Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: The Rabbinical Council of NSW
J-Wire
10 February 2015
Rabbi Yossef Feldman
Following the appearance of Rabbi Yossi Feldman at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, The Rabbinical Council of NSW has issued a statement.The RCNSW views with distress and dismay the increasingly sordid revelations that are emerging from 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.
Had we known of these revelations at that time, the decision to allow Rabbi Yossi Feldman to remain as president until the AGM would have been very different. The views expressed by him at the time, as were revealed by the commission, are diametrically opposed to the position of our Rabbinate and were publicly rejected and condemned by it on many occasions.
It wishes to note that Rabbi Feldman is no longer a member of the RCNSW.
The RCNSW wishes to restate that 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 previously 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.
The executive on behalf of the RCNSW.
Originally published at J-Wire.
Had we known of these revelations at that time, the decision to allow Rabbi Yossi Feldman to remain as president until the AGM would have been very different. The views expressed by him at the time, as were revealed by the commission, are diametrically opposed to the position of our Rabbinate and were publicly rejected and condemned by it on many occasions.
It wishes to note that Rabbi Feldman is no longer a member of the RCNSW.
The RCNSW wishes to restate that 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 previously 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.
The executive on behalf of the RCNSW.
Originally published at J-Wire.