https://ajn.timesofisrael.com/extremely-discouraging/
A PSYCHIATRIST who is due to be called as an expert witness by Malka
Leifer’s defence team has previously stated that the former principal of
Melbourne’s Adass Israel school “never committed the crimes” and that
that she was being pursued by a “lynch mob”.
Dr Brian Trappler of New York, who gave evidence in 2015 that
Leifer was not fit to face extradition proceedings, is scheduled to
testify on Wednesday night (Australian time).
When asked how he knew she was innocent, one of his responses was that those calling for her extradition didn’t look frum.
“Just looking at their pictures and listening to their comments
should give you an idea that this is not a Heimeshe or Chareidi crowd,”
he wrote.
He likened them to the Women of the Wall group in Israel, and wrote
that there is a “a cultural war between the Women of the Wall against a
chareidi grandmother who left the shtetle to support her husband who’s
spent his entire life learning in Kollel”.
Trappler also argued on Facebook that people shouldn’t sign a petition calling for Leifer’s extradition.
“I suggest that before the lynch-mob commits the ultimate crime of
Mesira (reporting someone to secular authorities) they pause to realize
that this case is not what you’ve been told.”
However Australian rabbinic authorities, and others across the world, disagree with Trappler.
“[The Rabbinic Council of Victoria] affirms its halachic position
that the prohibitions of mesirah (reporting crimes to the civil
authorities) and arka’ot (adjudication in civil courts) do not apply in
cases of abuse,” the Rabbinic Council of Victoria stated in 2010.
