N.Y. funds go to help Orthodox sex abuse

New York Gov. David Paterson has approved a plan to give $500,000 in state money to help identify and treat sex abuse victims in New York’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Paterson backed the expenditure from the state’s Department of Children and Family Services to set up an organization called Shomrei Yeladim, Hebrew for “guards of the children.”

The organization will distribute education materials to yeshivas and other Jewish institutions, as well as set up workshops to help deal with pedophilia in the Orthodox community.

The money, which will be administered by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, would pay for counseling for abuse victims. — jta