When those who practise religion lose sight of humanity, they tread the wrong path and become less than human themselves. The rules of Halacha become rigid concepts that create distance from imagination, empathy and understanding of human suffering. I am sure within Judaism it was not meant to be that way. Man has dangerously over-intellectualised Halachic interpretations.

Thank you for your response Liat. No, I haven’t read many of your posts regarding sexual abuse of children, and I detest the Herald Sun for its blatant right wing hateful bias. But other papers also reported this story.

But the most important thing here is the safety of children at schools and their suffering from this abuse.

Yet reading some of the comments from those who have illusions that this is some sort of Adass witch-hunt, it shows that they just don’t get it. How would they respond if it happened to their kids, and that’s not a question. It’s about the welfare and wellbeing of our kids and protecting them from life destroying sexual abuse.

But when the Charedim r not happy with the israely courts ruling, they get badly abused for it?

This does not mean I have to respect media such as the Herald Sun, who seek to sensationalise or make worse any story that is already bad. I have nothing but contempt for easy, irresponsible reporting. I fully realise the ‘dirtiness’ of the whole sorry state of affairs. Insofar as the Israeli courts are concerned, I can only imagine that they don’t wish to extradite a Jew from Israel – if that is the reason for the decisions made, then it’s certainly not good enough. Leifer should either face court, with extradition, or be institutionalised if she is deemed insane.

Can anyone here, recall a SINGLE positive article about Adass in the AJN in the last decade? I can’t. They must’ve done SOMETHING right or good in the past 10 years!
But obviously the AJN and it’s series of editors has never noticed.

The fact is that after Leifer was sent off the Adass leadership immediately contacted educational and rabbinical authorities in Israel informing them of the allegations against Leifer. Additionally they followed her wherever she moved to and always contacted the authorities in her new locations with the same warning.

And she NEVER again found a teaching position.

Anyway, my question to those attacking the Israeli judges is, are you insinuating that they took bribes, or that they simply look after child abusers?

If so, shame on you.

MG (who lived near Adass families for over 20 years – and couldn’t wish for nicer and more decent neighbours)

Her case for being unfit to be extradited was that she suffered from anxiety and depression before having to make a court appearance. Well that seems reasonable, considering the prospect of her having to face justice.

In the SBS documentary Abelesz proudly said “We got rid of her. Unlike a lot of the other schools, they knew they had abusers there for twenty and thirty years and did nothing about it. The second we found out about it, we got rid of her. Whatever way we got rid of her, was correct or not so correct, but we got her away from the kids. We didn’t want her in the community trying to abuse any more kids.

Yeah, hopefully she won’t abuse more girls overseas. And as for the victims, they were abused by Leifer, then the school and now by the judiciary in Israel.

No Liat, things are already dirty, very, very dirty, without the Herald Sun story.
Can’t you spare a thought for the suffering the victims have and continue to endure.