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Case of Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman



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Table of Contents:

Months after HUC resignation, Zimmerman hired by Birthright (04/05/2001)
New cases refocus attention on misconduct in Jewish clergy (12/15/ 2000)
Joseph and the Question of Sexual Misconduct (12/15/ 2000)
Respected Reform leader resigns amid sexual misconduct charges (12/06/2000)
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Months after HUC resignation, Zimmerman hired by Birthright
By Julie Wiener

JTA - April 5, 2001

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=7298&intcategoryid=4


NEW YORK, April 5 (JTA) — A rabbi recently suspended from the Reform movement's rabbinic organization because of sexual impropriety has been hired to a top position by a program that sends thousands of young Jews on free trips to Israel.

Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, who resigned as president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in December, will become executive vice president of Birthright Israel USA, Inc., based in New York.

He was recruited for the position by Michael Steinhardt, the hedge fund manager-turned-philanthropist who co-founded the Birthright program.

Zimmerman's hire is raising some eyebrows in the Jewish community, though many leading figures praised the appointment.

Steinhardt, for example, said he is "extraordinarily thrilled" to have Zimmerman on staff.

Charles Bronfman, another major philanthropist and Birthright co- founder, called Zimmerman a "terrific, terrific catch for Birthright.

"He is a dynamic educator and leader whose talents will be a great blessing for Birthright Israel," Bronfman said.

Others in the Jewish community feel less blessed.

Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of the feminist Jewish magazine Lilith, said, "Although the specific nature of Zimmerman's actions have not been made public," his hire "seems to repeat a pattern in Jewish life where male rabbis known to have transgressive behaviors in their past have not often suffered professionally for it."

The appointment comes on the heels of another controversy surrounding the program: the fact that two of Birthright's top lay leaders wrote pardon letters on behalf of financier Marc Rich, who gave $5 million to the organization.

It also comes at a time when rabbis and Jewish professionals are in sharp demand.

Zimmerman led the HUC from 1996 until last December, when he resigned after being suspended for a minimum of two years from the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis on the recommendation of its ethics committee.

The CCAR never disclosed full details of the case leading to Zimmerman's suspension, under which he is not permitted to serve as a congregational rabbi.

However, officials said it had to do with "personal relationships" before Zimmerman became president of the HUC that violated guidelines concerning "sexual ethics and sexual boundaries."

His resignation shocked many in the Reform world, where Zimmerman was a popular and respected leader known for his abilities as a spokesman, educator and administrator.

According to several sources — including Birthright Israel officials — it is believed that Zimmerman had an extramarital affair with a congregant more than 15 years ago, while he was rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York.

However, CCAR officials who reviewed the case, which was spurred by a complaint from an individual, have refused to confirm or deny the reports.

Zimmerman refused to be interviewed for this story. He issued a statement Thursday thanking Bronfman and Birthright for their support.

Rabbi Paul Menitoff, the CCAR's executive vice president and a member of the ethics committee that recommended Zimmerman's suspension, declined to discuss the case, saying only that Zimmerman is "very talented, and he'll contribute significantly to the development" of Birthright.

Despite Zimmerman's high profile and the notoriety of his suspension — it made The New York Times and several other major dailies — Birthright actively recruited him for the job.

Steinhardt, who first approached Zimmerman, said he knows Zimmerman from his days at Central Synagogue, where Steinhardt was a member.

Steinhardt said he is "not in the slightest" concerned about the fact that the CCAR suspended Zimmerman for sexual misconduct.

"From all that I knew, it seemed like a remarkably harsh response to an event that occurred more than 15 years ago," Steinhardt said.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations and an executive committee member of the CCAR, said Zimmerman "is a good choice for Birthright, and I think he'll do an excellent job."

"On the one hand, I'm supportive of the CCAR and their process and have every reason to believe they've handled it appropriately, but I'm not prepared to jump from that to assume that therefore Rabbi Zimmerman, who's an enormously talented individual, should not be able to contribute elsewhere in the Jewish world," Yoffie said.

Yoffie recently criticized Birthright for accepting money from Rich. The UAHC is one of many organizations that send young people to Israel under Birthright's auspices.

