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When he is criticized for stories in The New York Jewish Week like ones that uncover sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, Gary Rosenblatt uses the Torah as his defense.

Just like the Torah doesn't hide embarrassing stories about our patriarchs and matriarchs, the Jewish media shouldn't have to hide the truth on figures like Rabbi Baruch Lanner, subject of The Jewish Week's investigative series in 2000 for his physical and emotional abuse of NCSY teenagers, Rosenblatt said Dec. 5 at Congregation Ohav Emeth in Highland Park.

But what complicates matters for Jewish newspapers covering the Orthodox community, Rosenblatt said, is that while Orthodox circles don't have a higher incidence of abuse than the rest of the population, they are often at odds with the "first commandment" of journalists, to expose and to uncover wrongdoing.

"In the organized Jewish community, probably the first commandment on this issue is just the opposite," Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The Jewish Week, said. "We want to cover up, we want to present a unified front; [we try to say] we are one, everything is fine."

The Orthodox Forum of Highland Park/Edison sponsored Rosenblatt's lecture, "Responsible Journalism and the Orthodox Community." Rosenblatt called the Lanner episode the most dramatic story he has worked on at The Jewish Week. He said he called 60-70 alleged victims of Lanner's abuse who described identical behavior, and when he realized publishing a story could send Lanner to jail, he called a posek (halakhic authority) to weigh in on the matter.

Rosenblatt's posek said that with the Lanner story, the editor needed to make a choice based on the criteria that Lanner shouldn't be able to do any future harm. If the editor determines that the only way to stop the abuse was to go public with the allegations, then The Jewish Week was not only permitted, but obligated to do so.

Some rabbinical circles blasted Rosenblatt for publishing lashon hara with the Lanner story, but even in the strictest ways of looking at lashon hara, Rosenblatt said, there are exceptions when the community's core values are jeopardized.

"If there are other issues that affect the community, then you can expose this," Rosenblatt said.

Rosenblatt grew up in Annapolis, Md., attended Yeshiva University, and went on to serve as editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times for 19 years before moving on to The Jewish Week. As an editor, he learned how much New York's vast Jewish community differed from the tight-knit community of Annapolis, which had one synagogue, Congregation Kneseth Israel, when Rosenblatt was raised there.

The smaller a Jewish community is, the more people tend to stick together, Rosenblatt said. Since New York has many Jewish communities and each one has enough critical mass that it doesn't have to deal with the others, Jewish newspapers there have the role of helping people find common ground and argue in a civil manner, on top of the normal role of newspapers.

"I think we have an added degree of responsibility, and that's as much as possible, to unify the Jewish community," Rosenblatt said. The Orthodox community is the most visible among the Jewish denominations, Rosenblatt said, because of the dress of some of its members, and because the community is often defined by boundaries such as an eruv in closely knit neighborhoods where people can walk to shul.

That sometimes leads to an imbalance in coverage, Rosenblatt said, noting one Baltimore Jewish Times headline that read: "Young Orthodox couple killed in train crash." When the paper received a letter asking if it would have identified a Conservative couple, Rosenblatt said he realized he wouldn't.

Ultimately, covering the Orthodox community, and the rest of the Jewish community, comes down to being as straightforward and objective as possible while trusting your readers, and not censoring in advance.

Asked about what to make of the negative media images of rabbis with long beards being taken off to jail, as was the case in this summer's sweeping corruption scandal involving the Syrian communities of Deal and Brooklyn, Rosenblatt responded that the images are another form of journalism in that they are pieces of reality.

"I think the deeper problem is: Why are these people with yarmulkes being arrested?" he said.

Regarding whether Israel is still a rallying point for the Jewish community, Rosenblatt said Israel is now one of our most contentious issues, partly because those who were born in the 1980s didn't see Israel's founding, but rather know stories like the intifadas and Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, not exactly our proudest moments.

Asked about the column of Julie Wiener, who writes monthly for The Jewish Week on intermarried life, Rosenblatt said running the column doesn't mean the paper is endorsing intermarriage.

"Whether we like it or not, this is a huge issue and a major part of our new community," Rosenblatt said of intermarriage.

Danny Wildman of the Orthodox Forum, who organized the event, noted the great challenge of being unbiased for the editor of a Jewish newspaper in a large Jewish metropolitan area, like Rosenblatt.

"I believe the issues that face the editor on a day-to-day basis are profound and impact the entire community," Wildman said.