Mr. Hirsch credits the Jewish press, therapists and rabbis in the haredi population itself, and organizations like his, with bringing the issue to light. Jewish blogs like FailedMessiah.com and theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com, he said, have also been “a major catalyst,” giving abuse victims their first opportunity to vent and connect without fear of being identified.

“People are rising up,” he said.

The father of a Brooklyn 10-year-old said in an interview that the mishandling, as he viewed it, of sexual abuse cases by rabbinical courts had persuaded him to contact the police immediately when his son told him last year that a neighbor had abused him.

“I’m not one who believes rabbis are capable to handle this,” the father said.

The rabbis themselves voice a wide spectrum of reactions. Many say change is needed. Many more defend their internal courts. But almost all concur with what one Orthodox rabbi, Yosef Blau of Yeshiva University, recently called a dawning revelation about child molestation, which was once dismissed by the hierarchy as inconceivable among a people who embrace an all-consuming religious devotion:

“Now,” he said, “it is seen as possible.”

In April, after bringing most of the recent criminal cases, Mr. Hynes began an initiative called Project Kol Tzedek, or Voice of Justice, which has enlisted Orthodox social workers to encourage more victims to step forward, and has dispatched trained staff members to schools and community centers to talk about abuse.

Hailed by many as an innovative approach, the program has been criticized by some victims’ advocates for its links to a haredi social service agency, Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, to which beth dins have referred men accused of sexual abuse. Critics say that the treatment provided by Ohel has been inadequate and poorly supervised, a charge that the agency has vigorously denied.

Mr. Hynes walks a fine line. He has cultivated ties with Orthodox leaders since he was first elected in 1989. In an interview, he said he did so partly because they represent a major constituency, and partly to address jurisdictional tensions between his authority and theirs. In an editorial last year, The Jewish Week said those relationships had hampered abuse prosecutions, describing the district attorney’s approach until recently as “ranging from passive to weak-willed.”

Image Members and activists take part in a meeting for Survivors for Justice, a group formed to help Orthodox Jews molested as children. Credit... Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Yet no prosecutor in the country has as many sexual abuse investigations and pending cases against haredi suspects. “We were able to break through because we have worked to establish credibility in the community,” Mr. Hynes said. Some haredi leaders said they had no quarrel with Mr. Hynes’s project. Yet one rabbi mentioned frequently on blogs cites ancient doctrine that justifies killing someone who informs on a fellow Jew.