AUSTRALIA
The Australian
FEBRUARY 04, 2015
Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne
REVELATIONS of child-sex abuse within Australia’s orthodox Chabad Jewish community have provoked retaliatory attacks akin to the Salem witch trials, with prominent rabbis accused of preaching “hellfire and damnation” for people who co-operate with secular authorities.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday heard moving evidence from the wife of a man who was abused by convicted pedophiles David Cyprys and Daniel Hayman about the consequences of his decision to report the abuse to police.
The woman, known by the pseudonym AVC, wept as she described how her family now felt hated and isolated, and had lost faith in the community leadership.
“Our community has become a reincarnation of Salem, Massachusetts, of 1692 and the devil is everywhere,” she said.
“Rabbis preach against mesirah (informing on a Jew to non-Jewish authorities), preaching hellfire and damnation for those who have let the secular world in.
“The community’s response to their awakening to the child sexual abuse riddling the community is to turn on the victim and make them the subject of suspicion.”
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