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Volume XX • Number 18 • May 2 - 8, 2013 •
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Horace Mann: Saved by statute of limitations?
BY KIMBERLEY HYATT Troubles seem to be multiplying for one of the nation’s premier prep schools, the Horace mann School here in Riverdale. In the aftermath of a giant media bombshell, the Horace Mann Coalition (HMAC) is taking action on the sexual abuse claims hidden for over thirty years.
Working with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, the NYPD, and the Bronx Special Victims Squad, and investigation has been launched concerning the reported abuse from 1962-96. The abuse was originally brought to light in the June New York Times Magazine article “Prep School Predators: The
Senator Klein chose the Riverdale Senior Center to be the recipient of orchids from the New York Botanical Garden’s annual Orchid Show. Every year, the Botanical Garden reserves 20 orchids for one non-profit in Senator Klein’s district. Pictured above, Senator Klein (C-L) and Julia Schwartz-Leeper (C-R), Executive Director of the Riverdale Senior Center stand with two members of the Senior Center.
Horace Mann School’s Secret History of Sexual Abuse,” written by Amos Kamil, a Horace Mann alumnus himself. This April, The New Yorker picked up the story again with “The Master,” by Marc Fisher, another Horace Mann graduate. Fisher’s article even focused on the charges of multiple abuse by an English professor, Robert Berman, to young male students. Despite this and at least 15 reported cases brought to the attention of administrators and staff, the reports were not taken to the police. An April 22 press release from HMAC commented, “HM has not undertaken a public investigation into the root causes of abuse at the school.” In light of the New York Times Magazine exposé, Horace Mann added to their “Family Handbook” on ‘Policy on Reporting Child Abuse of Students by School Employees’, raising questions about what the policy was, if any, during the thirty years the abuse took place. Only now does the policy highlight the necessity of immediate law enforcement notification. Other than that, nothing else has been done. The question remains, despite great intentions, what can be done? The New York state statute of limitations is preventing any prosecution for the last thirty years of reported abuse. Before August of ’96, there was a five year window to report felonies (exempting homicides from the time limit), and two years for misdemeanors. It was then changed for Child Sex Crimes—the five year ticking clock doesn’t start winding down until the child is 18. Even so, this does nothing to prosecute the alleged abusers of thirty years. New York State’s Social Services Laws proclaims that school officials, or anyone legally responsible for the child, must file a sexual abuse report. But the terms of this mandate, “Other person legally responsible,” conveniently leaves out school employees. Another mandate outlines the duties of one such “enumerated” official in the event of a report in an “EdContinued on Page 8
Photographs of Israel at the Derfner Judaica Museum By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER “Some Things Seen in Israel,” an exhibition of photographs by Burt Allen Solomon, is on view at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale’s Derfner Judaica Museum. The works were mounted this month to mark the State of Israel’s 65th anniversary. The 42 black-and-white photos capture moments of ordinary life, mainly in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, over a period of 40 years. Solomon, with no political agenda, documented scenes for their subject matter, light and composition during several visits to Israel starting in 1968, right after an El Al plane was hijacked. The frames containing people are suffused with somber moods—a wary crowd boarding a bus, passengers seated and standing in silence, three patrons in a starkly furnished bar, a circle of men handling tobacco, elderly men in an alley, shepherds with their charges, parents shopping with their son, even a few urban children at play—not a smile in sight. One exception is a shot from 1974— lively youngsters in Tsefat think the photographer is filming them for TV, so they laugh and wave to the camera, calling out “Televiziah!”Another is a scene from
Tel Aviv in 2004—the younger of two construction workers concentrates on a task while the older one watches, grinning. Several images depict contemporary structures juxtaposed with ancient ones. “I have certainly been conscious of the contrast of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ throughout the country ever since my first visit, when my older cousin Shlomo Shpiegel and I walked the streets of Netanya, which he had helped to found,” Solomon told Derfner director Susan Chevlowe in an interview published as a brochure. “He pointed out to me what was ‘yashan’ (old) and what was ‘hadash’ (new). At least subconsciously, I was aware of the ‘hadash’ and the ‘yashan’ whenever I aimed my camera to shoot.” Solomon, a New York attorney, was born in 1944 and lives in South Orange, New Jersey. He was introduced to photography as a teen in Brooklyn, where his father, a printer by profession, had created a darkroom in the corner of the garage. His photographs have been on exhibition at the Framing Mill Gallery in Maplewood, New Jersey, and in Vladeck Gallery at the Amalgamated Houses in The Bronx. The exhibition is open through July 28.
Museum hours are 10:30 a.m. through 4:30 p.m. from Sunday through Thursday.
The Hebrew Home at Riverdale is at 5901 Palisade Avenue, Bronx, NY, 10471.
Tel Aviv 1974. (Copyright BA Solomon)