Schlesinger Twins: Timely lessons to be learned from the Australian abuse scandal

picture not of Schlesinger twins

Guest Post by Beth Alexander

It has taken over 20 years for the victims of child abuse in Australia to finally be vindicated and awarded their day of justice at last. Not that anything could ever undo the pain and horror they suffered at the hands of the perpetrators at the time or remove the stain of guilty memories all those torturous years thereafter but at least now it is no longer they who have to carry the heavy burden of shame and silence.

This week marks the second in a two week government inquiry set up to investigate claims of child sexual abuse dating back to the 1980s and 1990s in Sydney and Melbourne. Commissioners of the Australian Royal Commission are currently hearing the victims and interrogating rabbis who were employed by the Yeshivah Centre at the time.

As details come to light, it is horrifying to discover that many of the highest ranking rabbis were informed about the abuse taking place but conspired to cover it up and instead shunned and silenced the victims. Their responses today make for shocking reading but perhaps these individuals, unfit to hold the title rabbi, are more shocked than anyone. Confident it had all been buried in the past, they never expected the scandal to resurface years later to destroy them and their families.

Austria is just one syllable away

Following these events while desperately fighting for justice for my own little boys here in Vienna is chilling. There are so many parallels. 'A week from hell' is how the past week has felt for the Australian Jewish community. I have spent the past four years in that hell - repeatedly calling on the rabbis in Vienna, on Chabad Vienna and the community leaders of Vienna to listen to our anguished pleas for help to end my own little boys' suffering. Instead of the protection, support and compassion their moral code of conduct obligates them to provide, I have also been met by stony silence, indifference and worse, ostracized and re-victimized over again for speaking out, as were the victims in Australia who naively misplaced their trust and confided in the rabbis about what was happening to them.

It's telling that victims in Australia were threatened not to breathe a word to the non-Jewish authorities because of mesirah yet in my case the rabbis and leaders in Vienna have repeated like a mantra, 'It must go though the courts' when they are fully aware  that the judicial process has been subverted by a member of the Jewish community, a high court judge who happens to be a friend of the father and convert to Judaism. Add to that an orthodox psychiatrist who tried (unsuccessfully) to have me committed to a mental hospital on the orders of my ex husband before admitting he had never met me, a false statement by a Chabad rabbi and a court issued gagging order on me and you have the makings of another giant cover up.

Unlike Australia today, not a single Austrian rabbi will be able to claim they didn't know about Samuel and Benjamin Schlesinger in their community.

Recently, one local at the centre of the Viennese community (who has never spoken to me directly) admitted to a trusted friend back home in the UK, 'This is a conspiracy against Beth.' Not only that, he warned portentously, 'The case of the Schlesinger twins will haunt this community. In ten years the rabbis will be shamed, they will have blood on their hands.'

While it is too late to save Manny Waks and the countless other victims who now have to live with their scars and somehow find the strength and courage to rebuild their shattered lives as emotionally and psychologically damaged adults, Sammy and Benji Schlesinger are still young enough to be saved. Will any lessons be learned from Australia?