Our community’s shame
Over the past few days, Rabbi Yossi Feldman’s testimony at the Royal Commission has shocked and saddened the community, and shamed us in the full glare of the mainstream media spotlight.
As well as suggesting back in 2011 that complaints of abuse should be taken to a rabbi for investigation ahead of the civil authorities, it was also revealed that he had argued against his colleagues issuing a plea for victims to come forward as he feared the impact such a statement may have on his friend, the now-convicted child abuser, David Cyprys.
He also thought the “hype” surrounding abuse would encourage “fake victims” to come forward, called for leniency for abusers who hadn’t offended for a number of years and admitted that in 2002, even though he was director of a school, he was not aware it was illegal to touch a child’s genitals. Yesterday, amid a storm of criticism, Rabbi Feldman apologised to the community and stepped down from his senior positions within Sydney’s Yeshiva Centre.
By then, though, the damage had been done.
However, it could have been avoided. When Rabbi Feldman first put forward heinous views regarding the reporting of child abuse to rabbis rather than the police, The AJN broke the story and called for his resignation as president of the Rabbinical Council of NSW (RCNSW).
While many of our communal leaders privately congratulated The AJN, few went on the record to openly condemn him and support our call. Amid the furore that followed, Rabbi Feldman briefly stepped aside as RCNSW president, but then resumed the role.
The fact the RCNSW allowed him to return as president speaks for itself.
In 2013, The AJN carried a front-page headline which read: “Enough cover-ups, excuses, denials and finger pointing. No more.”
In the accompanying article, we wrote, “It is time all those involved and all those with any knowledge of what happened 10, 20 or 30 years ago come forward and tell the truth. “It’s time for our spiritual leadership to take a lead. Instead of merely reacting to the latest revelation, they need to come clean … If our rabbinate is to earn our respect, if our rabbinate is to regain our faith, if it is to be more than simply fodder fuelling tabloid tittle-tattle, if our rabbinate is to move forwards, our rabbis must own up to their past.”
Instead of embracing the spirit of the article, the rabbinate reacted with fury, clutching onto one simple phrase in which we said that, given what had emerged with regard to child abuse and cover-ups, the institution was “an apple that’s rotten to the core”.
It was a harsh description but as we subsequently tried to explain, we knew there were a lot of good rabbis out there; however, the institution as a whole was being tainted.
Suffice to say, they were not appeased and continued to lambast us for the disrespect we had shown.
How things have changed.
This week on Facebook, two senior rabbis have publicly lamented the silence and inaction of their colleagues.
Others have contacted us in private to express their dismay at the way the rabbinate is being shamed by the evidence emerging from the Royal Commission; one even said Rabbi Feldman “has made us all look rotten to the core”.
In the wake of his evidence, many communal leaders and organisations, including the RCNSW, have now spoken out, expressing their revulsion and abhorrence at his statements to the Commission.
While it’s gratifying that they’ve now come to this realisation, given what they knew at the time – which in the case of some was more than we at The AJN knew – if they had been a little more vocal and forthright a few years ago, we could have been spared the embarrassment of the past few days.
As the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, said on Tuesday, “The concerns raised by The AJN were warranted and justified.”
However, it should not have had to take a Royal Commission for the community’s leadership – our roof bodies and rabbis – to express how appalled they were. Much of what is coming out at the Commission has been known for years. The writing was on the wall – and on the cover of The AJN.
Let us be clear, this is not about saying “we told you so”, nor is it a witch hunt against an individual rabbi who is clearly naive and out of touch. This is about our responsibility, as a community, to the victims and their families – the fact that they were ignored at the time of their abuse, and ignored, disparaged and shunned when they finally had the courage to come forward.
Simply issuing glib statements encouraging people to go to the police was not enough. The cancerous attitudes within our community needed to be stamped out years ago.
Like the victims, our leaders should also have had the courage to take a public stand much sooner.
We can only hope the lessons have now been learnt so as a community we can move forward without these terrible crimes and despicable errors of judgment being committed again.
For full coverage of the Royal Commission, see this week’s AJN. Follow our liveupdates from the Commission at www.facebook/australianjewishnews
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