Tel-Chai Nation

There's been a documentary produced about the Malka Leifer sexual abuse scandal in Australia, and here's what it tells:

The documentary from director Adam Kamien and producer Ivan O’Mahoney tells the story of the sisters’ experiences, individually and collectively, from childhood abuse at home, through the betrayal of the seemingly safe haven of school, the long pursuit of justice, and finally to the trial itself.

Most notably, it spends long slabs of time with the sisters in the hotel where they stayed for the trial, able to support each other but not permitted to share details of their testimony. It captures the moment immediately after Erlich – who had written a book about her experiences – hears the full details of what happened to her sisters when they testify. And it captures the moment when Meyer hears that Leifer has been found not guilty on the charges relating to her abuse (while being found guilty of those relating to her sisters’ abuse).

It’s all incredibly intimate, up-close and raw. And it makes this most public case personal again.

For Meyer, the day of the verdict was complex.

“It was heartbreak. It was devastation,” she says. “Justice drove me for many years, and justice was denied.”

For months, she couldn’t speak about it, and for a while she thought she might never do so again. “And then I realised that ultimately, if I do that, I’m letting her win,” she says. “I felt she had won already by getting a not guilty verdict with my charges, and I thought I don’t want her to win, so I’m going to go out there and just start talking. And that’s what I did, and that really helped me to work on my healing.”

Is there a chance that verdict could be appealed? I realize they must've concluded the sentence Leifer will serve is enough, but considering she recently assaulted another inmate, that's why it'd be better to press further legal complaints against her, which'll hopefully ensure she won't be released in such a hurry. It's also apparent Leifer is a nut and needs serious psychological counseling, but she herself predictably refuses to take any.

Remarkably, Meyer remains a member of the Adass community, where she advocates on behalf of abuse survivors. Erlich and Sapper left the community, but each in their own way have slowly found a way to connect with their Jewish heritage on a different basis.

In the wake of her experience, says Sapper, “I needed to throw away everything that I knew, and that included religion and Judaism. I didn’t engage with it for many years. But over the past five or six years, I’ve married and had kids, and my husband’s family is a traditional [non-Orthodox] Jewish family, and I’ve learned Judaism and religion are separate things. I enjoy the culture and traditions in their family, it’s a beautiful connection time, so I’ve started to engage with that and see it’s not mutually exclusive.”

Erlich similarly had a period in which she totally rejected all things Jewish. But now she’s working with Pathways, an organisation that offers support to members of insular Jewish communities who are having issues and don’t know where to turn.

“It’s not at all about dragging people away from religion,” she explains. “It’s very much ‘here’s a safe space for you to have those questions, to decide what’s right for you’. I’m enjoying using the skills we learned through all those campaign years to do something really positive and create change.”

As I can see, the insular upbringing unsurprisingly clouded their view of the Judaist religion itself, no matter the sect or what customs they practice, and that's why ultra-Orthodox Judaism is simply not the sect to recommend. Anybody who practices Orthodox Judaism who isn't of Haredi background needs to let this serve as a vital lesson why they cannot allow the Orthodox sect itself to look like it's that horrifyingly prudish and hurtful to women. The point that may not be fully clear here is that ethnicity and religion are basically separate things. A similar point can possibly be made about Hindus and Hinduism in India.

The sisters’ experience was at once commonplace – someone in power recognised their vulnerability and mercilessly exploited it – and unusual – as members of a closed community that did nothing to educate its young women about sexual matters, they were uncommonly naive and isolated.

When they did recognise and report what had been done to them, it cost them enormously; they were suddenly cut off from the only community they had known, and thrust into a battle that would occupy years of their lives.

What got them through was the support of a few close allies (former premier Ted Baillieu in particular), and the fact they were doing it together.

“I think if any of us had been doing it alone, we would have not finished,” says Erlich.

“We’ve all given each other strength,” says Sapper. “If one of us is down, the others pull her up. We’ve just given each other that support all the years to get through it.”

“We would have burned out and crashed a lot earlier [if we’d done it solo],” says Meyer.

And if they had it all to do again?

“I’d do it, even if the result was the same, because of the accountability that perpetrators have when they’re put to the test,” says Meyer.

“Their name is there, they’re in court, they don’t know if they’re going to get guilty or not guilty. There’s a level of accountability in their community, in their family, regardless of whether you win it or not. It’s in their face.

“Any survivor who has the strength and support system to do so, go to the police, give your statement, and let’s get those perpetrators off the streets,” she implores. “I don’t regret it at all.”

Again, they did the right thing. And that the ultra-Orthodox community they grew up in doesn't provide sex education for anybody is repellent, and just makes clear how bad anti-sex hysteria happens to be everywhere, mainly when it comes to heterosexuality. Anybody who finds LGBT influence today horrific must recognize that poor conduct in religious societies put the keys in the ignition. In the past 15 years alone, there were offensive examples of Haredis opposing the idea of women singing, or how they dressed, taught men almost literally not to look at women, and these same communities have serious problems with sexual violence galore they make no genuine attempts to prevent. Anybody who recognizes this problem must leave these communities and not act like it's such a big deal, and any non-Haredis who understand this should make sure to give women like the Erlichs as much backing as possible. It's definitely good to know Pathways did.

This item tells more that's alarming, including news about an older sister they had who sadly passed away:

An underlying theme is the crucial role their abusive family background played in the saga. Their mother abused them physically for minor infractions and regularly deprived them of food; their father was also “not a safe person”, Elly says. The children grew up living in fear of their parents, which made them vulnerable to Leifer’s predatory behaviour in the first place. They saw the Adass school as a safe haven, which Leifer exploited ruthlessly.

