I've heard that some Australian Chabad rabbis who are mandatory reporters are still saying (at least in closed groups) that it is wrong to report suspected child sex abuse to police, and that a rabbi (or beit din) must first look into the abuse allegations and determine if they have merit. This is being done despite the fact that it is against the law in Australia for a mandatory reporter not to report suspected or known child sex abuse and it is being done despite the fact that none of these rabbis are trained forensic child sex abuse investigators. And it is being done despite the fact that Chabad's truly horrific conduct in covering up child sex abuse and harassing its victims has become front page news across Australia and beyond.
FailedMessiah.com has been told that some Australian Chabad rabbis who are mandatory reporters are still saying (at least in closed groups) that it is wrong to report suspected child sex abuse to police, and that a rabbi (or beit din) must first look into the abuse allegations and determine if they have merit. This is being done despite the fact that it is against the law in Australia for a mandatory reporter not to report suspected or known child sex abuse and it is being done despite the fact that none of these rabbis are trained forensic child sex abuse investigators. And it is being done despite the fact that Chabad's truly horrific conduct in covering up child sex abuse and harassing its victims has become front page news across Australia and beyond.
What this says about Chabad (and haredi Judaism as a whole) is not good.
Neither is something that also indicts Chabad, something I've reported several times over the years. With all of the child sex abuse allegations and coverups, and later convictions, more coverups, harassment of child sex abuse victims and their families, and now the Royal Commission's investigative hearing broadcast world wide for all to see, Chabad's international leadership headquartered in Brooklyn, New York has been completely silent. Chabad's top leader, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, his #2 (and rival) Rabbi Avraham Shemtov (who has his own history of enabling child sex abuse), and other top Chabad leaders have said absolutely nothing over the years this has unfolded, and they have taken no known steps to punish, fire or otherwise discipline the Chabad rabbis who sacrificed children to protect Chabad's reputation and to protect the pedophiles themselves.
The one thing all forms of hasidic and haredi Judaism have repeatedly proved true over the past decade is that children's lives do no matter. Children are almost like disposable property, rather than precious human lives. And that holds true in non-hasidic haredi yeshivas in New York and Israel as it does in Satmar yeshivas and Chabad yeshivas and schools – including pre-ks, kindergartens and camps – worldwide.
In Australia, Chabad supposedly accepts Australian law and trains its mandatory reporters to report child sex abuse to secular authorities. Even so, there are Chabad rabbis who are mandatory reporters who are still telling other mandatory reporters and others not to follow the law. Chabad can show you its "no tolerance" policy of child sex abuse and child abuse.
But as I've noted for years – and as the Australian Royal Commission is now proving to be absolutely true – none of these policies mean anything for defenseless children unless they are carefully followed – which they clearly are not.
That's something everyone who sends their children to haredi or Chabad schools needs to understand. Because once the damage to your child is done, it is almost impossible to make that child completely whole ever again.
You wouldn't take your child to a pediatrician if you knew that pediatrician was negligent or if the special professional organization he is a public face of endangered children this way. So why do you send your children to schools, yeshivas and camps that do? This is a question many Catholic parents have had to answer. Now its a question all parents sending their children to Chabad or haredi institutions must answer. Can you answer it in a way that actually protects your children? Likely not.