Richard Joel, president of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, which is Birthright's largest trip provider, said he supports the appointment as long as Zimmerman doesn't present himself as a rabbinic role model.

"I don't think his appointment to this position is making any kind of statement mitigating any kind of improper acts," Joel said. "He has an option to say, because of the adverse publicity, `I'm going to disappear from the public scene and find work that will keep me as a private citizen.' Is that the only course open to someone like Shelly Zimmerman, who's young and talented? Or are there appropriate positions where he can really add value to the Jewish public sphere without necessarily proferring himself as a role model of everything?"

Joel headed an independent commission last year investigating the Orthodox Union's handling of allegations that a high-ranking rabbi employed with its youth group had sexually harassed and molested scores of teenagers. No one considers Zimmerman's alleged misconduct to be of the same gravity, Joel said.

"He's not ministering to a congregation and not speaking on behalf of any particular movement, dogma or sense of principles," Joel said. "He's dealing with one of the most basic of issues — using Israel as a trigger for promoting Jewish identity."

Marlene Post, Birthright's North American chair, said Zimmerman was selected for his academic, administrative and leadership credentials, and will not be in direct contact with Birthright participants.

"The other issues — whatever they are — were things that we felt would not directly affect Birthright," Post said.

Rabbi Shira Stern, a former co-coordinator of the CCAR's Women's Rabbinic Network, said she does not have a problem with Zimmerman's new role.

"He needs to do his own teshuvah," she said, using the Hebrew term for repentance. "But preventing him from working is not a solution. I fully believe that people need to make restitution to those they've harmed, but I don't believe in any respect that his appointment to Birthright would be inappropriate."

Weidman Schneider of Lilith rejected the notion that a professional at Birthright Israel should be held to a laxer moral standard than the president of HUC or a congregational rabbi.

"Since the goal of Birthright is to introduce young people to the highest and most complete participation in Jewish life, it's obvious that the same high moral standards should apply for those leaders as well," she said.

Rabbi Arthur Gross Schaefer, a law professor and spiritual leader of two synagogues in Santa Barbara, Calif., has written extensively on rabbinic misconduct. He declined to comment on Zimmerman's specific case, but said the demands of a new high-profile job can prevent a rabbi guilty of misconduct from doing the soul-searching necessary for repentance.

"As Rambam put it, sometimes you have to earn a new name," Gross Schafer said. "And you don't earn a new name overnight."

Marcia Cohn Spiegel, who also has written on rabbinic sexual misconduct, said she is friends with Zimmerman and is uncertain about his alleged misconduct.

However, she said, it "would have been more appropriate for him to back off for a while. To put him in this position so quickly is indiscreet."

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Respected Reform leader resigns amid sexual misconduct charges
By Julie Wiener

JTA - December 6, 2000

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=6617&intcategoryid=4


NEW YORK, Dec. 6 (JTA) — Reform rabbis across the country are reeling from the news that one of Reform Judaism's highest-ranking professionals has resigned amid charges of sexual misconduct.

Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, 58, quit his post as president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on Monday, shortly after being suspended from the Reform movement's rabbinic association.

Zimmerman is the highest-ranking rabbi ever to be suspended from the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

The suspension, resulting from an inquiry by a seven-member CCAR ethics committee, prohibits Zimmerman from serving as a rabbi in any Reform temple or institution for at least two years.

According to an HUC statement, the suspension results from Zimmerman's "personal relationships" before he became president in 1996.

Zimmerman did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Reform officials said Zimmerman violated guidelines concerning "sexual ethics and sexual boundaries," but the ethics committee — citing a policy of not commenting on individual cases — will not disclose the precise nature of his misconduct.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations, said the committee's inquiry came in response to a complaint filed earlier this year. Zimmerman could have contested the decision, but chose not to, said Yoffie.

"He recognized that he made a mistake and accepted responsibility for that," said Yoffie, who does not sit on the committee and said he does not know the details of Zimmerman's misconduct.

"Obviously, a suspension of two years indicates this is a serious matter," said Yoffie.

Zimmerman, who is known by his colleagues as "Shelly," was the past president of the CCAR, the body from which he has been suspended. He was widely admired not only for his administrative work in the college, but for being a spokesman for the Reform movement.

