Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: community reaction
J-Wire
6 February 2015
Lay and religious leadership have reacted strongly to the hearings in Melbourne this week at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on matters pertaining to the Yeshiva in Sydney and the Yeshivah in Melbourne.
From The Executive Council of Australian Jewry:
President Robert Goot and executive director Peter Wertheim said: “This week’s Royal Commission hearings into child sexual abuse at Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Sydney have highlighted harrowing stories of suffering by the survivors. They suffered profound trauma as children, which has continued to blight their lives decades later. The behaviour of the perpetrators constituted serious crimes under Australian law, for which they are being justly punished, and a grave sin in Judaism.
The hearings have also brought to light the failures of the religious leaders of both schools to whom the abuse was reported. They failed to take the reports seriously and to act on them appropriately. In some cases they encouraged retaliatory action in the form of ostracism against those who went to the authorities. This behaviour too was a serious form of wrongdoing in Judaism, which obligates Jews to obey the law of the land in which they live. The concept of mesirah, can have no legitimate application to criminal behaviour in contemporary Australia and other countries governed by the rule of law, in which religious and other freedoms are protected.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry repeats its earlier public statements calling for all reports of child abuse to be notified to the police and other authorities without delay, and condemning any attempts at a cover-up.
Although the ultra-Orthodox communities in Sydney and Melbourne constitute only a small fraction of the Jewish community, it is shameful that any Jewish institution should have been associated with child abuse and attempts to cover it up. Policies and practices appear to have changed at both Yeshiva schools to prevent these failures from recurring, but the situation requires constant monitoring.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry publicly welcomed the establishment of the Royal Commission and has worked closely with it. We will continue to offer it every co-operation.
From the Rabbinical Council of NSW:
We the President and Executive of RCNSW view with distress and dismay the unfolding events at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Melbourne and Sydney. Our hearts are heavy and filled with anguish at the suffering endured by the victims. We empathise with their pain and the pain of those close to them.
It is vital for us as Rabbis to reiterate that child sexual abuse is a criminal act and therefore the first recourse for victims and their families is the police. This is not stated as a populist position but as an halachic imperative as stated in the preciously published Ruling of the Sydney Beth Din.
It is highly regrettable that some individual rabbis have been guilty in the past of (a) misjudging the seriousness of allegations of victims and (b) ignorance of proper procedures to be followed in the event of such allegations being made.
Every single instance of abuse in our community is one too many and must stimulate a genuine and sincere cheshbon ha-nefesh (soul-searching) on the part of us all as “all Jews are responsible for one another” (Talmud Shevuot 39a).
May the Al-mighty give strength to the victims and their families. May these abhorrent and intolerable acts against innocent children and other vulnerable members of our society be eradicated. May we all strive for ever-higher standards of morality and ethics in our own communities and in society as a whole. And may our leaders be infused with the wisdom to learn from past mistakes and never fail victims of abuse ever again.
Originally published at J-Wire.
From The Executive Council of Australian Jewry:
President Robert Goot and executive director Peter Wertheim said: “This week’s Royal Commission hearings into child sexual abuse at Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Sydney have highlighted harrowing stories of suffering by the survivors. They suffered profound trauma as children, which has continued to blight their lives decades later. The behaviour of the perpetrators constituted serious crimes under Australian law, for which they are being justly punished, and a grave sin in Judaism.
The hearings have also brought to light the failures of the religious leaders of both schools to whom the abuse was reported. They failed to take the reports seriously and to act on them appropriately. In some cases they encouraged retaliatory action in the form of ostracism against those who went to the authorities. This behaviour too was a serious form of wrongdoing in Judaism, which obligates Jews to obey the law of the land in which they live. The concept of mesirah, can have no legitimate application to criminal behaviour in contemporary Australia and other countries governed by the rule of law, in which religious and other freedoms are protected.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry repeats its earlier public statements calling for all reports of child abuse to be notified to the police and other authorities without delay, and condemning any attempts at a cover-up.
Although the ultra-Orthodox communities in Sydney and Melbourne constitute only a small fraction of the Jewish community, it is shameful that any Jewish institution should have been associated with child abuse and attempts to cover it up. Policies and practices appear to have changed at both Yeshiva schools to prevent these failures from recurring, but the situation requires constant monitoring.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry publicly welcomed the establishment of the Royal Commission and has worked closely with it. We will continue to offer it every co-operation.
From the Rabbinical Council of NSW:
We the President and Executive of RCNSW view with distress and dismay the unfolding events at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Melbourne and Sydney. Our hearts are heavy and filled with anguish at the suffering endured by the victims. We empathise with their pain and the pain of those close to them.
It is vital for us as Rabbis to reiterate that child sexual abuse is a criminal act and therefore the first recourse for victims and their families is the police. This is not stated as a populist position but as an halachic imperative as stated in the preciously published Ruling of the Sydney Beth Din.
It is highly regrettable that some individual rabbis have been guilty in the past of (a) misjudging the seriousness of allegations of victims and (b) ignorance of proper procedures to be followed in the event of such allegations being made.
Every single instance of abuse in our community is one too many and must stimulate a genuine and sincere cheshbon ha-nefesh (soul-searching) on the part of us all as “all Jews are responsible for one another” (Talmud Shevuot 39a).
May the Al-mighty give strength to the victims and their families. May these abhorrent and intolerable acts against innocent children and other vulnerable members of our society be eradicated. May we all strive for ever-higher standards of morality and ethics in our own communities and in society as a whole. And may our leaders be infused with the wisdom to learn from past mistakes and never fail victims of abuse ever again.
Originally published at J-Wire.
