AUSTRALIA
Failed Messiah
“…Saturday in the synagogue Australia Chabad’s] senior spiritual leader, Rabbi Zvi Telsner, delivered a stern sermon from the pulpit. “Who gave you permission to talk to anyone? Which rabbi gave you permission?” he thundered, without mentioning any names. Zephaniah and his wife Chaya walked out in a spontaneous protest with six others. Rabbi Telsner insists his remarks were not directed at any individual. “It’s like calling someone fat,” he tells me. “If you think you’re fat that’s up to you.…”
The Australian has a very long article today on the Chabad child sexual abuse scandal and the impact it has had on the Waks family. What follows are excerpts from that article:
Manny Waks pays the price for speaking about sexual abuse in an Orthodox Jewish community
KATE LEGGE • The Australian
…[Zephania Waks] prays on the Sabbath. He walks to the synagogue. He studies the Torah. He observes the rituals of the Chabad. Why has this solid pillar of his community become persona non grata? Waks believes his so-called sin was supporting his eldest son Manny, 37, who went to the media in July 2011 with allegations he was sexually abused as a teenager at the Yeshivah Centre, where school and synagogue squat in the heartland of this tight-knit group of worshippers.
The fears that choke child-abuse victims in every community cast an even darker shadow in orthodox circles, where dirty laundry is typically dealt with in-house. The archaic concept of Mesirah – the prohibition on reporting another Jew’s wrongdoing to non-Jewish authorities – still exerts a powerful hold. Zephaniah began to feel a bristling towards him from the first Sabbath after his son’s disclosures. That Saturday in the synagogue the most senior spiritual leader, Rabbi Zvi Telsner, delivered a stern sermon from the pulpit. “Who gave you permission to talk to anyone? Which rabbi gave you permission?” he thundered, without mentioning any names. Zephaniah and his wife Chaya walked out in a spontaneous protest with six others. Rabbi Telsner insists his remarks were not directed at any individual. “It’s like calling someone fat,” he tells me. “If you think you’re fat that’s up to you.” He had dismissed as “absolute rubbish” any suggestion he sought to discourage witnesses from stepping forward.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.