Zimmerman is widely known by "the force of his personality and his ability to present the principles and commitments of Reform Judaism in a popular and compelling way," Yoffie said.

The news hit students and colleagues in the Reform movement hard.

"Shelly is one of the great American rabbis," said Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, of the Community Synagogue of Port Washington in Long Island, N.Y.

"He has been a leader in this movement for three decades," said Salkin. "His teaching and creativity has touched numerous lives. I profoundly respect him and call him a friend. My heart aches for him and for his family and for our movement."

One former student who considered Zimmerman her mentor, said, "It feels like a death.

"He was a brilliant teacher, and was the single most helpful person in teaching us to find meaning in a text and to communicate it to people," said this rabbi, who asked not to be identified.

In the past five years, the CCAR's ethics committee and guidelines on sexual misconduct have been strengthened and enforcement more aggressive, say people familiar with the process.

Rabbi Paul Menitoff, the executive vice president of the CCAR, said there have been about 35 cases — not all concerning sexual misconduct — brought before the ethics committee in the past five years. Inquiries in these cases involve interviews with both the accuser, accused and other sources when relevant.

After evaluating each case, the committee votes either to dismiss the charge or take one of the following disciplinary actions: reprimand, censure, censure with publication in the CCAR newsletter, suspension or expulsion, said Menitoff, who is a nonvoting member of the committee.

Three rabbis have been suspended in the past five years, Menitoff said.

Zimmerman has been credited with rebuilding HUC's faculty, and under his tenure the college began ordaining rabbis on the West Coast, as well as in New York and Cincinnati.

Recently, Zimmerman had been vocal about the need to address the national shortage of rabbis and other Jewish professionals.

Before assuming the HUC presidency, Zimmerman served as senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas and assistant rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York. Ordained in 1970, he was president of the CCAR from 1993 to 1995.

HUC appointed its provost, Norman Cohen, to serve as acting president. The college is in the process of forming a search committee for a new president.

HUC, which has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem, has 1,400 students in its rabbinical, cantorial and other graduate programs.

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New cases refocus attention on misconduct in Jewish clergy
JULIE WIENER

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - December 15, 2000

http://www.jewishsf.com/bk001215/ussexualmisconduct.shtml


NEW YORK -- For those who look up to the American Jewish clergy, it has not been a good year.

Last week, one of the Reform movement's most prominent rabbis was suspended from the movement's rabbinical association for past sexual misconduct.

Shortly after his suspension from the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, widely respected as a Jewish thinker and teacher, resigned as president of the movement's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

The news about Zimmerman came on the heels of several other widely publicized incidents involving Jewish clergy:

*A Reform rabbi in Cherry Hill, N.J., faces a possible death sentence for allegedly hiring people to murder his wife in 1994.

*A Conservative cantor in the Chicago area was arrested over Thanksgiving weekend for alleged involvement in a prostitution ring.

*The Orthodox Union has just received a report investigating its handling of allegations that a New Jersey rabbi working for the movement's national youth group sexually harassed and molested teens. The report's findings and recommendations will not be made public until late this month.

The wave of incidents is refocusing attention on an issue that has come into public view only in recent years.

In the past, rabbinic misconduct -- particularly sexual misconduct -- was rarely discussed publicly. Many advocates for victims complained that rabbinical associations were more interested in protecting their members than the people they hurt.

Today there are stirrings of change. Leaders of the rabbinic organizations say misconduct remains rare, but in the past five years, three of the four major denominations have developed new guidelines -- or modified old ones -- for addressing misconduct.

In addition, some rabbinic seminaries are raising the issues for rabbis-in-training, both before and after ordination.

It is unclear what overall impact such changes are having, since no one appears to be tracking the issue or monitoring how the new guidelines are affecting the number of complaints or the actions taken against rabbis.

While some believe that recent high-profile cases may encourage victims to come forward, others worry that the pendulum may swing too far.

They worry that fear of false accusations or misunderstandings are leading rabbis to become nervous about even innocently hugging congregants in need of comfort or counseling people behind closed doors.

