JTA: Sex-Abuse Conviction of Rabbi Closes Difficult Chapter for Orthodox

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency's report, published 10 July 2002, on the Orthodox Union's institutional response to the Lanner affair. It describes the independent commission the OU appointed following a June 2000 investigative series in The Jewish Week, chaired by Richard Joel, then president of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, which released a 332 page report in December 2000 documenting that OU and NCSY officials had been "put on direct and specific notice of serious sexual misconduct" over decades and failed to act; the OU's executive vice president resigned under public pressure that followed. The article reports that under his successor, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, NCSY (serving roughly 1,000 congregations nationwide) implemented mandatory sensitivity training, created complaint ombudsmen, and established formal misconduct procedures, which OU leadership described as ongoing cultural change rather than a finished reform.