AUSTRALIA
Jerusalem Post
NEW YORK – Shaken by revelations that senior rabbis were complicit in covering up sexual abuse and intimidating the families of victims, high ranking members of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA) have split off to form a new rabbinic body, the Australian Jewish News reported.
While the rabbis have worked to distance themselves from their disgraced colleagues, the AJN itself has come under fire for terminating a reporter who leaked information that led to the resignation of ORA Rabbi Meir Kluwgant.
As rabbis and community members testified before a government commission investigating institutional responses to child molestation last month, Kluwgant reportedly sent a text message to AJN editor Zeddy Lawrence in which he called the father of an abuse victim “a lunatic on the fringe” who was out to destroy the ultra-Orthodox community.
Zephaniah Waks testified that three of his children, including prominent victim’s advocate Manny Waks, had been abused while in yeshiva.
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