Vic family shunned after Yeshivah abuse

news.com.au
February 2, 2015

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/jewish-centres-probed-by-abuse-inquiry/story-e6frfku9-1227205031100

Victims of sexual abuse at Melbourne's Yeshivah College insist a Jewish community leader had known

MANNY Waks is astounded no one from Yeshivah leadership has ever been held to account for the sexual abuse of children under their watch.

HE and another victim of abuse at Melbourne's Yeshivah College insist at least one Jewish community leader knew abuse was going on but did nothing to stop it.

Mr Waks has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse the head of Yeshivah Centre, Rabbi Dovid Groner, was aware as early as 1986 of abuse by pedophile David Cyprys. But the rabbi's response was that he believed Cyprys had been cured, the commission was told on Monday, as it began hearing from victims of sexual abuse in the Melbourne and Sydney Jewish communities. Mr Waks said he was only 11 when he was first sexually abused during the Jewish festival of Shavuot by the son of a Yeshivah Centre community leader in Melbourne. He was later abused by Cyprys, who was jailed in 2013 for sexually abusing Mr Waks and eight other boys between 1983 and 1991. Mr Waks said the fact that not a single person from the Yeshivah leadership has ever been held to account "in any way, shape or form" was astounding. One incident, when he was 14, has stayed with him. He said Cyprys sexually abused him inside the mikveh, the ritual baths used for purification. The assault continued, in the water and out, until Mr Waks blacked out. Mr Waks kept quiet until 1996 when he spoke to police and contacted Rabbi Groner. He told the commission on Monday it seemed clear that Rabbi Groner, who died in 2008, knew about it because he said Yeshivah was dealing with Cyprys. A statement from the mother of another victim said she contacted Rabbi Groner in 1986 when she first became aware of abuse. She said Rabbi Groner responded: "Oh no, I thought we had cured him", and vowed to take care of it. But her son told the commission on Monday the abuse continued for another two years. Mr Waks said that since he went public about his abuse in 2011, his family has faced ongoing intimidation from the Yeshivah community and he has moved to Europe and his parents to Israel to escape it. Mr Waks read out a letter from Rebbetzin Pnina Feldman as an example of harassment. "There's always something with you and Yeshivah. Get over it already. Just because a security guard molested you don't blame Yeshivah," he read. Mr Waks has established Tzedek, a support centre for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse which keeps a database with names of 25 alleged or convicted pedophiles in Australia's Jewish community. "I would say that around 15 of those were from the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne," he told the commission.