AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Harriet Alexander
On day four of his defamation action against the Australian Jewish News, the rabbi began to pace.
It was complicated to explain why he said he did not know it was a crime to touch a child’s genitals and what he meant when he said rabbis should deal with allegations of child abuse internally.
Yosef Yitzchak Feldman’s frustration had apparently overwhelmed his ability to sit still.
Justice Lucy McCallum addressed his barrister. “Mr Cohen, I’m finding your client’s pacing around and going to the side of the courtroom very distracting,” she said.
The rabbi sat.
Mr Feldman is suing Polaris Media Pty Ltd, publisher of the Australian Jewish News [AJN], for three articles printed during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, which reported him giving evidence that he did not know that it was illegal for a man to touch the genitals of a child.
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