Despite having grown up as a Jew (my father was Jewish, but according to Orthodox law only the children of Jewish mothers are Jewish), there were many aspects of observant Jewish life that were new to me until the year I spent converting. The foundation of so much of my religious practice is inextricably tied to that period of my life, and thus, to Rabbi Freundel. I have not been to services in years because the tunes sung on Shabbat remind me so much of him.

Every public victim of a famous sexual predator must endure uncomfortable conversations with strangers and, thanks to the internet, never knowing if the person you’ve just met already knows your story. But when you accuse a religious figure, there’s a whole other kind of discomfort, one that comes from the friends, family members and other religious leaders who consider speaking out about a religious crime as airing dirty laundry for the entire world to see.

While Rabbi Freundel had few defenders in the Jewish community after his fall, there were plenty of people — fellow rabbis included — who very quickly made light of him, made him into a punch line, in the process minimizing his crime. Others thought his prison sentence was overkill — after all, we hadn’t been physically assaulted.

A significant number of friends, relatives and religious leaders have never once mentioned the case to me, despite my role as its most public victim. Orthodox Jews already face an uphill battle in the modern world, they say, and drawing attention to these sordid stories makes that hill that much steeper. These people also prefer not acknowledging what happened to me and so many other women because it’s more comfortable to pretend it never happened.

I too once felt that way. I preferred not to see the abuses in the community I had voluntarily joined as an adult because witnessing my community’s willful blindness to those abuses could send me over the edge. Being the victim of a sexual crime stripped me of that luxury.

In a strange way, having the crime committed against me captured on tape was a blessing: Prosecutors noted that Rabbi Freundel could clearly be seen setting up the camera and taking it down. Nobody could attach the qualifier “if true” to my charges. The evidence unearthed by the police was irrefutable.