Former yeshiva student claims he was sexually abused ‘almost daily’ at prominent NYC school: suit

A former student at a prominent Brooklyn yeshiva says he was sexually abused by a fellow pupil “nearly daily” for half a year when he was 11 years old, according to a new lawsuit — that claims the school “enabled” the sickening assaults.

Oholei Torah, a prestigious Chabad yeshiva on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, abandoned its responsibility and should have done more to protect the alleged victim, now in his 30s, who says he remains “severely traumatized” by the childhood sexual abuse, the anonymous suit states.

It’s the latest claim of sex abuse at Oholei Torah, which has previously been accused of failing to protect its students from sexual abuse going back decades.

Between 2004 and 2005, the victim in the latest case claims an older student took him to a storage room next to the gym during lunch where he would abuse him, claims the suit, which was filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Monday.

Oholei Torah, which boasts itself as “the premier Yeshiva for the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch Movement,” has been accused in prior lawsuits and news articles of failing to protect its students from sexual abuse. Google Maps

That abuse “included fondling [the boy’s] penis,” according to court papers.

Oholei Torah “enabled the sexual abuse” of the student, who was aged 11 and 12-years-old during the six month horror, “through its gross negligence, negligence, carelessness and recklessness,” according to the lawsuit. 

The accused abusing student — who is said to be from a prominent family in the Jewish Lubavitch community and still living in Brooklyn, according to a person with knowledge of the suit — is also referred to anonymously in the court filing. 

It’s not clear if the alleged abuse was reported at the time and the accuser’s attorney said the statute of limitations to file criminal charges is now long gone.

The plaintiff said he suffers from “repeated, disturbing and unwanted memories of the sexual abuse, strong negative feelings such as fear, horror, anger, guilt and/or shame … [and] significant distress and impairment in social, occupational and other life areas,” among others, according to court papers.

“The raft of litigation against Oholei Torah shows that the school was utterly negligent in protecting its students against sexual abuse and assaults,” said defense attorney Andrew M. Stengel.

“Over several months my client disappeared daily into a storage closet where the sexual abuse occurred. The school’s lack of supervision over Oholei Torah students is astounding.”

In 2016, an explosive Newsweek story on child abuse allegations in the Hasidic community shared accounts from several students of Oholei Torah who claimed that they were abused — physically and sexually — by teachers and fellow students alike.

Court records reveal that Oholei Torah is currently battling two other civil lawsuits in Brooklyn court claiming childhood sexual abuse.

One suit claims that a teacher repeatedly forced a 17-year-old boy to have sex with him in school dormitories and inside a ritual bath called a Mikva starting in 1987.

The other, filed back in March, says that a lifeguard employed by the school forced a 9-year-old student to “grope his penis” in 1999.

Oholei Torah, which boasts itself as “the premier Yeshiva for the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch Movement,” has an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students, according to its website.

The school and the law firm representing it in the other sexual abuse claims did not reply to requests for comment Monday.