The past doesn’t live here any more

There has been publicity in the press, both mainstream and Jewish, about events that allegedly occurred at Yeshiva college over 15 years ago.
It has been suggested that Yeshiva behaved wrongly by failing to act in relation to matters reported to it, and that it essentially turned a blind eye to things it should have seen, and a deaf ear to those  it failed to hear and who were in need.

We cannot, without knowing all the facts, dissect what took place, or allegedly took place those years ago.  We cannot comment on any individual case unless and until it has been through the courts. The presumption of innocence applies and in this case the person named has not been charged with any offence here in Australia. We can however discuss generalities and we can also say this: that times have very much changed and what was done then would not-or we hope it would not-be done now.

In times past, people thought naively, that shipping a perpetrator out of the place they were in would solve the problem. What they failed to realise of course was that such a course of action only meant that the problem, if there were one, would materialise somewhere else, and possibly in a far more sinister form. For what they also failed to realise is that paedophiles don’t stop and that once is never enough for them-they suffer from an addiction and they will continue to abuse  until they are stopped.

Throughout the entire spectrum of our community-the Jews, the Catholics and Protestants, there was a myth that shipping them out and staying quiet was the best thing to do.
It was thought that the shame should be born in silence. It was thought that doing nothing was better than remembering, but of course what they failed to appreciate was that the victims never forgot.

I think it is fair to say that today the majority of institutions, both secular and religious, in all aspects of our community, would take a different view.

We at Taskforce have fought long and hard to encourage victims to speak out and to seek support.
We no longer live in a place where silence is the modus operandi. We no longer live in a place where to stay mute is best practice. We no longer live in a place where to remain deaf is an appropriate response.
It is no longer acceptable to be blind to the abuse, to be deaf to the cries of the abused and not speak out.
We are proud to say that the past doesn’t live here any more.

Debbie Wiener