AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Simon Santow
A senior Sydney Rabbi has accused Jewish community leaders of defaming him and misrepresenting his views, after being heavily criticised over his recent evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission.
Rabbi Yosef Feldman provoked controversy when he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he would be “asking for more leniency” for reformed or inactive paedophiles.
He also offended many people when he lashed out at the media, saying publicity about child sexual abuse “encourages even people who may not be real victims or may want to be considered heroes” to go to the police.
A host of senior Jewish leaders then took aim at Rabbi Feldman, with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies calling his views “repugnant” and declaring him to be “unfit to hold any position of authority or leadership in the Jewish community”.
Now Rabbi Feldman has told the ABC’s AM program he believed “everyone has been carried away by the hype without really knowing the facts”.
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