Abuse victim Manny Waks wins $800,000 in damages from paedophile David Cyprys
Waks, now an advocate for Jewish abuse victims, was one of a number of children Cyprys abused at Melbourne’s Chabad Yeshivah centre
Waks, now an advocate for Jewish abuse victims, was one of a number of children Cyprys abused at Melbourne’s Chabad Yeshivah centre
THE leading rabbis of Australia have shown a lack of respect for the Australian legal system by ignoring a ruling of three courts and instead focusing on one dissenting opinion, writes Joshua Levi.
After the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the rabbis called time on the tarnished Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia and launched the Rabbinic Council of Australia and New Zealand (RCANZ) as a sign the rabbinate was turning over a new leaf.
“We will look to work together with rabbinic and lay leadership to create a robust rabbinate that the entire community can be proud of and we hope to only bring honour to the community,” Rabbi Paul Lewin, the first president of the organisation said when RCANZ was founded.
Rabbi Lewin said the new organisation would help educate members to face the challenges of the modern rabbinate, develop a code of conduct which all members must adhere to, and represent them more efficiently and effectively to the broader community.
There was so much hope that there would actually be reform, but this week RCANZ has failed the community.
Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, the president of RCANZ, was one of four rabbis of the Sydney Beth Din found guilty of contempt of court by the NSW Supreme Court in December 2017.
He should have immediately stepped aside as president, but several leading rabbis told me that it would inappropriate while he appealed the conviction.
In December 2018, two out of three judges ruled against Rabbi Gutnick and the other rabbis in the NSW Court of Appeal.
When the appeal was rejected, several rabbis on the RCANZ executive couldn’t take it any more and resigned.
Mount Scopus principal Rabbi James Kennard was one of those who quit, noting that RCANZ was meant to provide “much-needed rabbinic leadership with integrity, to demonstrate that rabbis could act with professionalism and accountability”, but it failed because Rabbi Gutnick didn’t resign as president.
“There was silence,” Rabbi Kennard said of RCANZ.
“No resignation, no accountability.
“When the appeal against that verdict was rejected, still silence.”
Rabbi Kennard said at the time that RCANZ joined other rabbinic bodies that fail to police themselves and thus fail the community that they purport to lead.
“It is painful to write these words.
“I do not doubt that I will be condemned by some whom I consider my friends and teachers for speaking publicly.
“But I cannot remain silent when the rabbinate of Australia is prevented from fulfilling its primary task – to provide religious leadership to our community – by the refusal of its representatives to act with the highest standards of integrity, which should be the natural hallmark of any who bear the title ‘rabbi’.”
At the time, rabbis quietly told me that because there was an appeal to the High Court of Australia afoot, that it would be inappropriate to comment and that Rabbi Gutnick should be granted his right to appeal.
Well – last week the High Court of Australia refused to hear that appeal and the case has now come to an end.
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THIS HAPPENED TODAY [25 March 2019]
Dear Members of the Yeshivah Community,
Per my recent e-mail, Yeshivah gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that Emmanuel Althaus had spoken out against victims of sexual abuse reporting matters to the police. Another witness also gave evidence that Althaus had commented that a child who had been sexually abused had “asked for it”.
It has recently also been revealed that Althaus ‘anonymously’ wrote on blog sites which were raised at the Royal Commission using the pseudonym “Chevraman”; and that Althaus also sent ‘private’ emails attacking victims of child sexual abuse, their families and advocates.
Althaus has been the subject of court-imposed family violence intervention orders. Further as a representative of Yeshivah, Althaus’s conduct has been raised by multiple victims of child sexual abuse in their civil claims against Yeshivah.
This morning I briefly attended the Yeshivah Centre to observe whether the CIVL Board was allowing Emmanuel Althaus to continue in the role of Gabai.
My attendance was met with a tirade of abuse and threatening behaviour by Mr Chaim Aryeh Raitman from the centre of the shule, the bima, in an extraordinarily loud and aggressive tone.
Raitman is a former member of the Board which led the Yeshivah Centre to the Royal Commission. The Board of which Raitman was a member was found by the Royal Commission to have enabled a culture of bullying, intimidation and ostracism of victims of child sexual abuse, their families and advocates. The Royal Commission highlighted the Board’s lack of leadership and failures in respect of incidents of child sexual abuse; and the bullying intimidation and ostracism of victims of child sexual abuse, their families and advocates. Raitman resigned from the Board in the wake of the Royal Commission. Judging by Mr Raitman’s conduct this morning, it seems nothing has changed.
Raitman is related by marriage to Emmanuel Althaus and Rabbi Meir-Shlomo Kluwgant. Raitman’s wife is a former teacher at Yeshivah-Beth Rivkah Colleges.
To the best of my knowledge, Raitman has never personally apologised for failures that occurred during his tenure on the Yeshivah Centre Board and the damage he caused Yeshivah.
I said nothing to warrant the abusive behaviour or conduct by Raitman.
Also, in attendance this morning was the Rabbi of the Yeshivah Centre – Rabbi Telsner; the Head of the Rabbinical College of Australia and New Zealand – Rabbi Binyomin Cohen; and former principal of Beth Rivkah Ladies College – Mr Gurevitch. Regrettably, not one of these men felt it appropriate to intervene or voice their disapproval.
The conduct of Raitman this morning; the silence of the leadership and congregation; and the ongoing role of Althaus as Gabbai; collectively make abundantly clear, that there has been zero cultural change at Yeshivah.
As such, I believe there remains a real and present risk to the welfare and safety of children within the Yeshivah Centre.
