Reaction to the Royal Commission

J-Wire
November 14, 2012

http://www.jwire.com.au/news/reaction-to-the-royal-commission/29750

Rabbi Yaakov Glasman

Rabbi Chaim Ingram

The Rabbinical Council of Victoria has welcomed the Royal Commission into sexual abuse perpetrated against children.

Rabbi Yacov Glasman told J-Wire: “Given the surfacing of child sexual abuse allegations in Jewish communities around the world ranging from secular to religious, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria welcomes a nationwide Royal Commission and commends the Federal Government on its decision. The RCV reaffirms its utmost condemnation of those who perpetrate such evils against children or turn a blind eye to them and reminds the community that alleged ‘Halachic’ reasons to refrain from reporting abuse to the police or other relevant authorities are completely without foundation.”

Rabbi Chaim Ingram of the Rabbinical Council of New South Wales added: “Judaism teaches that all forms of abuse – physical, emotional and sexual – of one human being by another is heinous and wrong.  This is particularly true of the abuse of a child by an adult.

Judaism also teaches that dina de-malchuta dina, that in civil matters “the law of the land is law”.

For both of this reasons, the RCNSW welcomes the Royal Commission into institutional responses to instances of child abuse. It behoves every Jewish school and institution to fully co-operate.

It is important to state that in Judaism there is no concept of undivulgible confession.  Where Jewish children or other vulnerable indiduals are perceivably at risk everything possible must be done to remove that risk.

Moreover, in the Jewish Community there is no culture of institutional child abuse.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has also welcomed the Commission.

The national peak body of the Australian Jewish community has welcomed and supported the Prime Minister’s announcement of a Royal Commission to investigate institutional responses to allegations of child sexual abuse.


“The sexual, physical and psychological abuse of children is a pervasive problem in Australian society, and probably all societies” according to the President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry(ECAJ), DrDanny Lamm. “It is certainly not limited to anyone institution or segment of society.”

Allegations of sexual abuse concerning a small section of the Jewish community in Melbourne surfaced in July 2011. In response, the ECAJ together with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the Organisation of Rabbis of Australia and the Rabbinical Council of Victoria issued a joint statement calling on “all alleged victims to come forward and provide the police with any relevant information they may have and do everything to assist the police with their enquiries”.


“Anyone found to have betrayed the trust of children under their care or supervision must be held to account to the full extent of the law”, the statement continued. “The abuse of children in any way, be it physical, sexual, emotional or psychological, is abhorrent, particularly when it is perpetrated by those in positions of trust and authority. All claims of abuse must be treated with the utmost seriousness.”


According to Dr Lamm, “we are now calling on anybody with knowledge of instances of alleged child sexual abuse in any institution to co-operate fully with the Royal Commission, and for the families, friends and advisers of alleged victims to give them every support”.