Community needs independent body to deal with abuse complaints, inquiry told

THE FOUNDER of a support group for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse told a public inquiry this week that an independent service should be set up to deal with complaints of abuse within the Jewish community.

Speaking by video link, Yehudis Goldsobel, chief executive of Migdal Emunah, told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that abusers were sometimes given a free pass by their communities.

Ms Goldsobel, herself the victim of a sexual assault when she was a child, said that whereas victims who reported abuse to secular authorities faced ostracism, their abusers could be welcomed back into communities “as if nothing has happened”.

Statement: Goldsobel

She criticised Orthodox organisations that advised victims to consult rabbis first, saying that some rabbis aimed to protect the community rather than the victim.

Some rabbis felt if the abuser offered to pay for therapy for the victim, that was in their view an “effective way of dealing with the situation,” she told the inquiry, which resumed its hearings on religious groups this week.

The examination of religious groups is due to continue in August but a number of witness statements from Jewish organisations were published this week, including one from Senior Rabbi of the Movement for Reform Judaism, Laura Janner-Klausner, on safeguarding policy within the movement. In her statement, Rabbi Janner-Klausner said the movement had “not received any complaints of child sexual abuse within Reform Judaism in the last 10 years”. She said the movement had received complaints about a rabbi a few years ago from staff and former staff of one synagogue “regarding management concerns which we now deem as also including safeguarding concerns but not child abuse”.

According to a report in The Times, in her witness statement to the inquiry, Ms Goldsobel also accused Rabbi Janner-Klausner of “using her platform” to claim that her father, Lord Janner, had been wrongly accused of child abuse and “ipso facto that his victims are lying”.

She said several people had told Migdal Emunah that Rabbi Janner-Klausner had shared her thoughts on the allegations against her father in sermons or on other occasions, which left “some of her congregants feeling isolated and questioning whether anyone would ever believe them if they were to report their experiences.” The IICSA is due later in the year to examine police handling of the allegations against Lord Janner, who was ruled unfit to stand trial because of dementia.