The testimony of a senior orthodox Jewish rabbi condemning the response of orthodox Yeshivah centres to child sexual abuse has sent shockwaves through the community, victims say.



On Wednesday Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, a senior judge of the Sydney Beth Din rabbinical court, told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse a “culture of cover-up, often couched in religious terms” had pervaded the thinking of the centres in Sydney and Melbourne.

Manny Waks, who was abused by community member at the Melbourne Yeshivah Centre and synagogue, told Guardian Australia he was left “speechless” by Gutnick’s statement to the commission that a senior religious figure, Rabbi Boruch Lesches, knew about abuse but did not report it.

Gutnick told the commission: “I’m prepared to say that Rabbi Lesches lied when he said that he didn’t know about the abuse by convicted child abuser Daniel ‘Gug’ Hayman.”

Waks said Gutnick’s testimony was “empowering and profound” and had deeply affected victims.

“I don’t think people quite understand the impact of Gutnick’s statement within the orthodox Jewish community, and even the broader Jewish community,” Waks said.

“To see a senior leader condemn Lesches has had an incredible impact. I was genuinely speechless. We’ve been living for decades with the impact of our abuse and not one senior leader from Yeshivah has engaged with us, and here we had Gutnick getting up and saying the truth.”

On Wednesday the commission heard from a victim identified as AVB who said that Lesches told him “the proper, clever thing to do” about the abuse he and others had suffered “would be to let it go”. Lesches told him that if he spoke up about the Yeshiva Centre Sydney and Melbourne staff who had abused him, he would ruin their lives.

Lesches is now a senior ultra-Orthodox leader in New York.

The commission heard that religious leaders within the Yeshivah community used Jewish law as a means of intimidating victims and deterring them from going to police.

Waks said on Thursday morning that as a result of Gutnick’s testimony, victims who previously felt silenced and ostracised by Yeshivah and its leaders had come forward.

“I’ve had so many victims get in contact with me overnight who are overwhelmed,” Waks said.

“They’re so happy this day has come, that victims have been told by a senior leader that they can finally share their stories.”

In 1987, when Waks was 11, he was abused by a man who worked at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, but who now lives in the US. From 1988, Waks was abused by David Cyprys, a centre security guard and youth leader who has since been convicted for his crimes.

But when he spoke out about his abuse as an adult and went to the police, encouraging other victims to do the same, he was bullied and intimidated by the Yeshivah community so severely he decided to leave the country.

During his testimony, Gutnick described whistleblowers like Waks as “heroes”.

“I believe that the victims of child sexual abuse and their families are, and especially the ones that have come forward, the bravest of the brave, and I believe God is with them more than he may ever be with me,” Gutnick said.

Waks’s father Zephaniah, who also gave evidence to the commission this week, told Guardian Australia that Gutnick’s condemnation of senior figures within Yeshivah would send shockwaves through the community that had traditionally protected its own.

“That was a real bombshell,” he said. “I know the reaction will be total shock, a large number will think he’s mad, but he is absolutely right.”

The hearings continue.