AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Wednesday 11 February 2015
A senior orthodox Jewish rabbi who was forced to resign as director of a religious centre over remarks about child sex abuse victims says he has been made a “sacrificial lamb”.
On Wednesday Rabbi Yosef Feldman resigned from his position at the Sydney Yeshivah Centre, which runs schools, youth camps and prayer services, because of the backlash after comments he made to the royal commission into institutional responses into child sex abuse.
Giving evidence, he said perpetrators of child sex abuse should be granted leniency if they had stopped offending and had repented to God; massaging a child inappropriately was not a criminal act; it was not necessary to report to the police an alleged sex offender who was about to leave the country.
He also told the commission that despite holding a senior position within a school, he did not know about mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse.
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