Author Chaim Walder's Suicide Won't Satisfy Victims Of Sexual Abuse

Haredi author Chaim Walder was a master storyteller who crushed his victims’ right to tell their own stories of his alleged sexual abuse. Now the Haredi world is giving him, not his victims, the last word, Yehudis Fletcher wrote for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Photo Insert: Author Chaim Walder

As a child in Glasgow, the highlight of my long hours of stillness which characterized Shabbat afternoons in the summer, or Friday evenings in the winter, was reading and rereading Chaim Walder’s books.

Walder became a Haredi publishing sensation in 1993 with his first, bestselling book "Yeladim mesaprim al atzmam" ("Children Talk About Themselves") translated into English as "Kids Speak." Walder hacked literature for Haredi kids.

He introduced us to young protagonists who could speak openly about their problems and feelings, whilst conforming to the rigid and narrow requirements of rabbinical censors. Now, his rabbinical censors and Walder himself have been accused of sexual abuse. Walder’s escape route was suicide.

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