AUSTRALIA
Jerusalem Post
By SAM SOKOL
02/25/2015
Views on reporting suspicions among the ultra-Orthodox are mixed.
In the wake of the revelations that community leaders in Australia suppressed information relating to child molestation, rabbis around the world have begun issuing calls for their constituents to report suspicions directly to civil authorities without prior rabbinic consultation.
Despite this, however, views on reporting among the ultra-Orthodox are mixed, with the national umbrella group Agudath Israel of America maintaining that rabbinic sanction is needed prior to the disclosure of suspicions.
Over the past several weeks, rabbis affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch hassidic movement testified before Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, causing shock waves throughout the Jewish world.
“A culture of cover-up, often couched in religious terms, pervaded our thinking and our actions,” one senior rabbi told the commission, which heard testimony relating to the social ostracism that victims and their families faced after coming forward.
“It is a gross abuse of rabbinic power for rabbis anywhere in the world today to think that they can deal with sexual crimes and to start asking questions, ‘Will I listen to the child’s evidence or not listen to the child’s evidence?’ It has to be dealt with by the civil authorities,” Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, the head of the Organization of Rabbis of Australasia, said earlier his month.
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.