AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Amanda Meade
Monday 2 March 2015
The Australian Jewish News has denied sacking a senior journalist who helped the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse by supplying a damaging text message from a senior rabbi.
Adam Kamien was made redundant after nine years on the paper – including a stint as acting editor – after a text message he passed on to the commission resulted in the resignation of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant.
Kluwgant, the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, stepped down last month after the commission heard that he had called the father of three sons who were sexually abused a “lunatic” in a text message.
The text message, sent to the editor of the Australian Jewish News, Zeddy Lawrence, read: “Zephaniah is killing us. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?” …
Last week the paper told staff Kamien had been made redundant after a restructure.
Contacted by Guardian Australia, Kamien declined to comment as he had signed a confidentiality agreement.
But Zephaniah’s son Manny, the only Jewish victim of child abuse to be named at the commission, believes Kamien was sacked for leaking the text message.
“I am very disappointed with the AJN’s decision,” Waks told Guardian Australia from Paris where he is living. “I understand their dilemma as a media outlet in terms of protecting their sources but in the context of the royal commission, it was a moral imperative for them to do the right thing.
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