A Maryland civil court jury found Baltimore Rabbi Steven Krawatsky liable for abusing two children and awarded damages in a years-long case. The families of two alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the rabbi were awarded $8,000 each in punitive damages and $1 each in compensatory damages, with Judge Christopher C. Fogleman ruling in favor of their counterclaims.
These claims were in response to a defamation suit that Krawatsky filed after these sexual abuse allegations were published in New York Jewish Week. The defamation suit was filed against the parents of the accusers, victim advocate Chaim Levin and later the paper and journalist who published the report.
“It’s a very strange ruling: Finding him liable for the sexual abuse of two boys, then awarding $1 each in compensatory damages, but $8,000 each in punitive damages,” wrote Asher Lovy, director of the Orthodox-focused abuse awareness organization Za’akah, on his blog. “My explanation for what happened is this. The jury felt that based on the evidence presented during the damages phase they didn’t have a frame of reference or starting point for how to award compensatory damages so they just decided to punt the decision of how much to award the families to the punitive damages phase. At one point they sent out a question asking who gets the punitive damages, so they were clearly thinking about that and concerned with making sure the children would receive them.”
Fogleman previously dismissed the defamation case against New York Jewish Week and journalist Hannah Dreyfus for failing to prove actual malice in a 21-page opinion published in July 2022, making a summary judgment in hopes of resolving the lawsuit before the civil trial.
“The Court concludes that there is no evidence that the Newspaper Defendants either had a high degree of awareness of the probable falsity of any of the published statements or entertained any serious doubts as to the publications’ truth,” Fogleman wrote in 2022. “The evidence shows that the Newspaper Defendants reasonably believed that the published statements were substantially correct, and nothing was presented to impeach their good faith. The undisputed material facts conclusively resolve the issue of actual malice as a matter of law.”
Charges against Levin were also dismissed.
“We will never ever forget the behavior exhibited towards these children and their parents,” Levin wrote in an official statement on his website. “We will never forgive those who were willing to ignore their cries of pain because confronting an uncomfortable reality about someone they knew and liked was too hard for them to do. Every single person who chose to publicly defend this Rabbi owes these families an apology but none of us are holding our breath.”
The civil trial itself took place in February 2024, as it had been delayed for several years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The claims of abuse were initially published in New York Jewish Week in January 2018 after a lengthy investigation. Dreyfus reported that in 2014 and 2015, three boys who were 7 and 8 years old at the time had come home from Camp Shoresh, where Krawatsky was head of its lower boys’ division, acting strangely. They later told their parents that Krawatsky had been abusing them.
In 2015, Maryland Child Protective Services found that these claims of abuse were “indicated” for two of the victims, and “unsubstantiated” for a third. Krawatsky attempted to appeal these findings, but dropped the appeal in exchange for the “indicated” claims being changed to “unsubstantiated.”
Shortly after the New York Jewish Week report was published, the rabbi was fired from Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, and Suburban Orthodox Congregation announced his resignation. Krawatsky then filed a defamation suit against his accusers’ parents. After this case was dismissed for being filed at the federal level, it was filed again in Montgomery County Circuit Court in October 2018, this time citing New York Jewish Week and Dreyfus among the defendants.
Camp Shoresh was also initially involved in the case due to counterclaims against the camp from the victims, but was removed when Fogleman found that there was not substantial evidence definitively proving that the camp’s staff was aware that Krawatsky was abusing campers.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to be part of these families’ pursuit for justice,” Levin wrote. “I pray and hope that these boys and their families can move on from this nightmare and live their best possible lives.”
