CANADA
The Canadian Jewish News
Josh Bornstein, Special to The CJN, Monday, February 23, 2015
In the last several weeks, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse in Australia has examined the response of the ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva Center in Melbourne and its counterpart in Sydney to cases of child sexual abuse. The commission has specifically attempted to investigate how the extensive offending by convicted pedophiles David Kramer, Daniel Hayman and David Cyprys in the 1980s and 1990s were dealt with by the rabbis and leaders of the yeshiva.
The commission has heard testimony from a number of victims of child sexual abuse within the organization. With one exception, all victims have chosen to remain anonymous.
The proceedings underline why Manny Waks, the founder of Tzedek, an Australian-based support and advocacy group for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse, was the first and only victim of child sexual abuse in the Australian Jewish community to go public. Waks displayed enormous courage then and continues to do so now. He and his family have paid a terrible price for seeking to ensure there is accountability for perpetrators and those who have tried to shield them.
The persecution and abuse directed at Waks and his family by some within the yeshiva community continued during the royal commission hearings.
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