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Orthodox Jewish community 'turned on victim' after sex abuse allegations
By Melissa Davey
The orthodox Jewish community has responded to allegations of child sex abuse within their institutions with “moral destitution” and by “turning on the victim”, the wife of a man who was abused by religious leaders said. Her testimony to the royal commission into institutional responses into child sex abuse on Tuesday followed evidence from other victims and their families, who also described being attacked and ostracised after coming forward. The witness, identified only as AVC, said the abuse of her husband occurred while he was a student at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, but he only gained the strength to speak up as an adult. “As a spouse of a victim and whistleblower, I feel hated and isolated in my community,” she told the commission at Victoria’s county court. “I have lost faith in the leadership of the Jewish community.” Her husband had been abused by convicted pedophiles David Cyprys, a former locksmith and security guard at the centre, and Daniel “Gug” Hayman, a former director, AVC told the commission. “Well beyond the horrible acts of the perpetrators against my husband that had ripped the rug of security, certainty and innocence out from his childhood, we are being screwed once more by the adolescent self-serving and callous response of the community,” she said. “At a time when support and love are needed, we are facing hate and vitriol. No one cares what is right.” Commissioner Justice Jennifer Coate was clearly moved as AVC described how after her husband went to the police, he was attacked and questioned on Yeshivah internet forums, including by senior figures. Religious leaders at the centre began to treat the couple’s children differently, and many of their friends abandoned them, AVC said. “The community’s response to their awakening to the child sexual abuse riddling their community is to turn on the victim and to make them the subject of suspicion,” she told the commission. “Perhaps it is easier for Jewish community leaders to deflect their responsibility, their mishandling of the situation, by perpetuating the myth that my husband’s supposed desire to destroy the community is behind all these sexual abuse allegations.” Earlier in the day another witness, Zephaniah Waks, spoke about the prohibition against “mesirah” within orthodox Jewish law, which he said prevented members from going to non-secular authorities. Three of his sons were abused by various senior staff within the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne. Waks said he now believed religions should not be allowed to “hide behind” the rules that dictate their faith to avoid state involvement in child sex abuse investigations. While he was wary of state intervention into religion, “in matters of life and death, including child sexual abuse, this rule must be broken”, he said. “If a religious community hides behind false, exaggerated or even real religious precepts to seriously harm people, especially children, I believe the state must interfere.” Waks told counsel assisting the commission, Maria Gerace, about how he was “reduced to nothing” by his religious community in 2011 when he and one of his sons, Manny, began speaking out about the abuse. “We felt our world was flipped upside down,” Waks said, becoming so upset he had to pause. “Every aspect of our lives involved the Yeshivah community. We lived across the road [from the centre]. It felt like we were suddenly reduced to nothing, and had lost all our friends.” He and his family have since left the country and the Yeshivah community, largely because of the abuse, Waks said. The commission hearings, which began on Monday, are the first time child sex abuse in the Jewish community has been examined since the commission began its work in 2013. The hearings continue.
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