Jewish leaders vow to undergo renewal following royal commission into child sexual abuse

By Danuta Kozaki
ABC News
March 8, 2015

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-08/jewish-community-promise-change-after-royal-commission/6289204

Rabbi Mendel Kastel says the Jewish community is working hard to improve a culture of silence in some areas.

Australia's Jewish community is undergoing a period of renewal following damaging revelations that emerged at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

After the royal commission examined allegations of child sexual abuse and cover-ups at Yeshivah colleges and centres in Melbourne and Sydney, several senior leaders in the ultra-Orthodox community resigned.

"Obviously there has been a problem in the past and I think right up to the present time with some religious leaders who have encouraged their members not to report child abuse and that's just not on," said Peter Wertheim of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Mr Wertheim said the community was shocked by the revelations and subsequent comments from some leaders following the commission.

The president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA), Rabbi Selwyn Franklin, said his organisation aimed to make sure there was renewal within its ranks.

"We are making absolutely certain that people who had any kind of dealings with the royal commission in a negative way will no longer be involved in the organisation at all," Rabbi Franklin said.

Australia's most senior rabbi, Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, resigned last month as president of the ORA after a damning stint in the witness box at the royal commission.

Rabbi Kluwgant was forced to admit he had sent a text message to a newspaper editor calling the father of an abuse victim a "lunatic" who neglected his children.

The message referred to Zephaniah Waks, father of Yeshivah community whistleblower Manny Waks.

The admission was made after the Waks' family lawyer confronted Rabbi Kluwgant.

Mr Waks' son Manny was molested by convicted paedophile David Cyprys.

Rabbi Abraham Glick resigned as a teacher at the Yeshivah College in Melbourne. He was the former principal of Yeshivah College from the period that sex offenders David Cyprys and David Kramer were abusing students.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman resigned from a management position at Yeshiva in Sydney following his appearance at the commission. He has also been delisted as a representative of the Chabad movement worldwide.

Rabbi Mendel Kastel from Jewish House in Sydney said the Jewish community was working to overcome a previous culture of silence in some areas.

"There are also workshops planned to educate leaders on how to deal with allegations, with a special workshop to be held in Sydney this week, led by Dr Cathy Kezelman, the president of Adults Surviving Child Abuse," Rabbi Kastel said.

"So we are working together with communal leaders, to work with rabbis, with professionals, to be able to re-evaluate all the policies and procedures."

Rabbi Kastel said it was important for the community to act on its promises of change.

Gavriella Aber, the compliance officer at Yeshivah College in Sydney, said a lot of work had already been done over the last few years to rectify any lack of knowledge of child protection laws.

"There's no going back there's no being ignorant of these things any more in Australia and as a whole everybody is more aware, children are much safer."

Professor Suzanne Rutland from the Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies at Sydney University said knowledge of child protection laws was a problem that some sections of the Jewish community shared with other religions.

"I believe there is a systemic problem across religious spectrums of closed religious communities that are not sufficiently aware of secular approaches," Professor Rutland said..

The vice president of the Rabbinical Council of NSW, Rabbi Eli Feldman said while the community had been vigilant in managing external threats, it had not been as good at dealing with internal issues.

"And that is something that the community is rolling up its sleeves and trying to make sure that those things are put in place so we are protected not just from without but from within," Rabbi Feldman said.