US Orthodox rabbi and child-protection advocate Yaakov Horowitz was found not liable in a NIS 200,000 defamation suit filed against him by convicted sex offender Jonah Weinberg, a Jerusalem Magistrates Court judge ruled Wednesday.
Weinberg sued for NIS 200,000 in response, arguing that he followed all the rules for registered sex offenders and that the tweets had ruined his peace and invited public harassment. He also refused to flee the United States, saying he followed past plans to move to Israel. Weinberg’s attorney said in 2016 before the trial, “Horowitz does everything he can to ruin this man’s life, given that his client is married and has young children.
Rabbi Horowitz argues that many were not aware of Weinberg’s conviction because Israel does not have a public sex-offender registry.
Justice Michal Hirschfeld’s decision at the Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court declared that the main caveat made by Horowitz against Weinberg is both an expression of his opinion in truth and good faith, which is reasonable grounds for dismissing the central complaint. The decision ruled that Horowitz had justified Weinberg as a “terrorist with a weapon” based on the existential threat of sexual abuse against children.
little girl with teddy bear in the camp tent(Credit: INGIMAGE)
The founding dean of the New York Yeshiva Elementary School “Darchei Nome”, Horowitz has spent nearly 20 years advocating for child sex-abuse victims in the Orthodox Jewish community, writing books on child protection and parenting that reach 120,000 Orthodox families. and have been translated. three languages.
Horowitz has many achievements in the field of Jewish education. He was named “Rockland Educator of the Year” in 2002 and received the 2005 Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, as well as the prestigious Covenant Award in 2008 for his contributions to Jewish education and his child abuse prevention work. met.
“Jonah Weinberg is a vile and dangerous pedophile who was convicted of sexual abuse of minors,” said Itzhak Baum, Rabbi Horowitz’s lawyer. “The ruling that supports the warnings of advocates like Rabbi Horowitz that pedophiles are dangerous is welcome news, for which we are very grateful,” he said, adding that “it is very noteworthy that the judge called ‘a terrorist with a terrorist’. considered an appropriate way of defining the life-threatening nature of child abusers.”
After a lengthy legal saga, Horowitz turned his attention back to his life’s work – the endless fight against child abuse. “The time has come to create a legal registry in Israel with information on sex offenders, so that parents can properly protect their children from them.”