NEW YORK (JTA) — The Brooklyn district attorney launched a project to combat sex abuse in the Orthodox community.
Dubbed Project Kol Tzedek, Hebrew for Voice of Justice, the effort was announced at a news conference Wednesday by Charles Hynes.
The effort, in partnership with a number of local Jewish organizations, will include a confidential hotline and outreach to yeshivas and synagogues.
Hynes has come under fire in the past for not responding adequately to allegations of sexual abuse in the Orthodox communities of Brooklyn. Though some, including former critics of the district attorney, welcomed the new effort, some rabbis remained dubious.
"I don’t trust the DA to do the right thing," Rabbi Meir Fund of Flatbush, one of the target neighborhoods set to receive heightened attention from the district attorney’s office, told the New York Daily News. "These people are corrupt. If he was sincere he would have done something 20 years ago."
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