Their isolation from the wider world, which was a feature of both their family upbringing and the school’s ultra-Orthodox values, exacerbated their vulnerability. They didn’t even know the words for female genitalia, former Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu, a close supporter of the sisters, reveals on camera.

Baillieu tells of how he accompanied Dassi to a meeting with Adass to ask Adass for an apology. The school used the advice of its insurer’s lawyer as an excuse not to give an apology at the time. It never gave her one.

By that stage, Leifer had fled to Israel, courtesy of the school’s support, where she lived as a free woman for more than a decade, during which she also abused other young girls in the ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement where she lived with her family.

During this period, her supporters employed mafia-style tactics to intimidate the three sisters. Their older sister Dalia, who was a principal at an ultra-Orthodox school in Manchester, received a visit from two men from Israel. Dalia was told that if she didn’t convince her sisters to withdraw their police statements, her family would be ostracised. The two men met with her boss, and pressured him to fire her. Dalia refused to ask her sisters to back down. (Tragically, soon after this episode, Dalia started having chest pains and later died.)

The Adass network then flexed its political muscle: Israel’s Deputy Health Minister, Yaacov Litzman, a member of the Hasidic community, repeatedly intervened in the justice process to pressure a psychiatric panel to declare Leifer mentally unfit to stand trial and be extradited back to Australia.

Being ostracized is practically a badge of honor, considering all the harm inflicted. Of course, we should be vigilant and make sure they don't start resorting to worse tactics like hiring armed thugs. Suppose that happened, and then, as a result, they wound up doing the next awful thing that takes attention away from more serious issues like Islamofascism? That's one of the most repulsive things about this whole scandal, that it took attention away from the problems with jihadism, and no doubt, the leaders of the same Haredi community the 3 sisters grew up in couldn't give a damn about what even Oz is suffering from these days.

Here's some more information that's telling:

The girls were born into the ultra-Orthodox Adass community in Melbourne. The community is described in the documentary as insular and fundamentalist. Girls and boys were segregated. The girls’ education focused on preparation for marriage, rather than mastery of curriculum. The sisters received no sex education, and had no access to television or digital media.

The film shows how such communities avoid involving outside authorities. A former mayor of the Immanuel settlement in the West Bank, where Leifer fled from Australian justice, says on camera “we don’t believe in non-Jewish law”. Instead, sex offenders are “treated” by the community rather than handed over for punishment by the state.

Wrong. They don't believe in law that isn't ultra-Orthodox. That's practically why the repellent Litzman sought to sabotage efforts to have Leifer convincingly evaluated even by the Israeli courts. Of course, the psychiatrist who went along with Litzman because he threatened to have his license revoked was also a reprehensible coward and should be ashamed of himself for refusing to alert authorities, nor did he seek any kind of legal counsel that could've protected his job, if needed. That's why he should be disbarred from practicing medical topics.

The sisters tell the filmmakers that they were abused by their parents throughout their childhood. They were physically beaten, emotionally abused and deprived of food. Dassi says that when Leifer told her “this is what a loving mother does”, she believed it because she had never experienced a loving parental relationship. [...]

In 2008, Dassi’s allegations of sexual abuse by Leifer were brought to the attention of a teacher. The school board met and put the allegations to Leifer, who refuted them. The allegations were not taken to police. The same day, the wife of a school board member facilitated travel arrangements for Leifer to flee to Israel.

Dassi discovered her sisters had also been abused by Leifer. In 2011, Dassi, Nicole and Elly made formal statements to Victoria Police. Australia sought Leifer’s extradition from Israel in 2013.

Leifer was arrested in 2014 but later bailed. The prosecutor would later argue she feigned mental illness to escape proper hearings of her matter for many years. In 2018, she was again detained when evidence revealed she was living freely in the Immanuel settlement.

Kamien’s film integrates the complexities of the legal process with the experiences of Leifer’s victim-survivors. We see how Leifer was protected by senior religious and political figures. [...]

The sisters had to give evidence separately, without each others’ support in the courtroom. They describe on camera degrading experiences of cross-examination, including the insinuation that sexual activity with Leifer was consensual and that they had contaminated their evidence through collusion.

Retraumatisation is acute for Nicole, some of whose evidence was ruled inadmissible. The trial judge also decided that the jury could not hear evidence regarding how the school board assisted Leifer to flee to Israel. Former Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu, a long time advocate for the sisters, claims in the documentary that these rulings limited the jury’s confidence to reach findings against Leifer.

After a three week trial and ten day jury deliberation, Leifer is found guilty on 18 charges relating to Elly and Dassi, including six charges of rape. She is sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, with an 11.5 year non-parole period.

Leifer is found not guilty of the charges relating to Nicole. Nicole describes this outcome as a “win” for Leifer. Her video diaries reveal grave emotional distress over subsequent months.

Surviving Malka Leifer tells several important stories. We see how the perceived interests of an insular religious community are prioritised over the victims of sexual abuse. We see how legal processes, especially when protracted, re-traumatise victims and maintain their vulnerability as abusers pose counter-narratives before courts.

To be sure, it's a documentary many should check out, but obviously, it's an adult subject that requires a strong stomach to view. And Meyer shouldn't associate with the Adass community, if this is how they still go about business. As for the parents, they should've been imprisoned for child abuse, and it's terrible if to date, they got away with it. Let's hope all their children will leave the Haredi lifestyle and if to remain in religion, choose the non-Haredi lifestyle instead.

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