Tel-Chai Nation

And also Australia's. In an interview with the Australian Jewish News, Nicole Meyer - who didn't get her share of justice against Haredi child molestor Malka Leifer, even though the creep was convicted of sexually assaulting Meyer's 2 sisters - had quite a bit to say about how things were handled in Israel and Australia in the legal systems regarding the case which took them so many years to get Leifer extradited:

The three had fought bitterly to secure their former teacher’s extradition from Israel, where she fled 15 years ago, to Melbourne, where the crimes had taken place.

But the oldest sister did not hide her feeling that the victory was bittersweet. Those first five charges were the only ones related to her accusations against Leifer from 2003-2006. The remaining 22 were tied to testimony given by Sapper and Erlich.

“The fact that I didn’t get my own justice is something I’m going to have to [grapple] with personally,” Meyer said.

“Especially as a religious woman and representing religious victims who have an even harder time coming forward, I feel like I let everyone down a bit, but I hope not,” Meyer added, revealing the extent of the burden she’s been carrying for the past two decades.

In a wide-ranging interview, Meyer reflected on Monday’s long-elusive verdict, compared the experiences enduring the Israeli and Australian legal systems and looked forward to what might be next for her — something she hasn’t been able to do for a very long time.

I hope Meyer appeals the verdict that didn't convict Leifer of the charges of assaulting her. Because Leifer should be held accountable for those violations as well. And I hope other victims in the Adass clan will not only leave it, but also file reports against Leifer for any abuse she committed against them as well. That can hopefully ensure she'll get a long prison sentence she deserves.

Meyer’s pursuit of justice has made headlines across the globe, largely due to what unfolded after Erlich first came forward with her allegations against Leifer in 2008. It was then that the board of the ultra-Orthodox girls’ school in the highly insular Melbourne community purchased the Israeli principal a plane ticket and whisked her back to the Jewish state, where she had come from eight years earlier.

At that point, the case ground to a halt. As has been the case for a notable number of sex abusers, Leifer was able to live freely in Israel and in an isolated settlement in the northern West Bank before she was arrested for the first time in 2014.

I think what's additionally angering is how Leifer's clan gives anti-Israelists ammunition when you see even an allegedly community-based paper is using that dirty PC term "settlement". It goes entirely without saying that favoratism for sex offenders in insular Haredi communities has to cease, and even today, improvements are still a long way off.

In her Monday interview, Meyer admitted that she hadn’t yet processed the Israel chapter of the legal proceedings, as she’s been entirely focused on the Melbourne-based trial that followed.

But asked how she compares the two justice systems, Meyer said that “in Israel, we had no voice. Here [in Australia], we had a voice, though not always enough of one.”

The 37-year-old lamented what she described as the Victoria court’s refusal to share the full extent of Leifer’s abuse due to various gag orders that were put in place.

“But knowing that Malka Leifer could not manipulate the system as she did in Israel was a big relief,” Meyer said, noting that the former Adass Israel principal ceased feigning mental illness upon arriving back in Australia.

She went as far as speculating that Leifer would never have been returned to Australia had she and her sisters not launched a public campaign six years ago, which included flying to Israel several times, to advocate for their former teacher’s extradition.

Explaining what she meant by lack of voice, Meyer recalled sitting in the Jerusalem District Court and feeling like a mere spectator, barred from testifying “even though the evidence of [Leifer’s] fraud was so clear. Her lawyers tried to kick us out of the courtroom as if we had no right to be there.”

“So yes, Israel has something to answer for, and I believe Litzman does as well,” Meyer said. “But we got her [to Australia], and she’s guilty, despite every single obstacle we faced at every single step [placed by those in] the highest positions of power in Israel.”

Needless to say, the government owes Meyer and her sisters an apology for keeping Yaakov Litzman on as a minister when he should've been put out to pasture much sooner. It also goes without saying this tarnishes much of the Haredi community, based on how they went miles out of their way initially to defend Leifer at all costs, and refused to establish any dialogue with the sisters.

Meyer said the past two years in Australia were far more difficult than she expected.

“Yes, we got our day in court, but I wasn’t able to share my entire truth.”

The court barred Meyer from discussing what she said were additional years of abuse by Leifer that took place after she got engaged as a teenager and still remained unaware of her former teacher’s hold on her due to the years of trauma and lack of proper sex education.

The jury was only allowed to hear her testimony regarding five charges, rather than what Meyer insisted was “an entire story of six and a half years of abuse.”

She surmised that the prosecution decided to excise much of her experience with Leifer from the case because it would be harder for the average jury member to comprehend.

What remained, though, was only a narrow part of her original testimony that “lacked the broader context” and that the defense “tore apart” for three hours in a closing argument that Meyer characterised as “re-traumatising.”

Meyer maintained that the limited picture received by the jury was what might have led to the not guilty verdicts in the charges related to her testimony.

She argued that the Australian legal system needs reform, saying that abuse victims who have gone through it consistently end up feeling more traumatised than they were beforehand.

Absolutely, even Oz's system is in dire need of improvement if they were going to limit what the jury could review.

Despite the partial guilty verdict, Meyer was adamant that she had no regrets over pursuing charges against Leifer.

“Going through it and paving that path for other people… is something that holds us up,” she said. “We don’t regret going through this journey because she’s now off the streets.

“She fought so hard not to be convicted, and we proved that we could fight just as hard.”

As the jury foreman finished reading the verdict, Meyer turned around five times and looked straight at a solemn Leifer. “You don’t have my power. I’m taking it back from you now,” she recalled thinking to herself.

The Adass school allegedly apologized to the 3 sisters for the terrible experience they went through, but chances are that, if God forbid, another offender comes about, they'll try again to enable the criminal to evade the law. And should that happen, I'd say their school should be throughly closed down. For now, as I've said before, the clan should be ostracized and their customs condemned, just like those of the Satmar over in the USA.

Update: here's one more article from the Australian Jewish News.

Labels: Australia, haredi corruption, immigration, Israel, Knesset, misogyny, Moonbattery, political corruption, sexual violence