I’m totally befuddled by this campaign against Vicki Polin. I’ve been a subscriber to the Awareness Ctr. Yahoo group but have not been for several yrs. I know of her work but know nothing about what seem to be outlandish charges against her if you follow yr link & read the accusations.
This woman campaigns against sexual abuse and domestic violence in our community. It appears there are Orthodox Jews who feel she singles out that community for her special ire. I don’t know whether or not that’s true. But I do know that someone who denies that there is a serious problem in that community (& among all our other denominations for that matter) is ducking their head in the sand.
I was an abused child fr. a “nice Jewish home.” My post which meditates on my personal experience & the Jewish tradition’s approach to child abuse is linked to this comment.
I’ll tell you that I welcome people like Polin & the Awareness Ctr. I wish that you & USA Jewish would look before you leap and publish stuff that may be little more than Matt Drudge-like lashon hara.

Listen up, richard. In defending Vicki and her work you are missing the subplot. The fact is there are no jewish women sexual predators named and served up for our delectation on her awareness center site or in her survivors blog even though sexual predation and sexual addiciton is an equal opportunity disease, just like all addictions. She only serves up men. It’s clear to anyone with a nose she’s hoping no one will notice she’s a sexual predator, every inch of herself.
This is a woman who said her (rabbinic) family is steeped in incest, satanic sexual perversions and cult/religion sexual abominations, she didn’t just say it in the privacy of her therapist’s office, she said it on national TV, in a thousand letters to politcians and law enforcement and citizens of this country, she said it over and over and over in her activist Believe The Children and other forums. She never retracts anything she ever says even after 25 years have passed and she could legitimately say, I made a mistake. She doesn’t know what it means to say I made a mistake. Her M.O. is to move on and make an even bigger claim against the next poor bastard and so not have to deal with the original trauma she created. She’s like a perpertrator in her profile. But she gets away with it because she “knows how to work the system”. She thinks she will never be caught. She is sure of it. There’s always an even bigger scandal to pin on an even more unsuspecting innocent to take the focus off her and put it onto some poor man. Always remember, she knows how the system works, she’s brilliant at covering her bloody tracks making them look all shiny and bright. Her family in chicago have mostly had to change the way they spell their names so they don’t get connected with her, or else pretend she’s from another branch of the family or squirm some other way. But do you notice there is a lack of Polin on the awareness center lists of sexual perps; this after she went on Oprah claiming they are part of an international rabbinical messianic conspiracy of satanic sexual baby torturers? Polin has the all the charm and irresistible gory fascination of an village plaza auto-da-fe. She is a truly evil person. A sexual predator of the most sadistic and devious type. She flourishes under your very nose. It’s not easy to internalize the fact that women make up as many, albeit wildly unreported, sexual offenders as men in an avergae population. No one suspects Vicki Polin of being an offender except for those who know it

Yuri Yanover has been on a personal campaign against Vicki Polin for some time and does not deserve the additional publicity of Jewschool.

Mr. Yori Yanover hateful comments and rantings only makes it clear that he does not need a second blog.

Kavod harav, I think Rabbi Blau here is missing a good deal of the context (as, for that mater, in other directions, is Yori.)
Vicki Polin and/or other Awareness Center personalies have gone off on a very personal crusade against Yori, and have in fact used Awareness Center resources to do so. Their animus? Yori, as Luke Ford has reported, broke the news of Vicki’s appearance of Oprah as a poster child for recovered memory and Jewish ritual abuse.
That neither the New York Jewish Week nor the Baltimore Jewish Times broke the story when they had the chance I suppose say something of the nature of communal Jewish journalism — but may also indicate that Vicki’s constant whining that neither paper covers abuse scandals with sufficient depth may prove to be a two-edged sword.
The impetus for Yori’s “Call to Action” is quite simple: If, as the Awareness Center insists, no mention of Peter Yarrow or Shlomo Carlebach should fail to mention their sexual sins, and if a broad net should be cast to find new “victims”, it’s only fair that any mentions of Vicki Polin and the Awareness Center feature complementary disclaimers.
Should there be an Awareness Center ? Is Rabbi Dratch’s JSafe organization sufficient? I raised this question in all seriousness in another thread here on Jschool, and will continue to invite a discussion on the issue. My feeling is that there probably should be such an organization (here I disagree with Yori), but I’d like to think that one’s mug shot should not end up with various child molesters simply for the crime of being a friend of someone on an organization’s enemies list.
(You can find my official Awareness Center mug shot at this URL http://theawarenesscenter.org/yudelson_larry.jpeg ; and a belated thanks to Vicki for cropping out my daughter from the picture …. after I brought it to her attention that it was rather sick to have a picture of a two-year-old girl on a web page filled with transcripts of pedophiles chatting on-line. )
My question for Rabbi Blau is this: Has the Awareness Center actually done any good in the past two years? In the cases of M Tendler, A Tendler, Y Kolko and M Gafni, did the actions of the Awareness Center per se — that is, Vicki Polin, her mailing lists, and her 501 c 3 status — do more good than harm? If so, how?

