Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse,
When I read the allegations against the Reform Movement’s Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, I felt exhausted. How many more #MeToo stories can there be? The answer seems to be: Too many to count.
The story is all too nauseatingly familiar. Once again we find that a man of learning and authority, respected in his community and beyond, is accused of abusing his power, grooming young women for sexual relations and that the organizations and agencies in place to censure and rebuke have instead covered up and scurried on, hiding the details under the rug along with all the other dirt.
Since the advent of the #MeToo Movement, the idea that sexual predators must be rooted out and appropriately punished has gained broad approval within some circles of society. I agree with this sentiment. Praying upon those who are unable to defend themselves is despicable.
However, what happens when that predator is someone you love, someone who has done you good?
That, in a nutshell, is the highly conflicted emotional space in which I find myself with regard to Rabbi Zimmerman. I truly love him. The behavior alleged by the women who have spoken out and whom I believe is truly awful. I feel as though I’ve been tricked or brainwashed into believing something that is not true: that my rabbi is incapable of committing the actions of which he is accused.
A Dallas Reform synagogue has terminated Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman’s employment and launched an independent review of its past and present practices for reporting misconduct, after a separate probe found credible evidence that Zimmerman had engaged in “sexually predatory behavior” with at least three women.
Zimmerman had resigned as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 after the Central Conference of American Rabbis found that his personal relationships violated its ethics codes. But the recent revelations raise questions about whether the movement was unaware of the extent of his misconduct or downplayed it, allowing him to return to the rabbinate and to prominent positions in the Jewish world.