NEW YORK
Jewish Daily Forward
Paul Berger
May 26, 2015
Manny Waks stands on a street corner in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He drank so much the night before that he doesn’t remember what time he got back to his hotel room. His voice is hoarse and his eyes are hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses. Waks is not sure why he got so wasted, but it could have something to do with his mission today — confronting the man who, according to Waks, sexually abused him as a child more than 25 years ago.
It’s just after midday on May 10, a spring Sunday morning. The sun has finally burnt through the early morning mist and blossoms litter the sidewalk on the cross streets. Waks leans against the brick wall of a diner beneath the shadow of a red awning. Directly across the street, a few doors down, he can see the apartment of Velvel Serebryanski.
Men and women walk along the avenue, sipping coffee or carrying groceries. Children glide by on scooters. They would probably be oblivious to this 39-year-old man if it were not for his entourage — a video cameraman, a sound technician holding a boom microphone, a photographer shooting stills, a director shouting orders and a beefy off-duty security guard standing, arms folded, off to the side.
The crew are here to shoot “Breaking the Silence,” the follow-up to an award-winning documentary film about Waks called “Code of Silence,” which aired in Australia in 2014.
Waks is the center of attention because he was the catalyst for an Orthodox sex abuse scandal that erupted in Australia in 2012, leading to the arrest and jailing of several men for sexually assaulting boys during the 1980s and 1990s. The abuse scandal led to a government commission investigation and the resignation of several senior Chabad rabbis.
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