A 39-year-old rabbi was arrested and booked last week in Santa Monica on felony charges of sexual abuse of a child. Rabbi Sholom Doyber Levitansky, a Sherman Oaks resident, turned himself in to the Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) on Sept. 30, police said. He’s currently out of jail on $370,000 bail.
Levitansky met his victims while working at the Living Torah Center on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, according to a statement from Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks. The allegations against Levitansky took place from 1998 and 2002, when the two abuse victims were 15 and 16 years old and the rabbi was in his mid-20s.
The Living Torah Center/Chabad has been operating since 1992 and offers a variety of religious and educational services, including preschool and women’s Torah study, according to its website. The instances of alleged sexual abuse were reported in July of this year, and it took about three months to follow up on the information and file a case, SMPD Sgt. Rudy Camarena wrote in an email to the Journal.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has now charged Levitansky with five counts of oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age, five counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object of a person under 18, and one count of lewd act upon a child.
Levitansky’s arrest doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Jewish Community Watch (JCW), an organization dedicated to battling child sexual abuse in the Jewish community, added Levitansky to its “Wall of Shame” in February, “due to his alleged sexual abuse of a number of female minors.” The organization’s posting explains that it decided to include the rabbi’s name and photo on the online gallery after undertaking an 18-month investigation into Levitansky that convinced leaders “public exposure was warranted and necessary.”
In March, at an event hosted by Los Angeles Congregation Shaarei Tefila, then-27-year-old Sima Yarmush publicly accused Levitansky of multiple acts of molestation. As the Journal reported at the time, Yarmush said she was 14 when the alleged abuse took place. She described Levitansky as being charming at first, and taking her under his wing. Then she claimed the sexual abuse began, and it wasn’t until Yarmush was 18 and home from a trip to Israel that she decided to speak out about it.
Yarmush reported the alleged abuse to four rabbis in a rabbinical court, she said, but no real punishment came to Levitansky. She said he was sent to therapy and she was sent home.
On Oct. 7, in response to a request for comment on the arrest, the parents of Yarmush, Rabbi Boruch and Rivka Rabinowitz of the Living Torah Center Chabad in Santa Monica, sent the Journal an email with the following statement: “We are very proud of our daughter Sima Yarmush and are happy that justice may finally prevail. As our daughter mentioned at the Jewish Community Watch event in Los Angeles, held this past March, the past 10 years have been a painful and difficult time for our family. As Sima's parents, and the leaders of Living Torah Center Chabad, we were impacted both by the harm that befell our daughter and the fallout of exposing this crime, when we learned of it. We did so to protect any other youth from potential harm.
“We are very grateful to all those that supported us and stood by us. Similarly, we thank the Santa Monica Police Department and Jewish Community Watch for their fine and valuable work.”
Police have yet to release other details about the Levitansky case because the investigation is ongoing, as is the search for possible additional victims. Levitansky is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 21 at the Airport Branch Courthouse, district attorney’s spokesperson Jane Robison wrote in an email to the Journal.
The Santa Monica Police Department urges anyone with additional information to contact Detective Roy Brown at 310-458-8960, Sgt. William Heric at 310-458-8453, or the Watch Commander at 310-458-8427.
