Rabbi regrets inaction over 1987 abuse

Sky News
February 4, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/02/04/rabbi-regrets-inaction-over-1987-abuse.html

A prominent Melbourne rabbi insists the idea that reporting sexual abuse to police goes against Jewish religious principles is an abomination.

He brushed off a sex abuse report 28 years ago as a hoax, and profoundly regrets it.

Rabbi Moshe Gutnick is now an advocate for child sex abuse victims and says those who come forward should be considered heroes.

He told the sex abuse royal commission on Wednesday he felt guilty for taking no action after a boy called him in 1987 to report a man, Daniel Hayman, who was later convicted of abusing another boy.

The rabbi told the commission the victim, with the help of another boy, called him about abuse by Hayman.

'I thought that this was perhaps a hoax or a prank, and entertained the notion that the older boy might just have been trying to get Gug (Hayman) into trouble, especially as the call was anonymous,' he told a hearing into the response of Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi to allegations of sexual abuse.

The complainant later refused to testify against Hayman.

But Hayman was convicted last June of the sexual abuse of another victim, witness AVB, who told the commission he kept quiet for more than 20 years because of how the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community admired his abuser.

'Hayman was popular. He was friends with everybody and an integral part of the Yeshiva community,' AVB said on Wednesday.

'I was nothing. I did not think anybody would believe me.'

Hayman was released on a suspended sentence after his conviction.

Three weeks later, Hayman was honoured as a sponsor of a Yeshiva community event.

Rabbi Gutnick told the royal commission there had been a culture of cover-up, couched in religious terms, that pervaded thinking and action in the past.

He now educates rabbis about the importance of reporting abuse.

He teaches that it's not a breach of the mesirah principle, which advocates excommunication and shunning for those who complain to non-Jewish authorities about Jewish people without the permission of their rabbi.

'I believe it is an absolute religious obligation to report any allegation of child sexual abuse, and to suggest that there is some religious obligations not to do so is an abomination,' he said.

Rabbi Gutnick also testified that another prominent rabbi, Boruch Lesches, lied when saying he knew nothing of the abuse, backing up evidence given by victim Manny Waks on Monday.

Rabbi Gutnick read from an email he wrote to Mr Waks on Monday: 'You are doing the greatest mitzvah to help expose this rotten underbelly'.

'I hope and pray that this royal commission will finally expose all the crap.'

Hearings in Melbourne continue on Thursday.