Decline and Fall

Rabbi Juda Mintz speaks about the addiction that ruined his life and cost him his honor

Jason Green / The Jewish Times

Rabbi Juda Mintz tilted back in the swiveling armchair, bringing two fingers to his pursed lips. He measured each word carefully, as if searching for the perfect thing to say.

He strained to explain his addiction to pornographic images, the events that ruined his life and what he calls his debt to God and his path to recovery.

He said he’s lost nearly everything — except himself.

"With all of my losses, I’ve discovered that there’s a part of me I otherwise would not have known," Mintz said. "I’m constantly grateful for all of God’s miracles. With all of the stresses, I can still function and still have hope and determination."

Mintz, 59, who spent more than a quarter-century working as a rabbi in Atlanta, pleaded guilty last week to a single count of possession of child pornography, a crime that could carry prison time. Lawrence Lustberg, the Trenton, N.J., attorney who is representing Mintz, is hopeful his client will be given probation.

Sentencing is set for June. Mintz faces a maximum term of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. In reality, Lustberg says Mintz is looking at a sentence of 27 to 33 months and is hopeful his client will receive a lighter sentence.

Mintz may have to register as a sex offender when he is released, Lustberg said, but neighbors would not have to be notified of his crime.

"I’m a person of faith," Mintz said during an exclusive, hour-long interview with the Jewish Times during which he often closed his eyes and struggled for the right words. "I do very much believe nothing in life is coincidental."

Mintz is not alone. Although he has not been accused of anything more than the possession of illegal images, the issue of clerical sex problems has made headlines in recent weeks with the revelation that as many as 80 priests in the Boston area may have molested children over the past 40 years. And the Archdiocese of Philadelphia reportedly has found "credible evidence" that 35 priests under its jurisdiction sexually abused children over five decades.

Two Jewish spiritual leaders have recently been in the spotlight as well:

o Howard Nevison, 61, cantor of New York’s Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue, faces charges that he sexually abused his nephew on three occasions between 1993 and 1997 while the boy was 3 to 7 years old.

o Former Boca Raton, Fla., Rabbi Jerrold Levy pleaded guilty in August to having sex with a 14-year-old boy and was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison and three years probation.

Mintz, who did not fight the charges, admits looking at pornography, but said he never paid for the images he viewed or engaged in sex chats online. He said he’s a sex addict, but has never physically harmed anyone.

"There has never been any allegations of impropriety with any human being, let alone with a child," he said. "It is well known that the essence of my rabbinic career has been my teaching and Judaic involvement with the children. This is one of my greatest mysteries, which I am beginning to understand through therapy."

Mintz was once an Atlanta icon. In 1973, he organized Emory University’s Hillel chapter, and, after eight years at the campus, became the founding rabbi of Traditional Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs in 1981.

"As Congregation B’nai Torah’s founding rabbi, Juda Mintz was an energetic, inspirational religious leader and was instrumental in the Traditional synagogue’s rapid growth," Ron Lipsitz, B’nai Torah’s founding president, said in a statement. "He endeared himself to many congregants, officiating at hundreds of lifecycle events and leading numerous trips to Israel."

Ed Goldberg, B’nai Torah’s second president, said Mintz’s efforts helped build the strong foundation the congregation has today.

"This unfortunate incident should not be the only thing he is remembered for," Goldberg said in a statement. "He gave many positive things to the Jewish community and to B’nai Torah. His leadership helped us create and build a Traditional synagogue in North Atlanta that is stronger than ever."

Others in Atlanta’s Jewish community said they feel disbelief and sadness. Many people loved and respected Mintz and wondered how he could have sunk so low.

"It makes me nervous," said one former congregant who asked not to be identified. "He bar mitzvahed my boys, my little boys."

Mintz left B’nai Torah in the spring of 1998 when members voted against renewing his contract. There were allegations of financial improprieties, said a congregant who asked to remain anonymous, but no charges were ever filed.

Mintz went on to start Congregation Shema Yisrael, a nondenominational synagogue in Dunwoody that does not require members to pay dues. He left Shema Yisrael in 1999 to become rabbi at Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph Township, N.J., about an hour’s drive from New York.

After 18 months at Mount Freedom, Mintz’s life began unraveling on Sept. 10, 2000.

After Mintz complained that his computer was running slowly, a technician found child pornography on its hard drive. Temple officials reported the findings to local police and federal pornography charges eventually were filed.

Mintz says sex addiction is a problem he has battled throughout his life. He says he was introduced to pornography at age 9 when his cousin, who stayed with his family to attend rabbinic school, shared girly magazines with him. Throughout his adolescence, he says, it seemed perfectly normal to look at pornographic magazines.