One result from all the publicity is a growing awareness of the issue, which many expect will lead to less tolerance for misconduct.

"The wall of silence around clergy misconduct is being taken down," said Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of Lilith, a feminist Jewish magazine.

In 1998, the magazine published an article about women who said they were sexually harassed by the late charismatic Orthodox leader Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

Rabbi Debra Orenstein, a fellow at the Wilstein Institute in Encino, who has been an advocate on this issue in the past, said, "People are less skittish and afraid of saying this happens with rabbis and are therefore more willing to deal with it."

Rabbinic sexual misconduct is an extraordinarily complex issue.

It ranges from more obvious transgressions, such as sexual harassment and inappropriate touching, to more ambiguous cases in which a rabbi has a seemingly consensual relationship with a congregant or staff person, but which is questionable because of the power dynamics involved.

It is difficult to know how prevalent misconduct cases are or what percentage is reported.

As Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, put it, "I can never guarantee there are not things that happen that don't get taken care of.

"Obviously someone has to lodge a complaint. My office is not a police force and we're not on witch hunts."

It is also difficult to assess how fairly cases are handled, since rabbinic ethics committees -- in order to protect both the accuser and the accused -- operate in secrecy.

That secrecy "by its very nature makes it difficult to evaluate the process at all," said Rabbi Shira Stern, chairwoman of the Reform movement's Women's Rabbinic Network.

The Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform rabbinical associations have created or modified policies concerning sexual misconduct within the past five years.

The Conservative movement's guidelines -- in the works for several years -- have not yet been printed and distributed to rabbis, but they are expected to be completed in June 2001.

The Orthodox rabbinical association has not modified its procedures in more than 50 years, according to Rabbi Steven Dworken, the group's executive vice president.

But the group's president, Rabbi Kenneth Hain, said the process may be re-examined if that is recommended in the Orthodox Union's new report on the handling of the youth abuse case.

The movements vary in how explicit their guidelines are about procedures for inquiry and punitive measures. The Rabbinical Council of America, which is Orthodox, and the Reform movement's CCAR made their guidelines available to JTA, while the Conservative and Reconstructionist associations gave overviews but would not distribute actual policies.

All the ethics committees request complaints in writing and give an opportunity for the accused rabbi to respond in writing. They then interview both parties and other sources, where appropriate, in order to ascertain what happened and how to respond.

When rabbis are found guilty, the responses range from a reprimand to suspension to expulsion from the association, depending on the misconduct and the assessment of the ethics committee.

Some of the movements require therapy and a process of tshuvah, or repentance, in order for the charged to pursue their rabbinic careers.

In addition, the Reform movement informs any future employers of that rabbi about that rabbi's past transgressions and rehabilitation process.

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Joseph and the Question of Sexual Misconduct
by Rabbi Melanie Aron

December 15, 2000

www.shirhadash.org/rabbi/001215-sexual-ethics.html


If you read your Notes, then you are expecting me to talk about "Reflections on the Zohar". Actually Jewish Mysticism has never been my area of greatest knowledge or enthusiasm but I know it is of interest to many of our members and so this fall I took a distance learning class on the Zohar through the Jewish Theological Seminary's continuing education for rabbi's program. I can't say that I've become an expert, but at least I have opened my mind to further exploration, and I hope to speak at some later date about that study.

Tonight, though I would like to speak about something that has weighed heavily on my mind for the past ten days. It is a subject I approach with some trepidation, as it is neither pleasant nor tasteful. In addition it is a topic that many people feel should not be discussed in public, and one that our movement has suggested that rabbis not address, lest we fall into speaking richilut and lashon hara, gossip and slander. However, in that articles on this subject have appeared in the Cincinnati Inquirer and then subsequently in the New York Times and in papers around the country including our own Northern California Jewish Bulletin, it feels to me like the "elephant in the living room".

For those who have not heard, on Thursday December 7th Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman resigned as president of the Hebrew Union College after being suspended by the Central Conference of American Rabbis for two years for having entered into personal relationships in the past that the organization said violated its ethical code.

This is very painful for our movement and for me personally.

