AUSTRALIA
9 News
A senior rabbi feared his friend would be charged and jailed if a rabbinical organisation encouraged sexual abuse victims to come forward.
Rabbi Yosef Feldman wrote to a senior judge of Jewish court, Sydney Beth Din, in 2011 to object to a statement it was going to release about child sex abuse, fearing it would have implications for his friend, David Cyprys.
Cyprys was convicted and jailed for eight years in 2013 for abusing nine boys at Yeshivah Melbourne.
Rabbi Feldman told a royal commission on Friday he didn’t know when he wrote to the Beth Din whether allegations against Cyprys were true or not.
The commission is holding public hearings in Melbourne into the response of Jewish community leaders at Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi to reports of child sex abuse.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.