Victorian Gov­ern­ment Inquiry into Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Gov­ern­ment Organ­isa­tions (‘the Inquiry’)

Our organ­isa­tion (‘the ECAJ’) is the national peak body of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community. Our con­stitu­ent organ­isa­tions are the roof bodies of the Jewish community in each State and the ACT. Other Jewish organ­isa­tions which operate nation­ally are our Affil­i­ates.

Ordin­ar­ily, as a national body, we would leave it to our State con­stitu­ent organ­isa­tions to deal with their respect­ive State gov­ern­ments on any matters of concern to the community they represent. In this respect, I note that a detailed sub­mis­sion was made to the Inquiry by our Victorian con­stitu­ent organ­isa­tion, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, on 21 September 2012, which is access­ible HERE.

The reason for this sub­mis­sion is to respond to certain state­ments about the ECAJ, which were part of a more general statement made to the Inquiry by Manny Waks on 10 December 2012.

Mr Waks’ alleg­a­tions both of child sex abuse and the covering up by various insti­tu­tions of that conduct must of course be treated seriously, and we would repeat our numerous public state­ments urging those making the alleg­a­tions to provide full par­tic­u­lars to the police and other author­it­ies and to render them every assist­ance in their invest­ig­a­tions and in any resulting pro­sec­u­tions.

We appre­ci­ate that it is often very difficult for victims of child sexual abuse to come forward to the author­it­ies, and even to close family and friends, to report what has happened to them. Victims often ‘block out’ the hor­rendous abuse they have suffered and go to great lengths to avoid having to ‘relive’ that suffering by telling their stories to others. They may fear that they will not be believed.

The prospect of having to recount their exper­i­ences in the stressful envir­on­ment of a courtroom in the context of a criminal trial in which they are to be ques­tioned and cross-examined must be espe­cially daunting for victims. If the abuse has occurred within a school or other organ­isa­tion that has had a culture or practices that dis­cour­age victims from coming forward, or which appear to side with alleged per­pet­rat­ors, this puts redress even further beyond the reach of victims.

Those victims who have come forward, including Mr Waks, are therefore to be commended for their courage, and for raising public awareness of the issue and encour­aging other victims to come forward.

Because of the obstacles – insti­tu­tion­al and otherwise – which victims face in making com­plaints, instances of abuse may not be reported for many years, if ever. It is therefore fair to infer that the incidence of child sex abuse in religious or non-gov­ern­ment organ­iz­a­tions across Australia, is almost certainly far greater than the number of reported cases would suggest.
Nev­er­the­less, caution needs to be exercised in drawing gen­er­al­ized con­clu­sions about entire com­munit­ies from alleg­a­tions that concern specific indi­vidu­als and specific organ­isa­tions, and espe­cially from those alleg­a­tions that are yet to be proven, or even invest­ig­ated.

In his statement to the Inquiry, Mr Waks has described alleg­a­tions of abuse that he says have been com­mu­nic­ated to him by others, and he has char­ac­ter­ised the alleged abuse as occurring in “the Yeshiva community”, “the ultra-Orthodox community”, ”the Melbourne Jewish community”, and “the Sydney and Perth Jewish com­munit­ies”.

These com­munit­ies vary greatly from one another in numbers, cultural ethos and diversity, and it is a serious mis­rep­res­ent­a­tion to suggest that the Jewish community is a unitary organ­isa­tion, let alone a hierarchy. Even within smaller sections of the community, such as Yeshiva, there are different organ­isa­tions with different functions, object­ives and practices. The ECAJ, while a roof body, exercises no control over other organ­isa­tions, or over members of the community. Its role is coordin­a­tion by consensus and it usually arrives at positions as a result of input from its con­stitu­ent and affiliate organ­isa­tions. It is on this basis that the ECAJ offers the community lead­er­ship and advice which is generally followed.

If indi­vidu­als who are Jewish, are ulti­mately convicted of child sex abuse crimes and the organ­isa­tions within which the crimes were committed are found to have engaged in an attempted cover-up, this may justify con­clu­sions about an “endemic” problem of child sex abuse and a culture of sup­pres­sion existing within those organ­isa­tions, but it would be a gross injustice to apply such con­clu­sions col­lect­ively to all members of the local com­munit­ies within which those organ­isa­tions operate, let alone to the Jewish community as a whole.

It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that the ECAJ has taken exception to attempts by sections of the media, and others, to use what is undoubtedly an extremely serious problem, as an oppor­tun­ity to make scan­dal­ous gen­er­al­isa­tions that unfairly taint the whole Jewish community. We do not we wish to downplay in any way, the incidence of child sex abuse or of any culture of cover up that may have existed, or that may continue to exist, in any Jewish community organ­isa­tion. Equally, we will not remain silent in the face of ill-conceived attempts to attribute col­lect­ive guilt to the whole Jewish community for any indi­vidu­al or organ­iz­a­tion­al wrong-doing.

We note that the terms of Reference of the Inquiry are limited to an invest­ig­a­tion into “the processes by which religious and other non-gov­ern­ment organ­isa­tions respond to the criminal abuse of children by personnel within their organ­isa­tions,” (emphasis added). No alleg­a­tions have been made of criminal abuse of children “by personnel within” the ECAJ. It follows that Mr Waks’ state­ments to the Inquiry con­cern­ing the ECAJ, in addition to being scan­dal­ous, are outside the Terms of Reference, and for both of those reasons should be dis­reg­arded by the Inquiry.

