OPINION: The shul and a ‘kidnap’ that almost certainly wasn’t one

A story comes my way from New York — a story which, with its several layers of claims and counterclaims, almost, as it is said, passeth all understanding.

Picture the scene: a man in the generally strictly Orthodox neighbourhood of Flatbush is studying in a shul. He looks up from his books and decides to leave. But to his horror, in the lobby of the building, in front of the doors — there are women. About 15 of them.

Now, to me, and perhaps to you, dear reader, this would simply be a matter of saying to the group “Excuse me, can I get past?” and hoping the women stand aside so that there might be no physical proximity.

Our hero, however, makes a somewhat radical decision. He sees a young boy aged about nine and has a brief conversation with him, which results in the boy acting as an escort for the man. CCTV footage shows the pair walking through the lobby with the man’s hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Perhaps all would have ended there, except that this is a community which has been rocked by allegations of sustained child abuse by men who were looked up to in the frum world. So when the boy’s mother turns up —maybe she was collecting him — and finds him in the company of a stranger, she asks her son who the man is. And he says he doesn’t know.

The understandably distressed mother calls Flatbush Shomrim and says her son is being kidnapped. Flatbush Shomrim advises her to call the cops. The cops soon arrive and arrest the man; and the NYPD also puts out a notice to the press that a man is suspected of kidnapping in Flatbush.

And this is how the story gets into the New York Post. The paper has no doubt as to what has happened. Its headline reads: “Creep tries to abduct boy from NYC synagogue — thwarted by mom.”

Apparently, and I freely admit I did not know this, the man in question had the choice of either grabbing an item such as a phone or a wallet, or holding on to his peyot or tzitzit, in order to walk through the crowd of women. The idea, I suppose, is to keep his hands occupied so that he does not inadvertently touch someone. Instead, he picks on a stranger’s child to “protect” him.

Quite what possessed him to pick up a child whom he did not know — and not understand the wider implications of such an act — is an utter mystery. Even more bizarre is the fact that “nearly all” charges against him were dropped, as the NYPD apparently accepted his extraordinary explanation.

I still don’t know what remained from the original charge sheet. But there are so many things wrong with this story, not least the flurry of comments in Yeshiva World News blaming the mother, Flatbush Shomrim and the cops for their response.  Of two things, however, I am perfectly sure. First is that we will never know the real truth of what motivated Flatbush Man to behave as he did. Perhaps he was indeed innocent — though manifestly stupid — or perhaps he was intent on kidnap and was stymied at the last moment.

But the second thing is that I was struck by a below-the-line comment in Yeshiva World News, suggesting that it was all the fault of the women in the lobby for congregating there.

What kind of society sees women — just ordinary, normal women — as enemies, comparable to sharks or terrorists?