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Jewish group Yeshivah faces royal commission child sex abuse inquiry

By Rachel Browne
Sydney Morning Herald
December 15, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/jewish-group-yeshivah-faces-royal-commission-child-sex-abuse-inquiry-20141215-127et4.html

Guilty: Former Yeshivah director Daniel Hayman was given a 19-month suspended sentence in June.

One of Australia's leading Jewish groups will be the subject of a child sex abuse inquiry early next year, following a series of horrific assaults on young people.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold a public hearing into Yeshivah Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne.

The hearing, to begin in February, marks the first time a Jewish institution has been the subject of a royal commission inquiry.  

It will look at how the Yeshivah Centre and the Yeshivah College in Bondi dealt with allegations of sexual abuse against Daniel Hayman, a former Yeshivah director.

Earlier this year Hayman pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault by a person in authority relating to an incident that involved a young boy on a Jewish camp in the 1980s. He was given a a 19-month suspended sentence at the Downing Centre Local Court in June.

Hayman, who was 24 and a Yeshivah volunteer at the time of the offence, took a young teen to an isolated spot to collect firewood while on Jewish camp south of Sydney and touched him inappropriately.

Magistrate David Williams determined that Hayman's strict orthodox Jewish upbringing may have contributed to his behaviour.

"[Due to] the offender's strict religious upbringing, the opportunity for sexual understanding, experience and development was heavily restrained and may have led to distortions in his perception as to what was appropriate and what was not," he said.

The commission will also examine the response of the Yeshivah Centre and the Yeshivah College in Melbourne to child sexual abuse claims against former staff members David Cyprys, David Kramer and Aaron Kestecher.

Former Yeshivah College teacher David Kramer was jailed in July 2013 for three years and four months for molesting four boys between 1989 and 1992.

David Cyprys, a former security guard at the school, was sentenced to eight years jail in December 2013 for multiple sex attacks on more than a dozen young children.

Aaron Kestecher, a former youth leader and relief teacher at the college, was found dead in his Melbourne home in March this year.

Yeshivah College in Melbourne and Yeshivah College in Bondi were both contacted for comment.

Contact: rbrowne@fairfaxmedia.com.au




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