Rabbi Barry Freundel at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown in 2000. (Michael Lutzky/The Washington Post)
The prominent Georgetown rabbi accused of recording women at his synagogue’s ritual bath had numerous computers and storage devices in his home along with files of women undressing, according to a search warrant filed in D.C. Superior Court.
Police arrested Barry Freundel, rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation, on Tuesday and searched both the synagogue on N Street NW and Freundel’s home, a few blocks away on O Street. In two affidavits unsealed Thursday, police said the investigation is expanding beyond the six women mentioned in the criminal complaint.
“Numerous individuals have reported to law enforcement that they believe they also may have been surreptitiously recorded in the changing area to the mikvah [ritual bath],” one of the affidavits states. Police said that on one recording device, they found more than 100 deleted files dating back to February. Some of the files were labeled with women’s first names.
Police said they seized a camera-equipped clock radio in Freundel’s home, in addition to the one found in the shower area of the ritual bath, which is near the synagogue.
An affidavit says police now think the rabbi had been “engaging in the criminal act of voyeurism in several locations and with the use of several devices and over a period of time.”
Police listed items seized from the rabbi’s home as six external hard drives, seven laptop computers, five desktop computers, three regular cameras, 20 memory cards and 10 flash drives. Police have said the camera in the bath and another found in the home were part of clock-radios in which the hidden device was linked to a motion detector.
Freundel, 62, was charged with six counts of voyeurism, a misdemeanor, and was released from custody during a court hearing Wednesday. He pleaded not guilty. His next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 12.
Freundel has been suspended by the boards of the synagogue and the mikvah. The ritual bath is primarily for people converting to Judaism and by observant Jewish women at very intimate times as a way of becoming closer to God.
Freundel, a modern Orthodox rabbi, is renowned in the religious community for his intellect and influence. He holds top leadership positions in regional and national bodies of Orthodox rabbis and is considered a national arbiter on conversion issues between modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States and religious leaders in Israel.
The allegations have shaken the Jewish community and caused some congregants to question the validity of their conversions. It also has left many women who used the bath fearful that they were recorded during a sacred ritual and that the violation may have been done by someone they trusted.
The newly filed court documents provide more detail from the police account of how the camera at the bath was discovered.
On Sept. 28, a woman in charge of the bath’s changing area and showers noticed Freundel “plugging in a clock on the sink inside the changing area, right by the shower,” an affidavit says. She told the rabbi that there was already a clock on the wall, according to the document, and he responded, “This clock will help with the ventilation in the shower.”
A few days later, the woman noticed that the clock was gone. It was back Oct. 12, police said, and this time she grew suspicious and removed it. She later found “what appeared to be a video camera” in the clock and a card for electronic storage. She called police and turned the clock over to them.
Police have said they found recordings of six women from two dates in 2014 saved on the device, in addition to the more than 100 files that had been deleted. A woman has told The Washington Post that she saw the clock in the bath as far back as 2012.
