May 11, 2005
by Reb Yudel |
"When I was very young, I was forced to participate in that [ritual] in which I had to sacrifice an infant." -- 'Rachel', The Oprah Winfrey Show, 1989When that show was aired, the Anti Defamation League jumped to attack Oprah Winfrey for irresponsibly allowing a woman to broadcast the blood libel on the basis of "recovered memories."
Now, it appears that the woman with the wild claims is none other than Vicki Polin, founder of The Awareness Center, the Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault. So claim Yori Yanover and Luke Ford. I tried researching the allegations a while back, and was able to determine that Vicki was working in 1989 for the same Chicago organization that the pseudonymous 'Rachel' was working for.
If Vicki is Rachel, here's the key question: Was Vicki Polin raised by a murdering Sabbatian cult? Or is she a victim of false memory syndrome?
If the former, then the highest moral priority would be to prosecute the cult. To start with, shouldn't her parents be investigated? If that level of evil is happening in the Chicago Jewish community, what excuse is there for Vicki and her collaborators to be wasting their time posting every Israeli sex crime on the Awareness Center web site?
And if 'Rachel's story is false -- as I am quite inclined to believe -- what does that say about Vicki and her judgement? What does that say about the presumption that accusers are always telling the truth?
Or in other words: If the allegations are true, and if we are to take the Awareness Center seriously, why focus on the 'survivors' of abuse when there so many innocents who didn't survive?
Why the silence?
Where is the outrage?
TrackBackMurder?
Cannibal?
Just because you torture a child and convince her she is sacrificing a baby and eating it?
A little ketchup and a doll is all it takes with a small child.
You really should learn more from me the master of terror and torture.
Maybe next time instead of writing an article with you, I'll initiate you.
Maybe my next article will be about you Yudel. You can be my little mashgiach.
Looooving it in Turkey.
Posted by: Rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch from Turkey at May 11, 2005 11:36 PMTo: idzap.com
P.O. Box 2586, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-0586, USA
A user of your services just placed a posting on my web site (http://www.shmoozenet.com/yudel/mtarchives/001283.html) that violated your terms of service.
Specifically, I believe that your service was used to make the post and thereby
- harass, threaten, or abuse others.
- impersonate another person or entity.
Please inform how I can go about finding who is responsible for the abusive posting. In particular, should I
1) Formally request the information
2) Send you a letter from my attorney
3) Send you a subpoena as part of the legal process
4) Name you as co-defendant in the legal action along with the anonymous poster?
I look forward to your prompt response.
Vicki has never denied this story. Instead, she still points to it and claims it as true.
For months, journalists and bloggers alike sat on this story.
It's time that the truth came out.
A seriously disturbed person is running the Awareness Center.
She still believes she was raped on Torah scrolls in her Chicago area synagogue.
She still believes she participated in a canibalistic ceremony murdering Jewish children.
She went on Oprah and claimed this.
Time for everyone to shut down the Awareness Center and someone else to serve as an information clearing house who does not have an ax to grind.
Posted by: Rebtsvi at May 12, 2005 12:36 PMFirst caveat: I'm not a psychiatrist. Second caveat: I've never met this woman.
And while I can see the interest in the "blood libel" angle, I think the forests are being missed for the trees. Vicki, from what I've seen, fits the classic profile of the 1980s Satanic Ritual Abuse craze.
1. She claims (all these insane and highly improbable things--satanic mass, blood libel, ritualized rape, etc.). This despite the fact that the courts have thrown out almost every single one of the 1980s Satanic Ritual Abuse cases, and it is largely interpreted now to have been the work of mass hysteria, terrible therapists and, in a surprising number of cases, initial complaints filed by people with serious mental health issues (Judy Johnson in the McMartin Preschool case; Mary Anne Barbour in another, etc.)
2. She claims that she has or had multi-personality disorder. This too has fallen on hard times, much like SRA claims. But don't miss the link between these two. MPD (now referred to by the few psychiatrists who still believe in it as DID) often appeared in ritual abuse victims. The link is in what psychiatric reformers who have put this beast almost to rest have claimed: that MPD is most often the result of bad therapists implanting the notion that a patient has "more than one person in there"--including even the case of Sybil of Hollywood fame. The same was true of SRA.
I'd consider it possible that Vicki, given her reference to her years of therapy, had both of these sketchy diagnoses brought out in therapy: her "repressed memories" of the baby-eating came in concert with her "discovery" of multiple personalities.
3. On the subject of the Awareness Center itself, I was shocked to see that among their "types of crimes" they include the subject of Satanic Ritual Abuse:
http://TheAwarenessCenter.org/ritualabuse.html
Note that this is included with Rape, Child Pornography, etc. Whether this makes a mockery of real violent crimes or not, it's inexcusable that this organization has (or had) well-respected board members that signed off on this. What were they thinking?
Read that page. You'll notice that just about all of the information comes from something called "Believe the Children," the diehard remnants of SRA proponents in the 1980s. When they list convictions for SRA, note that nearly *every single one of them* have had their convictions overturned.
People have been hurt badly by this stuff. It sounds like Vicki's parents (whose names I object to having circulated) have been terribly maligned by this woman's fantasies. They didn't serve a decade or more in jail, like Alvin and Deborah McCuan (see the webpage above), but then they also haven't had their now-adult child *recant every word* to get their conviction overturned (which you won't find on the webpage above).
I have no idea about the truth of her accusations of others (or accusations by others that she's printed), but this alone makes her dangerous. If her therapists brought out this erroneous information, as other therapists did in SRA and MPD cases, she, as a therapist herself and a true believer, is likely to bring it out of other "victims" herself.
That webpage above has been on her site for years. How could this have escaped the attention of the board members and others working with her? That more than anything is what's troubling me.
If her therapists brought out this erroneous information, as other therapists did in SRA and MPD cases, she, as a therapist herself and a true believer, is likely to bring it out of other "victims" herself.
I don't think she should be able to retain her license as a therapist.
