A man who was raped as a child by a member of a prominent ultra-orthodox Jewish family in Melbourne has spoke out about being shunned and forced to leave Australia after speaking out about the abuse.
Velvel Serebryanski, 61, the son of well-known Chabad emissary Rabbi Aaron Serebryanski, was found guilty by a County Court jury last week of three counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual penetration of a child aged between 10 and 16.
Serebryanski appeared in court again at a pre-sentencing hearing on Friday where his bail was extended until his sentencing on March 16, the Herald Sun reported, and his victim, Manny Waks, a former vice-president of powerful lobby group the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, read an impact statement.
“When Velvel sexually abused me, at the age of 11 or 12 years old, I was an ordinary child, the eldest boy in a large, ultra-Orthodox Chabad Jewish family,” Mr Waks said in his statement, which he also published on his website and read on YouTube.
“The first time Velvel sexually abused me was inside one of the most sacred sites in the Jewish community: the synagogue. It is our place of worship and spiritual connection. Our family’s main synagogue was the Yeshivah Shule, which was part of Melbourne Chabad’s Yeshivah Centre.”
Mr Waks went on to describe how he struggled to deal with the effects of the abuse while receiving no help from the police or the Jewish community, and said when he reported it to Yeshivah Centre Chief Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the rabbi indicated that he knew about some of it, but never took action.
“Eventually, I became a full-time public advocate addressing child sexual abuse within the Jewish community. … During this period, my family and I came under sustained attacks by some members of the Jewish community and even some of its leadership, primarily from the ultra-Orthodox Chabad community in Australia and abroad, though not exclusively,” he told the court.
“This was one of the most difficult periods of our lives. It detrimentally impacted all of us in various ways. As one of 17 siblings, I watched as it tore my family apart. Even my parents eventually got divorced.
“Ultimately, after facing ex-communication and even multiple violent attacks from within their own Yeshivah Chabad community, my parents decided to leave Australia and relocate to Israel. Soon after, my then wife, our three boys and I followed suit.”
Serebryanski left Australia for the US but was extradited in 2023 to face trial over the abuse, which occurred in the 1980s.
Mr Waks, who is the brother of Rebel News journalist Avi Yemini, confronted his attacker in New York in 2017 and filmed Serebryanski confessing to the abuse.
He was also abused by former Yeshivah school security guard David Cyprys, who was convicted in 2013 and jailed for eight years for child sex offences against nine boys in the 80s and 90s.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found in 2016 that victims of paedophiles at Jewish institutions in Melbourne and Sydney were let down by rabbis due to their adherence to the Jewish law of Mesirah which forbids informing on another Jewish person to a secular authority.
Header image: Velvel Serebryanski in New York in 2023 (COLlive). Right, Manny Waks outside court on Friday (Facebook).
