Befrizzled

No, he won't say anything about that, so police don't know yet. The article explains, though, how problems in this type of community are hushed away and go unaddressed. By all accounts, this guy was creepy and unstable, but community culture discourages/prevents people like him from getting help.

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Under construction.

Eilonwy

Yeah, it's a combination of two ideas: a woman's only route for "success" is to perfectly run a perfect household, and involving the police is inviting a pogrom. So there's a very strong sense that you have to hide "shameful" things from both your community and the non-Jewish population -- especially the latter, since they think another Holocaust is always imminent. Of course, this isn't limited to the Hasidim. It's very common in any type of conservative community that has traditionally been persecuted and espouses clear-cut gender roles.

Eilonwy

For those who don't know, the Satmar are a super-crazy sect, the likes of which is usually confined to Israel.

Anyway, Hasidism began as a reaction against Orthodox Judaism. Hasidism was popular among poorer Jews who couldn't afford to devote much time to studying holy books, because it placed more emphasis on intuition. However at this point, Hasidic Judaism and Orthodox Judaism are basically pretty similar. Probably the main difference today is that Hasidism puts a lot of emphasis on rabbinic "lineages," or a rabbi from long ago and his successors.

genu9ine

It's super crazy because I live in this area and remember seeing all the "missing child" signs... Smh

empressri

I wanted to throw up when SO told me about this, I found out about it the day after it happened.

They let their kids walk around alone, as young as 5 years old!! I don't give a damn if it's just "you" in a community, children should not be out alone. And they said they child willingly went with this man, he took the child to a funeral then took him home and killed him.

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Lady Hasytal in the Land of Product in the Order of the Curly Crusaders

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Befrizzled

It's hard for people in these communities to believe one of their own can do bad things, and it's a brotherhood -- Jews watch out for Jews, all over the world. If someone looks like you, you can trust them -- which of course isn't true, but it's not an uncommon belief. This applies in many senses to all Jewish communities; every time I move to a new place, my mother pushes me to find the Jews because they'll always be there for me. And that's been fairly true so far.

And I think he took the boy to a wedding, not a funeral, but it all seems so strange. Why not just take the boy home if that was the plan all along? It's so sad.

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Scarlet

Now there is a woman in the neighborhood saying that Aron tried to grab her son, too. But apparently she didn't report it to the police.

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The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics - Thomas Sowell

Eilonwy

BTW here's a really good thread about growing up among the Satmer, the extremely strict Hasidic community mentioned earlier in this thread.