New Australian Child Sex Abuse Scandal ...
Failed Messiah
New Australian Child Sex Abuse Scandal Involves Multiple Counts Of “Intercourse With A Child” Australian journalist Dan Goldberg reports that the new branch of the Melbourne Jewish community's child sexual abuse scandal involves 25 counts of sexual abuse, including multiple counts of “intercourse with a child.” The defendant, who recently appeared in a Melbourne Magistrate’s Court and who has not yet been named publicly, is not thought to be Jewish. The abuse took place at a Jewish organization which has not yet been named because of a court suppression order.
However, FailedMessiah.com has learned that the organization involved is a Jewish community sports organization, and some of the alleged abuse may have taken place on a trip to the US approximately 10 years ago.
The accused pleaded “not guilty.” His trial is expected to begin next year.
The Office of Public Prosecutions reportedly confirmed that there are several complainants. Not all of them are thought to be Jewish, either.
“We understand why Julia Gillard made [the decision two weeks ago to call a royal commission to investigate child sexual abuse and coverups at religious and state institutions], but we are nervous for certain people in our community,” a Chabad follower, Timmy Rubin, who runs a mikveh in Melbourne told Goldberg. “Some people are really nervous because 25 years ago, they probably did the wrong thing…With [the Malka Liefer serial sexual abuse of teenage girls at the Adass haredi school several years ago], the problem is that nobody pressed charges, and that’s why she got away with it. People whose daughters were mucked around with were furious, but they were scared to press charges because they didn’t want their girls to be shamed in the community — that’s the real tragedy,” she said.
“The fact that there don’t seem to have been any abuse claims for a number of years now shows that the Jewish schools have tackled it and cleaned up their act,” Shlomo Boruch Abelesz, a former secretary of the Adass Israel community, told Goldberg.
For complicated reasons detailed in the professional literature, abuse victims usually do not come forward until they are adults, often when their own children reach the same age they were abused.
In the various Chabad cases of child sexual abuse at its Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne case, victims allege that Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the head of Chabad in Australia until his death in 2008, covered up allegations of child sex abuse, ordered victims and their families to be silent, and helped alleged pedophiles escape or flee potential prosecution.
In a statement on November 14, the Chabad dominated Rabbinical Council of Victoria backed formation of the Royal Commission and “reminds the community that alleged halachic reasons to refrain from reporting abuse to the police or other relevant authorities are completely without foundation.”
But police and judges have been sharply critical of various Chabad leaders and the community, citing apparent lies, obstruction of justice and attempts to mislead.
That criticism is echoed by Manny Waks, the lead alleged victim in the Chabad scandals.
“The [Chabad] Yeshivah leadership has excelled in doublespeak: They inform the public that they are cooperating fully with the relevant authorities, yet in private they are engaged in the most vile and irreligious acts,” Waks said.
His family has suffered retaliatory abuse from Chabad since Waks came forward.
There are more than a dozen alleged Chabad victims already vetted by police and Waks notes that more victims who have not yet been vetted have recently come forward.
“I’m receiving more and more allegations of child sexual abuse coming from the Melbourne, Sydney and Perth Jewish communities,” Waks said.
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