Abuse allegations resurface

THE allegations of child abuse that dogged Melbourne’s Yeshivah College last year, surfaced again last week with the claim that at least six individuals linked with the college have been, or are being, investigated by the police.

The claim was made by alleged victim Manny Waks, following the publication of an article in New York weekly The Jewish Daily Forward.

In the article, Joel Berman, a Los Angeles man who has liaised with the Australian police about suspected Australian child abusers allegedly spirited to the US by communal leaders in this country, made the startling claim that there are more than a dozen “Orthodox individuals” under investigation in Australia.

Waks, who has publicly claimed he was abused by two men at Yeshivah College in the late 1980s, said the problem was widespread.

“I understand from reliable sources that the police have been investigating at least half-a-dozen cases of alleged paedophiles. The ones I am aware of are all linked to Yeshivah,” Waks told The AJN.

“From my perspective, and from the perspective of some of the other victims I’ve been in touch with, we do intend to hold Yeshivah to account. There is no question about that.”

In an email to The AJN, Berman said he was cooperating with Australian police “in regards to a man here [Los Angeles] who, to my understanding, admitted … that he sexually molested six boys in Australia”.

A spokesperson for the Moorabbin Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Unit, which is handling the investigation, told The AJN that they would not comment on particulars, merely saying that the “investigation is ongoing”.

According to Berman, two men suspected of child abuse in Australia are under investigation in the US.

As reported by The AJN in June last year, police are understood to be preparing to extradite convicted child sex offender and former teacher at Yeshivah College David Kramer, who is nearing the end of a seven-year sentence for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy in St Louis, Missouri.

But according to the article published in The Forward, there is another man under investigation for alleged abuses in Melbourne in the late ’80s, who is also linked to the college.

“It’s really distressing to see the number of victims that have been implicated in this case as a direct result of the negligence of the Yeshivah Centre,” Waks said.

Yeshivah principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler said: “While we await the outcome of the police investigation/s, the college expresses its sympathy to those who may have been affected in any way, and we continue to offer counselling and provide support to anyone who feels this would be of benefit to them at this time.”

ADAM KAMIEN

Manny Waks (pictured)