other is R.C.H. , who self-appointed herself as the main person fighting against what she percieves as police ineptitude and Rabbis and judges that are covering up the "facts'.  Anyone who has been following this story is familiar with her from her numerous comments on various blogs and newspaper articles dealing with this subject.   Note that all this occurred well before anything was reported about  Sanhedria Murchevet!!

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2015/03/panic-in-jerusalem-parents-in-tight.html


http://rotter.name/kolot/prime/38146/php#29 (this link has been taken down around Sept or Oct.) see page 14  This doc. is a compilation of what the parents are claiming.   Note that this occured 5 months after there were already 10's of accusations.

Here is a translation from parts of pages 14 and 15:
Chanuka 5772 [translator's note: December 2011]
One of the attackers by the name of Y.S. was found hung in his apartment.
The neighbors and newspapers testified that he was murdered, but the police claimed that what had occurred was a suicide.
Tevet 5772 [translator's note: January 2012]
On Sunday, the 6th of Tevet 5772 [translator's note: January 1, 2012], a woman from a different neighborhood (see footnote 24) who heard about the death of Y., said to R.C.H. that she "thanks Hashem that this evil person died". R.C.H. introduced her to the parents of the children, and she told them that she already is familiar with the "group from Nachlaot", at the head of which is S.V. and R.K. ... The woman said that in contrast to the righteous appearance of S.P., in truth she is a Christian missionary...
The parents were very surprised, but decided to ask the children if anyone attacked them in the area of ... (the area where S.V. lived) All the parents asked their children separately, and all the children answered, without exception: "by the lady with the shawl, she's a Christian!"
[Translator's note: One should note that there is no mention of this lady by the children, before the idea was introduced by R.C.H. and D.S.]

Is there Satanic Ritual Abuse in Sanhedria Merchevet (and other areas of Jerusalem)

Recently,  the blog site Daat Torah  has been blogging on the continuing spread of the idea that there is a pedophile ring, cult, group that is operating in various neighborhoods in Jerusalem.  http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2015/03/satanic-child-abuse-is-there-ring-of.html  ,
http://daattorah.blogspot.co.il/search?updated-max=2015-03-22T11:04:00%2B02:00&max-results=11 , Many parents are claiming their children are being abused.
 So far there have been two verdicts of the religious courts condemning various individuals and one letter to parents and Rabbis (see http://nachlaotchildabuse.blogspot.com/2015/02/copy-of-letter-to-parents-educators-and_22.html  ) echoing the various claims of a few parents.  These verdicts were all given based on the testimonies of one side only and accepted as truth without even questioning the validity of these claims or questioning the other side. 

Kol Hakovod to Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn,Ph.D.
for questioning the reality of these claims. 

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2015/03/satanic-child-abuse-is-there-ring-of.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2015/03/sanhedria-murchevet-problematic.html

Following is a link to the Tablet Article that was written by Menachem Kieser who spent over a year investigating a similar case in Nachlaot, but did not find any evidence that substantiated those claims . 
http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/190311/open-letter-community-in-pain