Just go to the canonist blog http://www.canonist.com and search by Yanover to find threads which tell you more about Yanover and Yudel.

Mister Goat –
You’ve entered a battlefield that I was forced to join in October of 2004, after Vicki Polin effectively destroyed the life of a close and dear friend of mine. Do search my name on Google, and also visit usajewish.com. It should give you a good background on this nasty thing, during which the personality mentioned above, jewishwhistleblower , in his zeal, urged people to give my name ti the IRS, published the names of my wife and child with the vilest threatening overtones, and attempted to torpedo a community event my business was sponsoring. Hiding behind his anonymity — although I know exactly who he is and what Toronto publication he writes for — JWB, in concert with Polin, have caused me much grief. The reason? I exposed Vicki Polin as the “Rachel” who, on the Oprah show, accused her parents and the Orthodox community of Chicago of belonging to a Satanist cult. Just google Vicki Polin and Satanism, you’ll get the facts.
And when you google long enough the names and headlines from her multiple websites, you’ll start seeing them linked to on a myriad anti-Semitic websites, from Poland to Colorado and from Cairo to Abu Dhabi.
I know you won’t enjoy it, but the trip will certainly be an education.
Shabbat Shalom.

Sorry, JWB. I’m not standing up for Gafni now, and I didn’t stand up for him then. In fact, it was a phone call from Gafni a year or two back that lead me to take down a blog devoted to you and Vicki: I very much did not want to be on Gafni’s team.
My other motivation, of course, was the implicit threat of JWB and Vicki Polin that anyone who attacks them will be attacked as a child molester. Now that my blogging activites on Canonist — in particular, my catching JWB in lies, exagerations and false conclusions masquerading as facts — earned a picture of me and my daughter on Vicki’s blog, I’m not going to shy away from this battle any more.
And my question for JWB remains: Your own words and actions were used by Gafni in his defense to discredit his accusers. I appreciate your efforts to turn blue until every rabbi who supported Gafni resigns. And perhaps you insired UOJ to blog. But what have *you* done lately? It might be time for you to accept the medals and move on with your life.

Yori:
>although I know exactly who he is and what Toronto
>publication he writes for
Nonsense. Completely and totally false. There is absolutely no truth to Yori’s claims.
He claims WE go after HIS family? Dude he’s the one going after anyone related to Vicki, Blau and Dratch. He’s gone after Vicki’s family, Blau’s family and Dratch’s father-in-law.
IRS? You’ve claimed various time falsely about fraud charges and criminal investigations against Vicki. The problem, no fraud charges and no criminal investigations. Just outright lies.
Yudel:
>Sorry, JWB. I’m not standing up for Gafni now,
>and I didn’t stand up for him then. In fact, it
>was a phone call from Gafni a year or two back
>that lead me to take down a blog devoted to you
>and Vicki: I very much did not want to be on
>Gafni’s team.
And yet:
1) You as a reporter did ZERO to expose or warn others about Gafni.
2) Your best friend Yori promoted Gafni and a program he ran with Rabbi Worch just week ago. He also declared Gafni’s innocence. You again, did nothing.
You continue to parrot and link Yori’s reprehensible site and attacks as such I hold you equally responsible. You were linking websites with photoshop and humiliate Vicki contests. You made this personal.
>And my question for JWB remains: Your own
>words and actions were used by Gafni in his
>defense to discredit his accusers.
In fact, Rabbis Blau and Riskin among others were also ignored. You are not aware but behind the scenes my research and contact information I provided was passed on to reporters who ultimately did stories and as the Jewish Journal indicated that led to a drop in the attendence at his programs.
YOU gave Gafni, your silence and your assistance in supporting those who publically attacked his victims and critics. It is your friend who parroted Berman and Telushkins lies and likewise will never take an ounce of responsibility.
>I appreciate your efforts to turn blue until every
>rabbi who supported Gafni resigns. And perhaps
>you insired UOJ to blog. But what have *you* done
>lately?
You will never know what I do behind the scenes.
>It might be time for you to accept the medals
>and move on with your life.
I don’t want medals, I don’t want fame, I want justice. I’m not going anywhere. Deal with it.
I have a great life. Thank you.

Other than Yori’s best friend Yudel, you seem to be the only one taking his campaign, blog and Rebbe Worch’s website efforts to humiliate and destroy Vicki and anyone around her seriously. This began in 2004.
Again, I merely saw an interesting headline that I then relayed, implying that it could be interesting. Indeed it has been.
Shabbat Shalom.

Richard —
Here is Yanovers’ “closest, dearest friend”:
http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/JHershyWorch.htm
Interesting that he’s been out to destroy Vicki Polin, but hasn’t made any similar attempts against Luke Ford.

