An Orthodox Jewish rabbi is recovering after another a man in Williamsburg tossed a liquid in his eyes and face, NY1 reported. The victim, Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, is an outspoken advocate for sex abuse victims in Brooklyn's Hasidic community. He believes that the chemical he was attacked with is bleach.
Rosenberg runs a website urging child molestation victims to report the crimes to the police.
But his advocacy has angered many in the tight-knight ultra-orthodox community.
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Rosenberg thinks the attack was in retaliation for his assistance to a victim of Nechemya Weberman, a Hasid who was convicted on Monday of 59 counts of sex abuse, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported.
Brooklyn's district attorney agrees that sex abuse victims and their supporters in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community are often intimidated by other Hasids who use thuggish tactics, the New York Times reported. Rabbi Rosenberg, 62, has already been formally ostracized by a group of rabbis and religious judges and barred from local synagogues for taking on sex abuse. “Everyone is so crazy right now,” he told the Times.
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