AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
[with video]
June 23, 2013
Richard Baker, Nick McKenzie
A senior Australian rabbi who failed to stop an alleged paedophile from sexually abusing boys at a Sydney Jewish school said some of the victims may have consented to sexual relations and has warned that involving police now would ”open a can of worms”.
Former senior Sydney Rabbi Boruch Dov Lesches made the extraordinary remarks in a recent conversation with a person familiar with a series of alleged child rapes and molestation by a man associated with Sydney’s Yeshiva community in the 1980s.
We are speaking about very young boys.
Rabbi Lesches’ comments are likely to increase public scrutiny of Australia’s senior rabbinical leaders’ handling of child sexual abuse cases, amid allegations of cover-ups, victim intimidation and the hiding of perpetrators overseas.
In a legally recorded telephone conversation heard by Fairfax Media and provided to NSW detectives investigating the Sydney Yeshiva cases, Rabbi Lesches admitted to counselling the alleged abuser upon learning he had sexually abused a boy a decade his junior.
Rabbi Lesches is now one of New York’s leading ultra-Orthodox figures.
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