AUSTRALIA
7 News
By Jessica Longbottom and Norman Hermant
February 4, 2015
For Manny Waks it has been a long road to the royal commission investigating institutional responses to child sex abuse.
The only survivor of abuse within Melbourne’s Jewish community to speak publicly, he has become a name synonymous with the fight against sexual abuse in the Jewish community worldwide.
However it has come with a cost.
Mr Waks has felt so ostracised by the ultra-orthodox Chabad Jewish community that he moved his family to France to start a new life.
Only days ago he returned to Australia to give evidence at the royal commission, as it hears for the first time allegations of abuse in Jewish institutions.
“You know on the plane ride on the way here I had to pinch myself to say, ‘Wow, I’m actually coming to Australia because the royal commission is happening’,” he said.
“I’ve literally been working towards this goal, even subconsciously, for decades.”
Mr Waks, 39, was sexually abused by security guard David Cyprus at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne in the 1990s.
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