Touro College is accused of ignoring sex-related allegations towards a professor whose mother-in-law chairs the division the place he works, The Put up has realized.
An adjunct professor in psychological well being counseling, Menachem Kiwak was allowed to stay within the classroom even after college students complained in March 2023 that he quizzed them about intercourse, used profanity and slang to debate intercourse, and argued that individuals who don’t like intercourse are sick, sources stated.
Kiwak, 38, remained on employees even after an advocate for Jewish sexual-abuse victims, Asher Lovy, wrote to Kiwak’s mother-in-law, Faye Walkenfeld, and different Touro officers in March, alerting them to an allegation that Kiwak had sexually abused one in all his sufferers.
Lovy questioned Kiwak’s health to show aspiring counselors.
Kiwak was arrested for the alleged abuse in Could — however Touro apparently let him end the college 12 months, sources stated.
The college’s dealing with of the scandal has raised alarm amongst sufferer advocates, who query whether or not school officers protected Kiwak due to his mother-in-law’s place.
The non-public Jewish college, with campuses in Occasions Sq., Brooklyn and Lengthy Island, touts
itself as “a pacesetter in health-care schooling.”
Walkenfeld, chair of Touro’s behavioral science division, is a well-known mental-health
skilled for the orthodox Jewish neighborhood, which Kiwak and his alleged sufferer are a part of.
It’s unknown what actions, if any, Walkenfield took in response.
She declined to remark.
It was solely after Kiwak was arrested and the Put up inquired about his standing that Touro revealed
they’d eliminated him from instructing.
“Mr. Kiwak is presently on administrative go away and Touro is reviewing this matter internally,” Matthew Lieberman, a lawyer for the college, stated Friday.
Lovy, who heads the anti-abuse group Za’akah, accompanied the alleged sufferer to the NYPD’s Particular Victims Unit, he instructed Walkenfeld in a March 5 electronic mail.
The affected person described to police “in excruciating element” Kiwak’s “utilizing the authority of his place to coerce her to have intercourse with him towards her will and with out her consent,” the letter stated.
Lovy additionally cited the March 2023 complaints by Touro college students to his program director “concerning the inappropriate nature of Kiwak’s [classroom] discussions about intercourse, porn, sexuality, and sexual assault.”
Kiwak shocked the scholars by arguing that there isn’t any such factor as marital rape. Days after they lodged their complaints, Kiwak “clarified” in an electronic mail to his class that “intimate companion violence, together with marital rape, is illegitimate in america.”
“It’s inconceivable to overstate what an intensive failure Touro’s dealing with of Mr. Kiwak’s alleged predation has been,” Shulim Leifer, a sufferer advocate within the orthodox neighborhood, instructed The Put up
“The truth that Mr. Kiwak’s personal mom in regulation chairs his division raises critical questions on what position nepotism performed in Touro’s primarily sweeping it underneath the rug when college students complained or after they have been made conscious of prison accusations by a affected person, and whether or not Ms. Walkenfeld and her household of therapists needs to be trusted to work on this area going ahead.”
Kiwak referred inquiries to his lawyer, Michael Farkas, who stated, “Mr. Kiwak will deal with this matter and any inquiries about it in court docket, not within the press.”
The prison fees towards Kiwak — forcible touching, intercourse abuse and harassment — are misdemeanors.
The costs would have been felonies underneath a invoice handed by the state Legislature and awaiting the governor’s signature that cracks down on intercourse abuse by licensed counselors.
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