AUSTRALIA
The Australian
FEBRUARY 05, 2015
Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne
A PROMINENT ultra-Orthodox rabbi has warned that key Jewish concepts are being misused to prevent reports of child sexual abuse, amid claims that leaders within the Chabad community are still failing to confront cases they have known about for years.
Rabbi Moshe Gutnick yesterday told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that the historical code against mesirah (informing on a Jew to non-Jewish authorities) should never apply to criminal cases, but had been misused by those in power.
He described how a Jewish doctor who discovered injuries on an infant consistent with sexual abuse was threatened with mesirah after reporting it to police and child protection services.
“This was only a few years ago, with an infant,” said Rabbi Gutnick, a former president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia. “It is my belief that the threat of transgressing mesirah is used as a means with which to retain power and control.
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