Sex abuse endemic, enquiry hears

PAEDOPHILES are not only “roaming around our community”, but holding senior positions in Melbourne and Sydney Jewish communities, victim advocate Manny Waks told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into how religious groups handle child sex abuse on Monday.

He also charged peak Jewish representative bodies with mishandling the issue.

A raft of allegations of child sex abuse have rocked the Jewish community over the past three years, the inquiry heard, with Waks alleging that a number of educational and community bodies are engaging in ongoing cover-ups, intimidation and harassment of victims and their ­families.

Founder of Tzedek – an advocacy group aimed at supporting victims of child sex abuse – Waks, who claims he was abused while a student at Yeshivah College in Melbourne around 20 years ago, represented 16 alleged victims at the inquiry.

Waks said one of those alleged victims, who claims to have been abused between 1994 and 2000, was forced to take their family and leave Melbourne, mainly as a result of pressure from at least one rabbi who knew of the allegations. Waks said the perpetrator continues to hold a senior position in the Melbourne Jewish community.

Another 30-year-old member of the “Yeshivah community”, accused of abusing a 13-year-old child around three years ago, has evaded the courts because the victim fears the “repercussions” of reporting the abuse to police, according to Waks.

Waks also alleged that a 36-year-old man within the “Yeshiva community”abused a number of children over the past few years. He said the man has fled the country following a police investigation and currently resides in Israel, where he is receiving psychiatric treatment.

Waks said the man had himself been subjected to sexual abuse by a member of his own family, who is currently an active member of the Sydney Jewish community.

There may also be a link between an alleged incident of child sexual abuse “at Yeshivah” and subsequent suicide”, Waks said.

Additionally, the youngest person ever registered on the Sex Offenders Register in Victoria is a member of the Jewish community, the inquiry heard.

Waks, who is a former vice-president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), singled out the ECAJ for failing to prioritise child sexual abuse.

The body was criticised for trying to “downplay” the scandal and for offering a “scant response” to the issue, in the form of a handful of media releases, a meeting with the Yeshivah Centre and a submission to the Royal Commission regarding the Terms of Reference.

Executive director of ECAJ Peter Wertheim disputed Waks’s statement, claiming the ECAJ’s thorough submission to the Royal Commission “was anything but scant”.

Since 2011, Wertheim said, ECAJ and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria have met with schools and other organisations which have had allegations made against them and emphasised “privately and publicly that communal organisations are obliged to implement proper safeguards against sexual abuse of children under their care and to report allegations of sexual abuse to the relevant police and other authorities immediately and cooperate with their investigations”.

Waks’s father Zephaniah Waks also appeared at the inquiry on Monday, but his evidence was ­suppressed.

TIMNA JACKS

Victim advocate Manny Waks.