More to come… |
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Dear Members of the Yeshivah Community,
My last public email was in June 2011.
In response to that email, and the assistance I provided to the police and the authorities in relation to incidents of child sexual abuse, including rape, at Yeshivah; my family and I have been subjected to bullying, intimidation and ostracism.
The purveyors of this conduct sent e-mails and used blog sites where they anonymously posted vile and abusive comments, as part of the demonization of victims, advocates and their families. This conduct was part of a wider cultural problem at Yeshivah, that manifested in a dangerous environment for children, as was so painfully and publicly exposed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The purveyors of this conduct acted under the mistaken and perhaps arrogant belief that their identities would never be discovered and exposed. They arguably demonstrated that they feared man, more than G-d, in stark contrast to their projected ‘religious’ identity and self-proclaimed status as ‘yiras shmoyim’ (G-d fearing Jews).
The Yeshivah leadership belatedly and unreservedly publicly pledged and affirmed including to the Royal Commission, that it had ‘zero’ tolerance for such behaviour and its perpetrators.
Sadly, those representations have proven false. Consequently, the integrity of the institution, and the robustness of the child safety policies has been undermined.
The specific identities of purveyors of this conduct is now known.
Recently, Chabad Institutions of Victoria was provided information relating to the identity of 18 people, whose activity has been exposed as a result of various successful legal actions.
These 18 people include:
1. at least 1 current member of the Boards of the ‘Yeshivah Centre’;
2. at least 2 current employees of the ‘Yeshivah Centre’;
3. at least 2 persons who hold a volunteer positions at the ‘Yeshivah Centre’; and
4. at least 1 person who is the child of one of the 3 “Head Shluchim” of Chabad in Victoria as determined by Merkos.To date, Chabad Institutions of Victoria has failed to act on this information and uphold its public promises.
More to come…
Good Shabbos.
Menachem
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(CNN)This is how bad things are in the Catholic Church right now: The Pope’s top adviser on clergy sexual abuse canceled a trip to Ireland for a papal event because he has to investigate sexual misconduct in his own seminary.
In the wake of a recent child sexual abuse scandal to hit the Jewish community, this time in Baltimore, it is an opportune time to examine similar cases around the Jewish world and reflect on how we have responded to them. Learning from these will help us respond more adequately to such scandals in the future.
For this purpose, I will focus on what has recently transpired in Australia and the United Kingdom.
In 2011, during my tenure as Vice President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), I publicly disclosed for the first time that I had been sexually abused as a child by two perpetrators while a student at Melbourne Chabad’s Yeshivah Centre.
While initially applauded by some, this revelation and my subsequent public advocacy on the broader issue of child sexual abuse unleashed a torrent of additional abuse from many quarters, most notably from many within the global Chabad community, including its leaders and their supporters.
The week after the disclosure, Yeshivah’s senior rabbi, Tzvi Hirsch Telsner, asked a question directed at me and my family in his Shabbat sermon: “Who gave you permission to speak?” An Australian Judicial Inquiry, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, later confirmed that Rabbi Telsner effectively intimidated me and my family (and others) in an attempt to silence us.
The intimidation and cover-up attempts came not just from the Chabad community, the centre of the scandal and investigation. Much of it came from the mainstream Jewish community, including those at the highest levels of leadership. Dr Danny Lamm, then president of the ECAJ, publicly supported Yeshivah’s reactions during the scandal, despite clear evidence that they were behaving unconscionably. The ECAJ recently apologised for its part in the scandal, but Lamm has stubbornly refused to do so
To read the remainder of the article, click here:
http://www.mannywaks.com/blog/wall-of-shame#comments
With the recent conclusion of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, I thought this would be a good opportunity to publicly list those remaining individuals and institutions who, in my view, played a role in the Australian Jewish community’s child sexual abuse scandal and have still not accepted responsibility for their actions and/or inaction or been held to account by others. Over the years, I have named them all in various fora, but this is a good opportunity to list them on a new Wall of Shame. Based on my personal interactions with these individuals/institutions, and/or based on their public comments, in my opinion, it would be appropriate that they publicly acknowledge their offensive behaviour and apologise. They have all been provided with numerous opportunities to take responsibility for their behaviour, so I’m hoping that listing them here will hold them to account in one way or another. All of them have caused significant pain and suffering to me personally and to other victims and survivors of child sexual abuse (and in many cases, to others within the community). It is my view, and that of others, that none of the individuals named should be in any leadership position. If anything, the shunning that so many of us experienced (partly due to most, if not all, of these individuals) should be directed at them. So, now that the Royal Commission has concluded, it is up to each and every one of us to do the right thing. We can take the easier option of ignoring this issue, and hope it will just go away. Unfortunately, this approach has proved counter-productive and ultimately destructive for the entire community. Alternatively, we can do the right thing and ensure full accountability.
Wall of Shame Based on the Royal Commission findings: (Rabbi) Yossi Feldman (Rabbi) Chaim Zvi Groner (Rabbi) Meir Shlomo Kluwgant (Rabbi) Boruch Lesches (Rabbi) Zvi Hirsch Telsner Yeshivah Centre – Melbourne Yeshiva Centre – Sydney Based on personal attacks against me (and/or my family and/or other victims/survivors) and/or their public statements: (Rebbetzin) Pnina Feldman (see my previous blog post) (Rabbi) Meir Shlomo Kluwgant (see my previous blog post) Dr Danny Lamm (see my previous blog post) David Werdiger (see my previous blog post) Dr Shyrla Pakula Werdiger (see my previous blog post) Debbie Wiener / The Jewish Taskforce Against Family Violence (see my previous blog post) |