Bnei Brak Mayor Rabbi Yaacov Asher on Tuesday slammed National Council for the Child chairman Dr. Yitzhak Kadman after the latter said that the ultra-Orthodox city is known as Israel's pedophile capital.
Asher noted that "according to police data, Bnei Brak has one of the lowest crime rates in the country, even though it is the tenth largest city."
Kadman, who had made his comment during an interview with Ynet, was merely "throwing out vile and baseless headlines," Asher said. "There is no doubt that if such a headline was directed at a Jewish community abroad, it would be called anti-Semitic."
Asher added that Kadman "never contacted the welfare services or an authorized police source to verify the data." If Kadman had indeed checked his figures, he said, he would have found that the situation is completely different.
"Because of Dr. Kadman's wild claims," Asher declared, "we hereby clarify that we are prepared to deal with the subject of children and society only with objective professional bodies which are not hateful or hostile, and not with headline-seekers. He has done more harm to himself than he has to Bnei Brak."
During a National Council for the Child conference at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, worrying data were revealed according to which the average number of reports regarding child abuse among haredi and religious communities is much lower than the national average.
While the national average is 1.8% of abuse cases and the average among Jewish communities is 2.1%, the average among haredi and religious communities is only 0.8%.
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