CANADA/AUSTRALIA
Canadian Jewish News
Paul Lungen, Staff Reporter, Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Manny Waks comes from an Australian Chabad family that had to leave Chabad after Waks went public in 2011 with revelations of sexual abuse at Chabad’s Yeshivah College in Melbourne. Waks, who has served as vice-president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, also testified at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which included a close look at Yeshivah College. He was in Toronto last week to present Code of Silence, the film about his ordeal which aired at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. He spoke to The CJN’s Paul Lungen.
Tell us about Code of Silence.
Code of Silence is an award winning documentary commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Company and undertaken by Danny Ben-Moshe. It won Australia’s most prestigious award, the Walkley Award, in December last year.
I’m the main subject, as the victim of child sexual abuse in the Jewish community. I’m often described as a whistleblower focused not only the abuse itself and the subsequent cover up, but it also follows the ongoing intimidation that myself and my family experienced, particularly my parents. It follows their story as well, ultimately culminating in them having to leave Australia.
Where are they now?
They’re in Israel. They still spend half the time in Australia. My mom still owns a wig shop, and they still own the house, which is not an easy thing to sell, because it’s right across the road from the Yeshivah centre. It has 13 bedrooms—I’m one of 17 children, that’s why the 13 bedrooms – with six kosher kitchens. They typical clientele for such a house would be from the ultra-Orthodox community, where the relations between them and my parents, at the Yeshivah centre, has been problematic to say the least.
Tell us about the abuse you suffered.
I was 11-years-old. There were two pedophiles in my case. The first is [prominent in the Chabad community]. He abused me for the first time ever on Shavuot night, when it’s customary within the Orthodox community to remain awake all night to study the Torah. He abused me inside the Chabad Yeshivah Centre synagogue. Subsequently he abused me several more times in another synagogue where my family and I used to go every week. That lasted about six months. Subsequently, from the age of around 12 to the age of around 14 and a half, I was sexually abused repeatedly by David Cyprys, who’s currently sitting in jail for the crimes committed against me and many other boys at the Yeshivah Centre.
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.