Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on March 10, 2015

A leading child protection expert has criticised a Melbourne orthodox Jewish synagogue for not reporting child sexual abuse allegations to police.

Monash University adjunct professor Chris Goddard said the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation had a responsibility to alert police when it was informed two years ago of credible abuse allegations against two minors, dating back several decades.

"The synagogue should have filed an official report because the police may know of other victims (of this alleged perpetrator)," Professor Goddard said. "It should not have left the responsibility to a third party."

The allegations, never publicly aired, were made in 2011 and 2012 by two separate individuals to a third party, victims advocate Manny Waks. During a meeting in January 2013, Waks relayed the details to St Kilda president Anton Block, St Kilda's Rabbi Yaakov Glasman and then-president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant.

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Mr Waks informed Victoria Police by email but police said they could not investigate unless the alleged victims were willing to report it. Both alleged victims were prominent community members and neither of them, now older men, wanted to file a police report because of possible impacts on themselves and their families.

Because of this, Fairfax Media has chosen not to report any details of the individuals involved, the alleged abuse or the alleged perpetrator.

ProfessorGoddard, from Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia at the Monash Injury Research Institute, said the synagogue should have also told its congregation. "The community that the synagogue serves also has a right to know. There may be other victims who have yet to come forward."

Mr Block told Fairfax Media that he stood by the organisation's response.

"When we were informed about the general nature of the allegations, we were also informed that the allegations had already been reported to the police (although not by the alleged victims)," Mr Block said. "Our investigation did not uncover any further facts, so it seemed pointless to report the same matters again."

More here:

St Kilda Hebrew Congregation: Abuse allegations went back decades

Category: Synagogue
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