An independent panel the Orthodox Union commissioned in 2000, chaired by Richard Joel, then president of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, after The Jewish Week's investigative reporting that June detailed decades of complaints against NCSY regional director Baruch Lanner. Over several months the panel interviewed more than 140 people and produced a report released in December 2000, finding that OU and NCSY leadership had been given direct and specific notice of his misconduct over decades and had failed to act; the OU's executive vice president resigned soon after under public pressure. It is a finding by the institution about its own governance, distinct from Lanner's separate 2002 criminal conviction.
Facts
Documented Findings
Accused DocumentedThe Special Commission's subject was Baruch Lanner alone; the report itself gives no settled total victim count (see key-finding), so no victim-estimate is recorded here. Key FindingThe panel found Lanner had physically, sexually and emotionally harmed a large number of teenagers over decades within NCSY, and that OU and NCSY officials had received direct and specific complaints repeatedly and failed to act, terming it "profound errors of judgment" and "failures of management." The report did not itself adjudicate Lanner's later criminal charges, which were tried separately in 2002. This atlas does not adopt an exact victim count the report itself does not give a single settled figure for. 1 Inquiry Profile
Kind of RecordChurch-Commissioned Report 1 JurisdictionUnited States (NCSY, nationwide; commissioned by the Orthodox Union) 1 Commissioned ByOrthodox Union, independent panel chaired by Richard Joel (then president, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life) 1 Publication Year Period Covered, From Cross-Tradition Connections
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