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Failed Messiah
Large Number Of Chabad Hasidim Sign Petition Backing Rabbi Who Harassed, Threatened Child Sex Abuse Victims
The following petition is being circulated in the Chabad community of Melbourne, Australia.
Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Telsner resigned as the top rabbi of Chabad’s Yeshivah Centre after he – again – lashed out a victim of child sex abuse, verbally attacked other victims and their families and showed no remorse for his previous bad behavior.
But powerful Chabad families don’t want Telsner to go, just as they don’t want any of the other disgraced Chabad rabbis to be punished or reprimanded or fired.
And so we now have this petition, which reads in part:
“…We stand behind Rabbi Telsner in solidarity of both him as an individual as well as the position of Rabbi as a representative of the wider community. The Koach HaTorah and Halachic principles must be upheld despite there being impediments and hardships.
“We further insist that the Yeshivah Centre – true to its title of being “Under the auspices of the Lubavitcher Rebbe” – follow the directives, principles and spirit of the Rebbe’s explicit and inferred opinions in its running and operation. This point is not negotiable.…”
The “Koach HaTorah and Halachic principles” the petition is talking about appears to be the prohibition against mesira (informing), meaning don’t “inform” on fellow Jews, even if they are pedophiles or enablers of pedophiles. Don’t call police. Don’t tell the media. Don’t complain. Don’t make a fuss. That essentially what Telsner repeatedly told victims and it’s a big part of what got him in trouble. The petition is saying Telsner was right to threaten victims this way because the halakha and the Torah say so.
(A large number of poskim, decisors of Orthodox Jewish law, even some Chabad poskim, rule that there is no ban against informing when it comes to child sex abuse, and that all child sex abuse must be reported to police. But large portions of Chabad hasidim disagree, apparently including the signatories below.)
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