Yeshivah centre management 'rotten to its core', abuse victim tells inquiry

By Melissa Davey
Guardian
February 10, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/10/yeshivah-centre-management-rotten-to-core-abuse-victim-inquiry

Abuse victim Manny Waks said Yosef Feldman’s comments had left him feeling ‘sick to my stomach’.

A child sex abuse victim has described management of orthodox Jewish Yeshivah centres as “rotten to its core”, saying he often questioned whether he made the right decision in coming forward.

The witness, identified only as AVB, told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse about how he had been abused when he was 11 years old at the Yeshivah College in Bondi by a Yeshivah security guard visiting from Melbourne, David Cyprys.

He was also abused by another employee, Daniel “Gug” Hayman.

There was a “fundamental cultural dynamic” within the management of Yeshivah – which operates schools, youth services and synagogues – that meant victims became targets and were discouraged from speaking out, AVB said on Tuesday.

“Until we address it nothing is going to change,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what [Yeshivah management] policy might be, if the foundation’s rotten to its core. I often wonder whether I made the right decision in coming forward.”

Appearing before the commission at Melbourne’s county court had also been difficult, AVB said.

“I often wonder whether I made the right decision sitting here today,” he said.

“This whole journey has been very difficult. But I’m trying to show a lot of grace and dignity and I need to do what I need to do if we are going to change things.”

Cyprys, described as a serial abuser, was convicted of multiple child sex abuse offences, including those against AVB, in 2013. Hayman was convicted last year.

Cross-examiner Tom Danos, representing some of the orthodox Chabad leaders, was warned by counsel assisting the commission Maria Gerace for the harsh tone in which he was addressing AVB.

Danos had been pressing AVB as to whether he ever made a written formal complaint about being abused to Yeshivah managers, to which AVB responded he had.

“He [AVB] is answering Mr Danos’s questions and I don’t think the time has been arrived at where we need to address witnesses in a particular tone,” Gerace said.

“So I would ask Mr Danos to just put the questions and the witness will answer them.”

Victims of child sex abuse have faced a difficult time at the commission.

On Monday, a senior orthodox Jewish leader, Yosef Feldman, said he did not think it was appropriate for victims to go to police if the offences took place decades prior and if the offender had since stopped abusing.

A victim who gave evidence to the commission, Manny Waks, said Feldman’s comments had left him feeling “sick to my stomach”.

Feldman’s comments throughout the course of his evidence were so concerning that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) dismissed them as “repugnant” in a statement issued Monday night that called for him to resign.

Feldman had “shocked and appalled his fellow rabbis,” the ECAJ said.

“Amongst his other objectionable comments, it is unacceptable for any religious leader to confess ignorance of basic law relating to the crime of child sexual abuse or to suggest that there are circumstances in which instances of such abuse should not be reported to the authorities,” it said.

“Yossi Feldman’s statements are repugnant to Jewish values and to Judaism, which is centred on the sanctity and dignity of individual life, especially the life of a child.

“We believe his position as a religious leader has become untenable.”

Feldman often smirked during his evidence, and on Monday night, left comments on social media criticising the media’s reporting of his evidence and defending his statements.

Over the weekend, Feldman was honoured during a shul service a Chabad synagogue, the commission heard, along with Rabbi Abraham Glick, who is due to give evidence this week.

Glick cancelled the scholarship of a student who reported to Yeshivah management that he had been sexually abused, the commission heard Monday.

Last week, Rabbi James Kennard, principal of one of Mount Scopus Memorial College, also called for head rabbis within the orthodox Yeshivah community to resign.

Anthony and Chrissie Foster, whose daughters Emma and Katie suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest over several years, and who gave evidence to the commission last year, were in the commission on Tuesday to support the victims.

The hearings continue.