The President of the Jewish Federation of Sao Paulo, Mr Luiz Kignel, has responded to my blog post from 28 March 2018 titled Brazil Jewish community - appalling response by the Sao Paulo leadership to violence relating to allegations of child sexual abuse, cover-ups and intimidation (my brief email response to him is below his letter):
Mr Luiz Kignel My email response (dated 29 April 2018):
Dear Mr Kignel,
I confirm receipt of your letter, which you have also circulated widely.
Briefly, in response, you assert that what I wrote on 28 March 2018 in a blogpost is a lie. You make no genuine attempt to refute the allegations. Repeatedly stating that something is a lie, does not make it one. I’d encourage you to outline what you believe are the lies, and I’ll happily publicly publish your version of events.
I should note that you were personally invited to meet with me during my recent visit to Sao Paulo. You received a WhatsApp message on 27 February 2018. Indeed, I met many of your colleagues when I was there. So, we did reach out to you, and you seem to have chosen to deliberately ignore this invitation.
Let me assure you that I fully stand behind what I have written. At the same time, I’m willing to engage with you and your colleagues in good faith to try to rectify the situation. While I do not have any additional trip planned for Sao Paulo, if you’d like me to consider such a trip to try to resolve this matter (as per your invitation), I’d be willing to discuss with you the possibility of another such visit.
At this stage, I’m not in a position to share additional details, as there are a number of factors preventing me from doing so. I will, however, do so in due course.
In the meantime, I wish you all the best, especially in appropriately addressing the issue of child sexual abuse in your local Jewish community. And of course I'm happy to assist where I can.
Regards,
Manny Waks
Chief Executive Officer
Kol v'Oz
Dear Mr Kignel,
I confirm receipt of your letter, which you have also circulated widely.
Briefly, in response, you assert that what I wrote on 28 March 2018 in a blogpost is a lie. You make no genuine attempt to refute the allegations. Repeatedly stating that something is a lie, does not make it one. I’d encourage you to outline what you believe are the lies, and I’ll happily publicly publish your version of events.
I should note that you were personally invited to meet with me during my recent visit to Sao Paulo. You received a WhatsApp message on 27 February 2018. Indeed, I met many of your colleagues when I was there. So, we did reach out to you, and you seem to have chosen to deliberately ignore this invitation.
Let me assure you that I fully stand behind what I have written. At the same time, I’m willing to engage with you and your colleagues in good faith to try to rectify the situation. While I do not have any additional trip planned for Sao Paulo, if you’d like me to consider such a trip to try to resolve this matter (as per your invitation), I’d be willing to discuss with you the possibility of another such visit.
At this stage, I’m not in a position to share additional details, as there are a number of factors preventing me from doing so. I will, however, do so in due course.
In the meantime, I wish you all the best, especially in appropriately addressing the issue of child sexual abuse in your local Jewish community. And of course I'm happy to assist where I can.
Regards,
Manny Waks
Chief Executive Officer
Kol v'Oz
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