His addiction, he says, never affected his work as a rabbi, but it troubled him in other ways.

"All along, there was this small yet deep, dark place — that was my disease — and that offered me an opportunity to medicate myself when I felt depression," he said. "I say this not as an excuse for my behavior, but as an explanation."

It wasn’t until 1999, Mintz says, that he even knew how to use a computer. Without the aid of modern technology, Mintz says he was able to manage his problems in an acceptable way.

But the donation of a computer to Mount Freedom Jewish Center opened new avenues — avenues that ultimately led to his arrest. Mintz said the computer brought new worlds to his fingertips — Judaica, current events and pornography.

"[The pornography] was in the confines of my own office at the synagogue, initially after hours, that was viewed by me," he said. "It was with these pornographic images that my addiction was rampantly fueled."

Mintz, who returned to Atlanta the day before Rosh Hashana and has been working as a convenience store clerk, said he understands that people are questioning his actions. He said he needed to be among nurturing friends so he could get through the trauma of his pending divorce and to heal.

No one, he says, has criticized him directly.

"Much to the contrary, I have received extreme encouragement and help financially and otherwise to get me through the most difficult time of my life," he said. "I will be eternally grateful to those who have reached out to me. There is a real sense that they have helped save my life."

Friends, he says, continue to remind him that they are privileged to give something back for everything he did as their rabbi. Still, Mintz says it’s difficult to be receiving help rather that giving it.

"It’s an adjustment, not unlike the surgeon who finds himself as a patient in a hospital bed," he said.

Some reactions in Atlanta have surprised him.

"There were some who I thought would be forthcoming — and even supportive — who weren’t and there are those who have come forth and bonded with me in ways I never imagined," he said. "For the 27 years that I have been blessed to live in Atlanta, ministering to the Jewish community to the utmost of my ability, I ask if not for your compassion, then for your understanding and your forgiveness."

Mintz said he is not wallowing in self-pity. He plans to be admitted to Beit T’Shuvah, a 105-bed residential rehabilitation community in Los Angeles, that treats people with therapy, 12-step programs and Judaic studies. While at Beit T’Shuvah, which was founded in 1987 and is the only center of its kind in the United States, Mintz will be treated for his disease and will teach Judaics.

Harriet Rosetto, Beit T’Shuvah chief executive officer, says sex addiction is similar to other compulsive disorders.

"They all use something internal to satisfy the external," she said in a telephone interview from the center.

Clergy, she said, have a propensity to sex addiction. They often have strong lusts and try to heal them by becoming rabbis, priests and ministers in an effort to find God and mitigate their urges, Rosetto said.

But instead of helping, becoming a clergyman only exacerbates the problem. "The harder they try, the worse it gets," Rosetto said.

Being in a position of power also fuels the problem, she said.

"When people come to clergy, they are coming in their most vulnerable position, revealing their most vulnerable selves," Rosetto said. "On some level, even if they’re trying to make people feel better, there’s intimacy."

Sex addicts, like other addicts, are able to manage their problem and able to rebuild their lives, she said.

"Every day, calls come from all over," Rosetto said. "Addiction is a major problem in the Jewish community."

Rabbi Ilan Feldman, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Jacob in Toco Hills, said any problem that affects human beings can be found in the Jewish community.

"I’ve encountered this [sex addiction] in many other cases," he said. "It needs nonsensational and thoughtful attention."

Mintz says it was a blessing that he was caught. Had he not been, he said he probably would have stayed at Mount Freedom or gotten another pulpit, "never addressing the addictive cancer that was destroying my life and the life of my family."

"I am grateful that the disease was examined properly and that there is treatment in which I can yet live a spiritual life," he said.

Once his treatment is completed, he hopes to start a synagogue for recovering addicts, combining 12-step program meetings with daily services.

"I want to create a place in which shame would not be present," he said. "I truly believe that this would be a holy undertaking that would enable addicts to feel a sense of self worth, both in the eyes of God and in his or her own Jewish community."

Mintz believes he would not have been prosecuted if he were not a rabbi, but says his arrest and guilty plea have put him on the road to freedom. It has been a high price to pay to come to terms with sex addiction.

"I take comfort in believing that when someone does good, it is eternal. It can never be taken away although, perhaps, it can be denied," Mintz said. "For the many opportunities that God has given me in my many years of service to the Jewish community, I take solace in that by his divine grace he has enabled me to teach the souls of many.

"I pray that whatever remains of my earthly journey that I be enabled to continue serving him by reaching out to the souls of others as well as my newfound soul."