AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News
SOME of the evidence given by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Telsner was not accepted, his “recollection is inaccurate”, his comments were “likely to have the effect of dissuading some members of the Yeshivah Melbourne community from communicating with the secular authorities about child sexual abuse” and he failed to “provide pastoral leadership, support, direction and affirmation for abuse survivors, their families and advocates”.
Those are some of the findings published in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s report that was tabled in Parliament this week.
According to the report, Rabbi Telsner gave two defining sermons in 2011. The rabbi admitted to the Royal Commission that he knew the first sermon, in June, was seen by many as an attack on victim AVB, who asked people to help police investigate child sexual abuse allega-tions, but the rabbi did not make any attempt to correct that perception.
“The timing of the sermon and the understanding that it was directed at AVB was likely to have the effect of dissuading some members of the Yeshivah Melbourne com-munity from communicating with the secular authorities about child sexual abuse,” the report stated.
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