After 40 Years, Alleged Bklyn Sex Abuser to Finally Face Justice

Edited by: JV Staff

The old adage goes that the “wheels of justice move slowly” but the hopeful among us believe that the moral arc of the universe will eventually bend in the direction of justice.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, a man named Avraham Mondrowitz was a popular radio talk show psychologist, who practiced in Boro Park and had a predominantly Orthodox Jewish clientele. The majority of those he counseled were young boys and adolescents. Eventually, the horrific truth about Mondrowitz emerged. Not only did this man not possess authentic credentials as a practicing psychologist, but he was sexually abusing his patients. He was exposed as a complete fraud and high-tailed it over to Israel to seek a safe refuge from prosecution.

But the in the wake of this living nightmare were the countless young lives that were utterly ruined by Mondrowitz.  This phony shrink was born in Poland, lived in Chiacgo for a while and then made Brooklyn his home.

Mondrowitz fled to Israel in 1984, right before the police planed to arrest him for the molestation of four non-Jewish boys in his Boro Park neighborhood.  In 1985, then Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman had sought his extradition back to New York to stand trial on multiple counts of child sex abuse but, according to an article that appeared in the Jewish Week,   “Israeli officials informed the United States that extradition would be impossible because sodomy was not included in the Israeli definition of rape and thus not an extraditable offense.”

Mondrowitz was also in the employ of Yeshiva & Mesivta Bais Yisroel as a child therapist. It was there that Mondrowitz sexually abused a 13 year old Haim Zuckerman. Now, 50, and living in Rockland County Zuckerman recalls that his principal of (mashgiach ruchni) of the yeshiva, Avrohom Leizerowitz had forced Zuckerman to seek help from Mondrowitz because he caught Mondrowitz red handed; having sex with student. Zuckerman told Leizerowitz and that’s when the sparks began to fly.

The panoply of Mondrowitz’s victims go on ad infinitum. Countless young boys and teenagers were raped and sodomized by this reprehensible pervert.

In August of 2019, victims of child sexual abuse in New York State gained some much needed succor in their struggle for justice as it was reported that the statute of limitations on filing suit against perpetrators had been amended in the recently passed Child Victims Act.

According to a January 2019 article on the Kings County Politics web site, the Child Victims Act, or A02683/S02440, extends the statutes of limitations for criminal cases of child sexual abuse, allowing them to be commenced until the victim turns 28 years of age for felonies and 23 years of age for misdemeanors. Under the current law, cases for the most serious sex offenses can be commenced at any time.

The bill also pushes back the statute of limitations to permit civil actions to be brought until the victim turns 55 years of age. Further, the measure creates a one-year window for adult survivors to commence civil cases that, under current law, are barred because the statute of limitations has expired, according to the KCP web site.

The Child Victims Act also treats public and private institutions the same in these proceedings, removing the notice of claim requirement for public institution. This measure would hold these institutions accountable for concealed evidence pertaining to sex crime cases.

Now, people like Zuckerman and other victims of Mondrowitz can file suit against their perpetrator.

According to a report in the Jewish Week, Zuckerman’s complaint was filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court.  The article indicated that Zuckerman asserted in the complaint that after he reported the abuse to Leizerowitz he was expelled from the yeshiva, which is affiliated with the Ger chasidic sect. He also said that he has “suffered and continues to suffer mental anguish, and emotional and psychological injuries which have caused irreparable damage and are believed to be permanent.”

As Zuckerman learned more about the others who were abused by Mondrowitz, this motivated him to speak out because he wants to prevent the same thing from happening to another child.