Prominent Chabad Community Member, Under police Investigation For Alleged Child Sex Abuse, Tells Community
It's Okay To Kill Fellow Jews Who Cooperate With Police
This reads more like Islamic Law than anything else. This is what happens in legalistic societies where laws are interpreted for the benefit of the interpreter.
Yeshivah College (Chabad) Melbourne Australia, "It is practical halocho [Jewish law] that a mosser [informer] may be killed, here and now in 21st century Australia, by anyone who is able to get away with it."
"Chabad" a Hebrew acronym for "Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge". Organizationally, it is the largest Jewish religious organization in the world. It's too bad that 'truth and compassion' are not part of the Chabad mantra.
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| St Kilda's Yeshivah centre |
The man, who Fairfax Media has chosen to not to name, made his comments on an internet blog allegedly associated with prominent figures from Melbourne's Orthodox Jewish community.
Fairfax Media has confirmed the man, who is a member of one of the St Kilda Yeshivah centre's leading families and is presently overseas, is wanted for questioning by police in connection to an alleged sexual assault in the 1990s.
The man's extreme views were posted in 2011 and were made as part of a discussion on an ancient Jewish rule known as Mesirah, under which a Jew is forbidden from informing on a fellow Jew.
The case highlights the tension in some parts of the Jewish community, in which some people hold conflicting views about the appropriateness of reporting another Jewish person to authorities.
In some cases, those who do assist police can be ostracised and given the derogatory label of "moser", which means an informer.
The issue is likely to be examined by the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse next week, with public hearings in Melbourne to examine how Orthodox Jewish communities handled reported cases of abuse.
"Some dangerous nonsense has been posted in comments, and it appears that at least one commenter imagines that mesiroh is some sort of peccadillo that can be winked at," the man posted in 2011.
"It is practical halocho [Jewish law] that a mosser may be killed, here and now in 21st century Australia, by anyone who is able to get away with it."
Fairfax Media earlier this week revealed tape recording and emails demonstrating the pressure placed on some Jewish sex abuse victims not to assist police.
Outspoken Melbourne victims' rights campaigner Manny Waks said on Thursday that the Royal Commission hearings would expose the extent of intimidation of several victims. He also hoped they would be a catalyst for a change in attitudes within the Orthodox Jewish community.
"It's critical that the public and the Jewish community are fully informed of the victim intimidation that has gone on in recent years. Sadly it seems to be the norm within the Orthodox segment of our community, both in Australia and globally. I believe that a combination of pressure from both external and internal forces will be the catalyst for change," Mr Waks said.
"The reality is, there are many other victims out there, and no doubt some of them have been intimidated into silence by virtue of what they have observed is happening within our community. Rabbis and other leaders are sending mixed messages. In some cases it is due to ignorance and in others it's to protect Jewish institutions and the reputation of our community."
Since 2010, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria has repeatedly and publicly encouraged members of the Jewish community to report sex offences to police and has ruled that such actions will not breach Jewish law.
However, in 2008, the council chose to conduct an in-house inquiry into alleged inappropriate touching and financial transgressions committed by a prominent member of Melbourne's Orthodox community.
Despite having up to 20 people come forward with allegations against the man, as reported by the Australian Jewish News newspaper in 2008, the council stated at the time that police would be contacted only if its inquiry determined crimes had been committed.
Honorary Victoria Police chaplain and head of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant led the Victorian rabbinical council at the time of the 2008 inquiry.
Rabbi Kluwgant said this week that "there were rumours circulating within our community with regard to inappropriate behaviour by a trusted official in our community".
Rabbi Kluwgant said the extent of the rumoured inappropriate behaviour was not known and, as such, the inquiry was set up and people were encouraged to make confidential disclosures.
Asked why the council did not immediately alert police to the alleged inappropriate behaviour, Rabbi Kluwgant said he personally advised police of information brought to the council at the conclusion of its inquiry.
Secret Recording, Emails Show Victim Of Sex Abuse At Chabad Threatened, Intentionally Smeared, Over Cooperation With Police
Fairfax Media has also obtained a series of emails which show how three influential members of [Chabad's] St Kilda's Yeshivah community asserted that the victim's assistance to police in the Cyprys case had "crossed red lines" and had the "potential to undermine the [Yeshivah] centre." They warned that if the victim continued "to stick his nose where it doesn't belong", a new article about the victim would be posted on an "anonymous blog."
"I am not exactly delighted that another Yid [Jew] would assist police against an accused no matter whatever he is accused of and that is the reason why I was very disappointed," Mr Lewenberg, who was defending Cyprys at the time of the conversation, told the victim.
"Because there is a tradition, if not a religious requirement that you do not assist against Abraham and I was concerned about that…moser principle. Moser is well known."
Abraham must be horrified that his name is being used to enable pedophiles to go unreported and to continue with their perversion.
Mr Lewenberg was referring to the Jewish tradition of mesirah under which a Jew does not inform secular authorities about another Jew. Members of ultra-orthodox communities who assist police are often ostracised and given the derogatory label of "moser" or informer.
They warned that if the victim continued "to stick his nose where it doesn't belong", a new article about the victim would be posted on an "anonymous blog".
In comments posted online in 2013, the same victim was described by Yeshivah members as a "sick man" and a "coward" who should be "thrown out" of the community.
The victim's employer was also contacted by prominent members of Melbourne's Orthodox Jewish community and told about the assistance he had given to police.
Two men previously employed by the St Kilda Yeshivah school, security guard Cyprus and teacher David Kramer, are serving custodial sentences after last year being found guilty of serious child sex offences dating back to the early 1990s.
In Kramer's case, the school offered to pay for him to go to Israel after it received complaints about him from parents. He then went to the United States, where he raped a 12-year-old boy and served a lengthy jail sentence.
A third man, Aron Kestecher, was last year to face court on child sex abuse charges allegedly committed at St Kilda's Yeshivah centre in the 2000s. But he took his own life before he went to trial.
Leading figures associated with the St Kilda Yeshivah are expected to face allegations in the royal commission hearings that they failed to report suspected abusers to police and sought to cover up crimes.
In Cyprys' committal in 2012, Victorian magistrate Luisa Bazzani said it was "unfathomable" that the former principal of the Yeshivah College in St Kilda, Rabbi Abraham Glick, did not know of the sexual abuse that was occurring there during the 1980s.
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