Jewish law stopped Vic sex abuse reports

AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The father of three boys sexually abused at a Jewish school was so fearful of being shunned by his community for breaching an ancient principle that he didn’t report the crime to police.

Zephaniah Waks insists breaking a code of silence by telling non-Jewish authorities about abuse by a Jewish man without permission from senior Rabbis was a taboo on a par with incest.

One witness, known as AVC, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse that rabbis preached hellfire and damnation for people who breached the mesirah.

Mr Waks, a father of 17, says he feared being shunned and intimidated.

‘It was taboo, like, incest or anything like that. It was that big a taboo,’ he told the commission on Tuesday.

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