AUSTRALIA
Jerusalem Post
By SAM SOKOL
03/14/2013
A confrontation between a rabbi’s wife and the brother-in-law of sexual abuse victims’ advocate Manny Waks last week highlighted a divide between two views within Australian Jewry over the proper role of the media in cases of sexual abuse.
Waks, who heads the Tzedek advocacy organization, claimed on Facebook on Monday that Peninah Feldman, the wife of local Chabad Rabbi Pinchas Feldman, had verbally attacked his brother-in-law Dovy Rapoport on March 6 over Waks’s tendency to turn to the media to publicize abuse cases.
Feldman allegedly told Rapoport that Waks was a “moser,” a Talmudic term for a “collaborator” who informs on Jews to non-Jewish authorities. The word has extremely negative connotations within Orthodox Judaism and there is a prayer recited daily against such people.
“This incident confirms what so many of us have known for a long time; that this type of attitude is fairly prevalent among many within the ultra-Orthodox community,” Waks wrote on his Facebook page. “It also demonstrates, yet again, the ongoing harassment and intimidation many victims and their families are subjected to, including by those in leadership positions.”
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