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“When Rachel Brizel, the daughter of a good Bnei Brak family, married an arranged match from the glorious Brizel family, she had no idea that she was destroying her own life. After six months, she caught her husband having sex with another man. In that case, at least it was with an adult.

“Shaiya Brizel relates that some of the boys with whom his father had relations sent letters of complaint to their own fathers; in the discreet ultra-Orthodox society they had no one else to whom they could complain.

“When she read these letters, my mother went out of her mind,’ writes Brizel. ‘Every such letter made her want to demand a divorce. Again and again batteries of mediators, the Brizel rabbis, would show up, whose job it was to calm her down so that, heaven forbid, she would not destroy the good name of the Brizel family.

“They could live with the fact that one of their own had raped minors, but for them divorce was an impossible situation.’

“...Twice, once during prayers in a synagogue, and once during a Gemara (Talmud) study hour at Rabbi Eliezer Shach’s Ponevezh Yeshiva, ultra-Orthodox men who were strangers to him touched his sexual organ, presumably on the assumption that he followed in his father’s footsteps. The first time, he made a fuss, only to discover that the only thing that interested the people there was to hush the whole thing up. The second time, he made do with a whispered warning to the man.

“Shaiya Brizel is now 36 and the father of three; he works as an accountant.

“His father, 65, was forced to leave home several years ago and return to his elderly parents’ apartment. Shaiya wrote this book after a suicide attempt in June.

“For all those years I was half dead. For the past five years I have been getting psychological treatment. During my talks with the psychologist I decided that I was going to spew out all this ugliness in the form of a book.”

“He took into account that there would be violent reactions to the book ... which only came out a few weeks ago ... Brizel suffers from a serious heart defect, which could cause his death. As a way of protecting himself, he has deposited a letter with three lawyers that contains serious allegations about the Eda Haredit, and he has informed the relevant people.

“Recently, he has moved to a new apartment, and he lives in the National Religious sector of a mixed community of National Religious and ultra-Orthodox families. Naturally, he started praying at the only Hasidic synagogue in the settlement. After the book came out, associates of the local rebbe (rabbi) informed him that he was persona non grata.

“Ironically, this same rebbe had come to the area after being compelled to leave several other communities on suspicion of having sodomized his pupils. In ultra-Orthodox society, revealing that acts of sodomy have been committed is a far graver offense than committing them.

“On the day the book was published, Brizel met with the head of the Hachemei Lublin Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Vazner. ‘He told me that publishing the book was a million times worse than what my father had done...’

“Ha’aretz has been unable to obtain a response from Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Brizel. At his parents’ home, a woman replied: “We don’t care. Shaiya is a liar and there is nothing more to be said.”

“Ha’aretz also requested the Brizels’ response through the Eda Haredit activist Yehuda Meshi- Zahav. By the time the article went to press, there was no response through this channel either.          – >

An upstate rabbi barricaded himself inside his home early yesterday after FBI agents came to arrest him for allegedly sexually abusing his daughter.

The feds had to break down two doors to collar Israel Weingarten, 58, who was hiding in his bedroom, a prosecutor said in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Weingarten is charged with sexually abusing the victim starting in 1990 when she was 9 years old, and the molestation continued until she was 18.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg said the defendant moved his wife and several of their children back and forth between Belgium and Israel, in part to have more freedom to sexually abuse the victim.

Weingarten has six other children, ages 13 to 24, who are living with him in his home in the Satmar community of

Kiryas Joel in Monroe, Orange County. The prosecutor said the kids have been “brainwashed” to believe what he wants them to believe about the abuse of their sister.

Defense attorney Kenneth Gribtez said the allegations are “stale,” dating back 11 years, and stem from a bitter divorce between Weingarten and his wife.

Alfred Weingarten, the defendant’s brother, called the victim a “flip-flopper” who has previously retracted her claims. “She [the victim] is a problem, she left her religion 100%,” Alfred Weingarten said.

Israel Weingarten, a former yeshiva schoolteacher, was ordered held without bail by Brooklyn Magistrate Judge Joan Azrack.

Rabbi Israel Weingarten listens as his daughter testifies during his federal trial for allegedly sexually abusing her starting when she was 9.

The 27-year-old daughter of an Orthodox rabbi tearfully described in Brooklyn Federal Court the day 18 years ago when her father began sexually abusing her.

“I felt alone, scared, confused,” the woman said as her gray-bearded father sat on the other side of the cavernous courtroom shaking his head.

She said her mother was heating chicken soup and the family was gathering in the kitchen when her father, Israel Weingarten, called the girl to a bedroom and assaulted her.

She said she felt “confusion, deafening silence” after the initial incident, which she says was followed by years of abuse.

. . . music, books and long dresses were forbidden in the home and the tight-knit community she has now left.

Weingarten, defending himself against charges that he brought his eldest daughter between homes in Belgium and New York for sex, wore the traditional black leggings and long jacket of a Satmar as he gave a rambling and bizarre opening statement . . .

Rabbi’s Incest Trial Continued –>