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Gay Jewish Activist Wins $3.5M Abuse Lawsuit

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Sholom Eichler worked as the website manager for his family’s Judaica superstore.
Sholom Eichler worked as the website manager for his family’s Judaica superstore.
An ‘Orthodox’ gay activist who sued his cousin for allegedly molesting him multiple times many years ago has been awarded $3.5 million by Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Chaim Levin, who is now 24, had charged in his lawsuit that his first cousin, Sholom Eichler – a member of the family that owns the famous Judaica store of the same name – had repeatedly molested him when both were youngsters. The acts were said to have taken place over the period from 1996 – when Levin was six years old – through 1999 at a Brooklyn shul, a relative’s home and an upstate bungalow colony where the family went on vacation.

According to the lawsuit, the shocking incidents mostly occurred in Crown Heights, at Eichler’s Eastern Parkway home and the Vizhnitz shul on Montgomery Street. “It was pretty brutal. It was killing me, but I was too afraid to tell anyone,” Levin commented.

Levin’s lawyer, David Krangle, said that a court referee ordered Eichler to pay Levin $1 million as restitution for pain and suffering, along with $2.5 million for future pain and suffering likely to stem from the repeated abuses. Despite the fact that the accused’s family owns the highly successful Judaica business, it remains questionable whether he will ever actually make good on the payment. Although he never denied the charges, Sholom Eichler moved to Kfar Chabad in Israel a short while after the lawsuit was first brought to court.

A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes explained that the statute of limitations prevented him from taking any action in the case.

In a possible overseas connection, Israeli prosecutors are investigating allegations that Eichler also perpetrated sexually abusive acts against Levin during a family trip to Jerusalem for a relative’s bar mitzvah in 1999.

In 2004, after Levin confided to a family friend about the series of molestations, the friend brought the allegations to the head of his yeshiva. “The rabbi said he’d tell my parents, but that he would not disclose who the perpetrator was,” Levin recalled.

Expressing satisfaction with the judgment in his favor, Levin said he hoped his story would give courage to other victims of such abuse within the Orthodox community. “I get to be the voice for many who don’t have a voice, and that counts for a lot,” he stated.

According to a profile of him on the Internet, Sholom Eichler worked as a website manager and programmer for Eichler’s, enjoys flying planes, and is married with one child.

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