We nev­er­the­less take this oppor­tun­ity to outline to the Inquiry some of the measures taken by the ECAJ and its con­stitu­ents to increase vigilance and raise awareness of the risks and symptoms of abuse and avenues of victim coun­sel­ing within our community, and to emphasise to schools and other organ­isa­tions under (and beyond) our umbrella that they 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 co-operate with their invest­ig­a­tions:

• Although the ECAJ does not exercise any control over Jewish private schools, we took the oppor­tun­ity in 2005 to work with Jewish schools through­out Australia to produce Gov­ernance Guidelines for Jewish Schools, for adapt­a­tion by schools in each State. A copy of the Guidelines operating in NSW is attached. We refer you in par­tic­u­lar to para­graphs 20 – 25 dealing with a school’s oblig­a­tions to provide students with a safe, sup­port­ive and secure envir­on­ment, and to be able to produce evidence of com­pli­ance.
• With regard to Victoria, we refer you to the measures taken by the Jewish Community Council of Victoria from 2009 onwards, as outlined in their sub­mis­sion to the Inquiry.
• When alleg­a­tions of child abuse within Yeshiva College in Melbourne in the 1980’s and 1990’s first became public in July 2011, concerns were raised that possible victims, witnesses and people in authority might not come forward and co-operate fully with the police due to misplaced loyalties or as a result of an incorrect under­stand­ing of their religious duties in such cir­cum­stances. The ECAJ imme­di­ately drafted and issued a joint statement together with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the Organ­isa­tion of Rabbis of Australia and the Rab­bin­ic­al Council of Victoria to get the message out to all members of our community that it is oblig­at­ory to report cases of sexual abuse to the relevant author­it­ies and to provide the police with all relevant inform­a­tion and do everything to assist the police with their enquiries.
• The ECAJ also took the view that we should seek a meeting with any organ­isa­tion in relation to which the police or other author­it­ies decide to conduct invest­ig­a­tions, to the extent that we became aware of any such invest­ig­a­tion. We imme­di­ately sought a meeting with the Board of Yeshiva Melbourne which ulti­mately occurred in November 2012. We note that Yeshiva Melbourne does not come under the umbrella of the ECAJ or its relevant con­stitu­ent the Jewish Community Council of Victoria.
• At the ECAJ’s Annual General Meeting in November 2011, there was an extensive dis­cus­sion of alleg­a­tions of child sex abuse and cover-ups in which both Mr Waks and Mr Ari Heber from Queens­land Jewish Community Services made sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions. This was an important step in raising awareness of the issues among the communal lead­er­ship nation­ally and in each State.
• During 2012, as alleg­a­tions con­cern­ing two other organ­isa­tions in the Jewish community came to our notice, we imme­di­ately discussed the alleg­a­tions with the leaders of those organ­isa­tions in order to reconfirm our previous message urging that the police be given all inform­a­tion relating to the alleg­a­tions and full co-operation. We were repeatedly assured in each case that that was already occurring and would continue.
• When, in November this year, the Federal gov­ern­ment announced the Royal Com­mis­sion to invest­ig­ate insti­tu­tion­al responses to alleg­a­tions of child sexual abuse the ECAJ imme­di­ately welcomed and supported the proposal and issued a public statement that “The sexual, physical and psy­cho­lo­gic­al abuse of children is a pervasive problem in Aus­trali­an society, and probably all societies. It is certainly not limited to any one insti­tu­tion or segment of society…We are now calling on anybody with knowledge of instances of alleged child sexual abuse in any insti­tu­tion to co-operate fully with the Royal Com­mis­sion, and for the families, friends and advisers of alleged victims to give them every support”. We do not see how any fair minded observer would interpret this statement as an attempt to play down the problem.
• Following our meeting with the board of Yeshiva in Melbourne, the ECAJ issued a detailed statement to the wider community reporting on our meeting. We were given an exhaust­ive explan­a­tion of the policies and practices that have been developed by Yeshiva College to avoid abuse and to ensure that alleg­a­tions of abuse are dealt with promptly and reported to the relevant law enforce­ment and welfare author­it­ies. Among other ini­ti­at­ives, the College says that it has under­taken regular training sessions and workshops with students, staff and the parent body in close con­sulta­tion with South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Abuse, Gatehouse Centre of the Royal Chil­dren’s Hospital (Depart­ment of Human Services / Child Pro­tec­tion), Jerusalem Crisis Centre (Director, Debbie Gross) and Jewish Task Force Against Family Violence.
• We gave the board every encour­age­ment to build on these ini­ti­at­ives and were par­tic­u­larly impressed by the serious and know­ledge­able approach adopted by the College’s new principal, Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler.
• In our statement we concluded that once the publicly known alleg­a­tions of sexual abuse and cover-ups have been dealt with by the courts and the Royal Com­mis­sion, “…we will have a better idea of the extent of the problem in the community. In the meantime there does not appear to be any basis for con­clud­ing that these problems are endemic through­out the Jewish community, although it is possible that other organ­isa­tions might yet come under scrutiny”. That remains the ECAJ’s view.
• The ECAJ prepared a detailed sub­mis­sion to the Royal Com­mis­sion and a draft was cir­cu­lated to our Coun­cil­lors for comment in advance of our Annual General Meeting on November 25. In preparing the draft we sought and received guidance from a pro­fes­sion­al person with expertise and many years of exper­i­ence in dealing with child sex abuse cases. We received an extension of time to lodge the sub­mis­sion and these matters were reported at our Annual General Meeting. The sub­mis­sion itself was lodged four days later and a copy was provided to all Jewish community media outlets and placed on our website.

The foregoing is by no means an exhaust­ive account of steps the ECAJ has taken. There is always more that can be done even by an organ­isa­tion like ours with limited authority and resources. We remain open to specific, con­struct­ive sug­ges­tions.
We wish the Inquiry well in its task. If there is any assist­ance or co-operation required from the ECAJ, it will be readily forth­com­ing.

Yours sincerely
Dr Danny Lamm, President
Peter Wertheim AM, Executive Director