Among them were women who said they had been groped by Max as well as victims of physical and emotional abuse by others, she said. Several of the victims stood and recounted their experiences.
"We are saying to those who suffer among us that you need not suffer in silence alone any longer," Witman said in her opening remarks. "We will replace apathy and denial with compassion and truth."
Kathleen Cahill, a Towson lawyer retained by the 44-year-old woman whose complaint led to Max's conviction, said his behavior had likely stayed under the radar for so long because the rabbi was "a man in a position of substantial status and power, and you have a community where the ice has not been broken before."
Cahill's client said Max fondled her chest on two occasions minutes apart on Dec. 4 after coming up behind her in a lunchroom and conceding that he was being a "bad rabbi." A police report said the woman was "crying uncontrollably" as she described what had happened. One of the victim's colleagues said Max sometimes gave massages to the woman, according to the police report.
Cahill said her client is considering suing for damages.
The rabbi's defenders say the accusations are falsehoods. Max "is and always has been a decent, respectable man," Violet Krichinsky of Pikesville wrote in a letter to The Jewish Times.
Norman Goldberg, 81, who said he and his family were longtime members of Max's congregation, described him to The Sun as a gentleman and "one of the most beloved rabbis in the city."
Shortly after Max's court appearance, Towson University alumnus Brandon Scherr, who worshipped at the rabbi's temple as a boy, created a Facebook page "to poke fun at the entire situation," he told The Sun. On the page, called "I Was NOT Molested By Rabbi Max," Scherr wrote that if the charges that led to the conviction "are in fact true, at least it was a 44-year-old woman, and not a little Catholic altar boy."
Phil Jacobs, executive editor of The Jewish Times, made the point in a column that Cahill's client is not Jewish, a fact that enabled her to avoid retribution from the congregation. Nobody of the Jewish faith, Jacobs wrote, would have spoken up like that, despite Max's reputation.
"Let it not be ignored that we allowed this to happen," Jacobs wrote, referring to the community's public silence.
Jimmy Berg, board chairman of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, said Max had a "long and storied" career as a spiritual leader, and that the allegations against him were sad.
