AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks
3/3/2017
I’m delighted to share publicly the important letter I received today from the Australian Jewish community’s peak body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), an organisation in which I was honoured to serve as a vice president some years ago.
To me personally, and often to victims/survivors more broadly, justice and accountability is particularly important, especially in the context of the child sexual abuse scandal that has engulfed the Australian Jewish community over the last few years. To me (and to many others), the ECAJ, along with many other communal institutions, failed us. Which is why I have continued to raise the issue of justice and accountability. While many may have forgotten the extent of what transpired over many years, many of us have not. We can not. We live with different aspects of it daily. And as the target of much of the vitriol and worse over many years – for merely pursuing justice for myself and others, and to ensure our children are safe – I’ve continued to live with all of this until this day.
Which is why this powerful letter from the ECAJ is so important – to me, to my fellow victims/survivors, and indeed to many in the broader community. No doubt it will contribute to the ongoing healing process for many.
From a personal perspective, it is another important milestone in my journey. This letter effectively resolves all the outstanding personal issues I have with all Jewish Australian institutions (notwithstanding my civil case against Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre, as well as the Jewish Taskforce Against Family Violence’s recent decision to shut their doors seemingly instead of accepting responsibility and apologising for their failures). It is also further vindication of my work to date. I hope and expect that this outcome, which is what I’ve been striving to achieve over the past few years, will lift further weight off my shoulders.
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