AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News
A SENIOR educator at the Adass Israel School told the Supreme Court of Victoria today she “felt like I was sitting on a bomb” when she discovered that Malka Leifer, the school’s head of Jewish Studies, might be sexually molesting students.
Sharon Ann (Chana) Bromberg, a teacher and chaplain at the school, told the court she received a phone call in August 2007 from a friend urging her to inquire whether Leifer “may have crossed any boundaries” with her female students.
Bromberg said her personal feeling after that phone call was that somebody was prepared to “stoop so low to get” Leifer. But when she confronted Leifer with this a few days later, Leifer said she had discussed her conduct with rabbis and all was in order.
The caller phoned again around 11 days before Leifer’s hasty departure for Israel, saying there was substance to allegations of sexual abuse based on a former student (the claimant) talking to a counsellor in Israel.
The caller called a third time to give Bromberg a young woman’s name to support the seriousness of the allegations.”I felt like I was sitting on a bomb,” Bromberg said.
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