And further, since Atowncrier/Team Jewschool and Yudel have chosen to promote Yanover/Worch’s campaign, I hold them ALL responsible for ALL that Worch does in the next years. You promote their campaigns, YOU are responsible for the consequences.
Worch again is Moonish Lunar who posts stories about graphically sexually assaulting and murdering people on the internet. I would caution readers, these are horrible pornograpic stories.
see: http://web.archive.org/web/20040209153202/http://www.asstr.org/~mcstories/Authors/Moonish-Lunar.html
As to all of Yori’s riduculous claims, read his nonsense and rants at Canonist to get a sense of the true Yori.

The writings of Rabbi Hershy Worch. the man who’s campaign you’ve promoted:
see: http://web.archive.org/web/20040209153202/http://www.asstr.org/~mcstories/Authors/Moonish-Lunar.html

Richard,
Here is why Yanover has been on a rampage against Polin, his quite mentally sick best friend was exposed here, by Luke Ford:
http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/JHershyWorch.htm
Funny, isn’t it, that Yanover doesn’t go after Ford, only Polin.

Rabbis like Blau and Dratch make excuses for Polin because, after all, she suffered so much it’s made her hysterical, but Vicki Polin is not a survivor. Her family never hurt her or incested or victimized her. She enjoyed the most non-controversial of middle-class jewish, Skokie Illinois childhoods. Her family are poster-children for the average in “average american.” What’s her excuse for hysteria, rabies? Yet she claimed, twenty years ago, and still maintains that her father incested her and made her pregnant five times and forced her to kill and eat her fetuses in Frankist Satanic rituals together with others in the Chicago Jewish Community.
Seriously, how come Rabbis J Blau and S Porter, M Dratch and H Bilet and others can’t get enough of sucking up to her like as though she were Snow White? The answer is that she picked a great cover for her activities. Who could be against an organization that fights to uncover child-abuse and domestic violence hidden by Jewish families? No one with claim to decency, right? Who would dare speak out AGAINST such an organiation like her Awareness Center?
Her genius is to couch her activities in clever sloganspeak. Like communists who claim to be fighting against the exploitation of the working class, or nazi skinheads who claim to be fighting against the international conspiracy to oppress white people, Vicki Polin knows exactly what to say to shut you up when you disagree with her. Try it and see for yourself.
She gets people to come onto the internet and write in support of her work. But you won’t find people willing to write in support of her, herself. Because Vicki Polin is a predator and the Jews of Baltimore where she currently lives and battens onto people know her for real. You wouldn’t find them writing in support of her. She relies on people like you, anonymous, duped by her slogans into defending her integrity. The people who actually know her in real-life who come online to write about her only have the most damning things to say.
The exception to the rule that people who know her all hate, revile and can remember nothing good to say about her is Rabbi Shlomo Porter. He’s someone who actually knows her but still protects her, he gives her money and ignores any complaints he hears about her predatory behaviors. There is speculation that he knew her back in her Chicago days, perhaps he’s an old boyfriend of hers or she knows something about him he’d rather she not publicize, but for sure he’s the exception which proves the rule. Ask anyone who interact with her, who invites her into his or her house for shabbat or lets her sleep over when she needs a place to crash, they’ll all say more or less the same thing, she’s a user. She uses the frum Jewish hospitality system. She knows how to use the system. You’ll hear the same refrain whichever person you ask, in whichever community.
Even in Baltimore where she preys on the frum community who generally refrain from talking lashon hara about shabbat guests, there’s a quiet and growing awareness that she is a manipulator of unusual skill and initiative.
And when she diagnoses someone at the shabbat meal table as “oh, you were probably incested by your father” any response in disagreement with her will earn you a label as a denial-monger and potential guest on her shit-list for later. Trust me on this, don’t try it.

Yeha, that line about witches caught my eye too, and not in a good way.

To my Jewish brethren, the witch joke works as follows (I live to explain jokes, by the way)
Vicki has on her email list the verse “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa. We are forbidden to stand by and do nothing.”
I figured it was only fitting to cite the two relevant psukim in her case, one “Thou shalt remove evil from among you. (Deut. 22:21)” which is obvious, the other, referring to her Oprah appearance, where she confessed to Satanism and eating her babies, begs the posuk “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Ex. 22:17)”
Where would we be without our scriptures?
Now, I make it my habit to avoid exchanges with JWB as much as I can, because he never actually dialogues with anyone — only diatribes. But his accusation that I never attacked Luke Ford is so outrageous, I had to break my minhag.
I not only criticized and attacked Luke, I did it many many times on my website. The difference between Luke and Vicki is that when I caught Ford in a blatant error, he admitted to it, and that was it. Vicki is incapable of admitting error. JWB is a total psycho, but I can understand it, considering his personal tragedy.