Paedophiles and Gays Could Probably Be Cured, Rabbi Tells Abuse Inquiry

news.com.au
February 13, 2015

http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/paedophiles-and-gays-could-probably-be-cured-rabbi-tells-abuse-inquiry/story-fnj4aog3-1227218416860

The Jewish Yeshivah centre in Melbourne, where Rabbi Zvi Telsner is spiritual leader. Source: News Limited

PAEDOPHILES and gay people could probably be cured, a rabbi has told a child abuse Royal Commission.

But Rabbi Zvi Telsner, spiritual leader of Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, believes it would require both extended therapy and time.

“There is a certain belief that if someone, for example, after 20 or 25 years, has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that the person may have been able to change his way of life,” Rabbi Telsner said on Friday.

“I’m saying through therapy, and through counselling, and if you see that over the last 20 odd years the person has been able to control themselves being amongst children, the possibility (is) that he is in control of himself.” Rabbi Telsner was giving evidence to the royal commission that’s examining institutional responses to reports of child sex abuse. The rabbi was asked if he held the same views about homosexual people.

“I would say the same thing could happen to someone who was gay, I would suspect,” he said.

The line of questioning stemmed from an incident at Melbourne’s Yeshivah College in 1986.

A mother who reported her son had been sexually abused by a Yeshivah College worker was told by a rabbi they thought they had cured the perpetrator.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining how Jewish schools in Melbourne and Sydney responded to a string of child abuse cases since the 1980s. The hearings are continuing.