Australian Chabad Faces Abuse, Fiscal Scandals
The two major branches of Chabad-Lubavitch in Australia are in the grip of separate crises that threaten to tar the movement’s reputation and undermine much of the work the Hasidic organization has invested in the six decades since it began operating here.
In Melbourne, a judge last week set the date for the trial of an Orthodox man who stands accused of 41 counts of child molestation at a Chabad-run school as several other separate child sex abuse cases continue to embroil the organization.
David Cyprys, a former security guard contracted to Yeshivah College, the Chabad boys school in Melbourne, has been ordered to stand trial next July. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include several counts of child rape allegedly perpetrated on students in the 1980s.
In a statement, principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler expressed his sympathy to the victims and said the college was cooperating with police. The college “loudly and clearly” condemns sexual abuse, he said, and has “robust policies and procedures that govern staff and student interaction.”
For more go to Haaretz.com
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
