In November 1997, 12-year-old Jeremy Bell was killed at the hands of Edgar W. Friedrichs, a serial pedophile, teacher, and later principal, who taught for decades at Pennsylvania and West Virginia schools despite extensive complaints submitted to school administrators.
In his book "The Complicity of Silence: Confronting Ecosystems of Child Sexual Abuse in Schools," Professor Amos Guiora carefully analyzes the case with the assistance and extraordinary documentation of Dan Barber, the private investigator who solved it.
As an expert in the power systems that allow the worst criminal behavior to fester unobstructed, Professor Guiora uses the specific facts of the Bell case to demonstrate how a network of enablers and bystanders allowed a proven predator to remain free and access children at several schools from 1975 to 2001. Professor Guiora advocates for broader policy changes and social safeguards necessary to prevent such disasters from occurring in the future.
Amos Guiora served for 19 years in the Israel Defense Forces as Lieutenant Colonel (retired), and held several senior command positions, including legal advisor to the Gaza Strip and commander of the IDF School of Military Law. Professor Guiora has published extensively both in the U.S. and Europe on issues related to national security, limits of interrogation, religion and terrorism, the limits of power, multiculturalism, and human rights.
He is the author of several books and book chapters, including "The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust," "Armies of Enablers: Survivor Stories of Complicity and Betrayal in Sexual Assaults," "In the Crosshairs of Unfettered Executive Power: The Moral Dilemmas of Justifying and Carrying Out Targeted Killings," and "Targeted Killings: Defining and Applying the Limits of Military Ethics."
