Rabbi Calls for Jewish Leaders to Defend Dershowitz Against Rape Claim
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a prolific political and cultural commentator who appears sporadically on cable news, wrote an op-ed in the New York Observer Tuesday morning calling on Jews everywhere to defend attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was accused of sexual assault in a recent civil suit against billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein.
Boteach, as did Dershowitz himself, likened the accusation to the many scurrilous defamations the Jews have historically suffered, ranging from accusations of blood libel to Palestinian genocide, and added that Dershowitz has already been tested by the scores of death threats he receives for his defense of Israel. He called upon Jews to defend Dershowitz as if from these attacks.
“Where are the Jewish leaders to rise to Mr. Dershowitz’s defense?” Boteach asked. “I would like to believe that, at the very least, what Alan Dershowitz deserves is the gratitude of his community. And that means that you stand up for a man when he is down, especially when not a shred of evidence has been brought against him.”
“I have always wondered at the Jewish community in times of scandal,” he added. “We run from it like the plague.”
Boteach defended the attorney from the charges, despite the fact that “there is no way any of us can know if any of this is true.”
“I believe Mr. Dershowitz,” Boteach wrote. Calling Dershowitz “a man of sterling character who has been a champion of the Jewish people and Israel his entire life,” the Rabbi said, “We are all mindful of women who are victims of sexual crimes and they must, of course, be protected. But the reputations of individuals who have devoted their lives to the greater good deserve consideration as well.”
Dershowitz has claimed that since the accusation he was “beginning to get all kinds of emails [from] anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups, the most recent one saying ‘see Jews have always been in charge of the sex trade.’”
[h/t New York Observer]
[Image via screengrab]
