AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Friday 13 February 2015
The most senior rabbi in Australia called the father of three sons who were sexually abused a “lunatic” who was guilty of “killing” the Orthodox Jewish community within which his sons had been violated.
On Tuesday Zephaniah Waks told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse how he and his family were ostracised and bullied by religious leaders after speaking out about the abuse of his sons at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne. He had demanded to know from senior religious leaders within the Orthodox Chabad community why they had ignored it.
On Friday the commission heard that as Waks was giving his harrowing evidence, the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, sent a text message to the editor of the Australian Jewish News.
“Zephaniah is killing us,” the message read. “Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?”
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