AUSTRALIA
SBS
Source: AAP
13 FEB 2015
Rabbis fear some of their colleagues with “fringe” views on pedophiles have damaged the standing of Australia’s Jewish leadership.
A royal commission has wrapped up in Melbourne after two weeks of examining the response of Jewish schools and centres, in Sydney and Melbourne, to a string of child sexual abuse cases going back to 1980.
Under questioning, some rabbis have put forward controversial views, including that ageing pedophiles who have not offended in decades deserve leniency, or that they could be “cured” and still maintain regular contact with children.
One rabbi told the commission that about the time he received a child abuse report in 2002, he “did not know that as a fact” it was against the law for an adult to touch a child’s genitals.
Rabbi Yaakov Glasman, a former president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, called such opinions “fringe”.
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