Several years ago a member of the congregation came to talk with me about some feelings she was having subsequent to the sudden resignation of Rabbi Robert Kirschner who had been accused of sexual harassment. Rabbi Kirshner was a dynamic and intelligent rabbi, who had been appointed at a young age as the senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco. He had published an outstanding book on Responsa of the Holocaust period and was well regarded. This member of our congregation had felt very positively about her interactions with Rabbi Kirshner who had been her mentor through the conversion process and was now quite upset to find that her teacher was not in fact, what he had seemed to be.

I guess my feelings about Rabbi Zimmerman are similar. He was my teacher at the Hebrew Union College in New York, where as a pulpit rabbi he came and worked with us on our senior sermons. He was a gifted midrashist, a rabbi's rabbi. At a time when congregations were hesitant about hiring women, he had hired one of my friends, three years ahead of me, as an assistant rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York, and she has benefited throughout her career from his mentoring. At various conferences, I had been impressed when he got up to speak and I had heard, on the whole, good things about what he had done as President of the College. Shelly Zimmerman and his wife, a licensed family therapist, were among the first to urge the Jewish community to face the issues of alcoholism and substance abuse in our midst. Perhaps because Rabbi Zimmerman seemed like such a mensch, his fall from grace has been more difficult for me than that of other rabbis who have been similarly censured.

As in the case of President Clinton, there are those who have questioned how these allegations against the president of the Hebrew Union College came forward, and wondered if they reflect opposition to Rabbi Zimmerman's leadership in other areas.

In addition with President Clinton, there are those who have argued that the issue here is not so much the failing of the leader, but the change in community standards. Past Presidents of the United States have had affairs that were not reported to the press, and for which they suffered no consequences. In the not so distant past, people accepted it when a previous President of the Hebrew Union College married a woman with whom he had a relationship while she was married to another man. Ironically Rabbi Zimmerman was in the leadership of the Central Conference of American Rabbis at the time when new and more severe standards of sexual misconduct were drawn up and enforcement made much more aggressive.

On the whole we do not talk about incidents such as these because of our discomfort and because we don't see a value in discussion. This is the way of the world, someone said to me. This is the result of American Puritanism, said another, though in this case we are dealing with traditional Jewish not Protestant values. Someone else commented on the announcement of two speakers on sexuality on the front page of the most recent Jewish Community News: Rabbi Boteach who will be speaking at the South Bay Institute in January, and Dr. Ruth, who will be speaking at the Federation's annual dinner. "They'll think Jews are obsessed with sex," a member of the congregation commented to me.

Perhaps a little more talk about sexuality and sexual temptations wouldn't hurt. In next week's Torah portion we will be reading about the incident between Joseph and Potiphar's wife. The tradition asked, what caused Joseph to resist Potisphar's wife's advances. After all he was a young man and she was a beautiful woman. One explanation was that Joseph was afraid of the consequences, of being punished: another, that he did not want to betray the trust that Potiphar had in him and repay him in this way for all his kindnesses. A more involved midrash has the face of Joseph's father Jacob appear before him at the moment that Potiphar's wife disrobes, acting as a physical superego.

In this connection the rabbis tell another story, which we actually studied last night in our Bar and Bat Mitzvah family group. Why do we wear a fringed garment? the rabbis ask. They answer with a Biblical text from the book of Numbers: "So that we might look at them, and remember God's commandments, and not turn aside after the desires of our hearts, or let our eyes lead us into lust." Does it really work? the rabbis ask. Yes, says one rabbi, who tells the story of going into the home of a beautiful courtesan, who lies on seven silk couches covered with silver and gold. But as he climbed up the ladder to approach her, the fringes of his tzizit flew up into his eyes and he was not able to continue. The woman, we are told by the Talmud, was so impressed by his piety that she left her life as a courtesan, and after giving a third of her money to charity, converted to Judaism and became his legal wife.

This story from the Talmud holds out the hope that there might be something that does stop us when we are about to violate our own morals. It reminds us that it is the context of sex and not sexuality itself, which has moral value. Fear of consequences, the desire not to hurt those who have put their trust in us, and an internalized set of moral values: these are the mechanisms we depend on today, as in Joseph's time to prevent the kind of sexual acting out, which has been the Achilles heel of so many of our religious and political leaders.

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