Mr. Packer implies that anonymity casts doubt on the veracity of an account; in my case it actually is my attempt to avoid being victimized all over again. An anonymous account is no less true than one that has a name attached.
Although it is true that I was over 18 at the time of these events, I can’t believe that anyone would suggest that this gives license to physical assault. Regarding the circumstances of what happened to me, let me be clear that I was called to task for being caught going to Ben Yehuda Street, and not for being drunk.
In contrast to Mr. Packer’s secondhand account of what happened, the fact is that I was slapped by Rav Bina, and Rav Natan Schwartz was not present at the time. It was only the next day that Rav Schwartz was present, when I was summoned to meet with Rav Bina to sign a contract saying that I would stay up all night every Thursday [to learn in the beit midrash] and would see a therapist at my parents’ expense if Rav Bina deemed it necessary.
While I can understand that these facts make many people uncomfortable, they nevertheless represent the unvarnished truth.
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