.הבלוגרית לורי שם טוב נעצרה על שעשתה את עבודתה העיתונאית בפרשת חטיפת הילד יהודה כהן
Two particularly disturbing cases are roiling the Israeli judicial system this week. In the first, a court ruled that an Orthodox Jewish former school principal wanted on 74 counts of child sex abuse in Australia (the account of one victim is here), should be set completely free. The Australian legal system has requested her extradition from Israel, to which she had fled in the dead of night, for almost a year.
Malka Leifer, who was the principal of the Orthodox girl’s school in Victoria, was wanted for questioning regarding the charges. But she absconded with the likely connivance of other school staff and community members. She flew to Israel where she knew she would receive immediate asylum regardless of her criminal charges. Ever since, she’s been feigning mental illness every time a Israeli court date approaches.
She’s received psychiatric evaluations during a hospital stay in which staff reported she was completely normal except when a formal review was conducted that would impact her court case. Then she donned a different disguise entirely.
In a surprise move, the Israeli court, freed her under one condition: that she undergo a six-month psychiatric evaluation process involving a single meeting every month for six months. After that, the court plans to review her status.
The State prosecutor plans to appeal this decision. The Australian government expressed mild shock at today’s decision. Though they will have to get much tougher if they expect any movement from the Israeli political-judicial system.
An Israeli lawyer noted to me that Israeli courts are loath to approve the extradition of Jews within their jurisdiction to their home countries when facing criminal charges. My guess is that it has something to do with a taboo against Jews handing other Jews over to Christian authorities. Jews traditionally have always preferred to mete out justice internally, not knowing how severe the sentence Jews might receive in a non-Jewish system. There is also a prohibition against informing on fellow Jews to the non-Jewish authorities. Of course, in the modern era all this should be considered hocus-pocus in the face of international law and judicial precedent. But apparently not in Israel, where ancient traditions remain alive.
Leifer also plays two other powerful cards. She is a woman and an Orthodox Jew. Israeli courts, in another throwback, often tend to defer to traditional Jewish belief and practice. There is a natural inclination to believe that an Orthodox Jew could not behave in such a fashion. Hence a refusal to take the charges against her seriously.
Manny Wax, himself a victim of sexual abuse at a Chabad Jewish Day School in Australia, calls the decision an outrage. He also supports the claim that Leifer’s posture was an act and that she’d getting away with the equivalent of murder.
This case comes during a period of prolonged tension in Australian-Israel relations which began with the Mossad’s exploiting Australian passports in the assassination plot against Mahmoud al-Mabouh. That led to the expulsion of the Mossad station chief in Australia. Then, the Mossad secretly arrested Australian Jewish agent, Ben Zygier. They imprisoned him in secret isolation, which in turn drove him to suicide. Israel only barely smoothed things over with a $1-million payment to Zygier’s Australian parents and Israeli wife.
It’s hard to believe that the Israeli justice system wants to return to the strained relations that characterized these past two episodes. And how can relations not be strained when Israel is harboring an accused sex offender who preyed on so many Jewish children? Is there any possible justification for this? Given that Australia is ruled by a right-wing government it’s possible it will not fight hard to get Leifer back. If so, that would be a shame. More than that, it would be almost criminal.
In the second case, Israeli family rights activist, blogger and journalist, Lory Shem Tov was arrested by Israeli police (Hebrew; an English story here) for the crime of practicing journalism. A father who kidnapped his son after finding videotapes of his wife beating the boy (Hebrew), contacted Shem Tov, hoping to interest her and Israeli media in his case. Though their names have not been widely reported, I believe it’s important to have full and open discourse on this subject. The father’s name is Roi Cohen, the mother’s name is Batya (Mizrahi) Cohen and the child’s name is Yehudah Cohen.
My hope is that a real child with a real name will engender enough sympathy within Israel for the public and child welfare advocates to rally on his behalf.
The police threatened the TV news show that planned to run a story (which cancelled the segment) and arrested Lory. It searched her home and confiscated her computer. The mother’s lawyer succeeded in getting a judge to slap a gag order on the case and no Israeli media outlet can report this outrage and name the victim. The mother claimed she did so in order to “protect her son.” Which is ironic considering that the video shows her beating him. She had earlier claimed it was the father who had beat the boy. This is yet another example of a state whose judicial system embraces opacity, rather than transparency. A state which permits miscarriages of justice on a regular basis.
In court testimony (Hebrew), Lory’s lawyer elicited from police that she was not suspected of committing any crime. She had not conspired to kidnap the child nor had she helped hide the father and son. The police believed that if she was free she might “sabotage the investigation.” Note again that this is not a crime. In fact, it is a form of preventive detention. Arresting someone because you believe they may commit a crime. Except in national security or military justice cases, there is no such concept in Israeli law. Therefore, the police are violating Israeli law. But they may do so because they are the police and the court defers to them, even when they invent it. In any western democracy observing the rule of law, this is a flagrant abuse of state power. Yet in Israel a judge extends her remand in deference to State power.
The Israeli online news portal, Walla!, notes that since former Shabak deputy chief became national police chief, the police have escalated their war against journalists. Earlier, an Army Radio journalist was arrested for requesting comment for a story from a Jerusalem municipal employee, who filed a complaint for harassment. Now here I thought municipal employees were meant to serve the public, not the other way around.😏
UPDATE: In the past few minutes, Lory was released from prison. But the police have retained her computer and other personal items.
Not to mention that Lory is a journalist. Her goal is not to commit a crime or further a criminal conspiracy, but to inform the Israeli public of a great social wrong. In well-functioning societies, the role of activist and whistleblower is valued. Such societies understand that they need reformers challenging the system if it is to transform itself for the good. A society which criminalizes such behavior is one that is dysfunctional and moribund. That is, alas Israel.
NOTE: I invite you to read my latest contribution to Mint Press News, about a Jewish Agency “humanitarian” award bestowed upon an Israeli pop star who supports torturing Palestinians, and an Ethiopian-Israeli MK who supports the far-right settler movement. The award was bestowed on tarnished American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King III.
@Richard.
Once again, Richard, you’ve undertaken to ‘shame’ the State of Israel, and once again, your claims come up short.
“After an extradition request from Australia, she was arrested in July, 2014 and placed under house arrest”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-18/ex-melbourne-principal-arrested-over-alleged-sex-offences/5678060
It sounds to me like the State of Israel immediately arrested the woman after the extradition request was made.
No one has claimed that Israel was dilatory in making the arrest. Has anyone?
Shameful?
” At the last hearing in February the Israeli prosecutor, Avital Ribner-Oron, challenged Leifer’s medical claims, telling the judge she believed the former principal was faking her illness in order to get rid of the case.”
Israel’s State Prosecutor doesn’t believe the suspect is ill and that Prosecutor’s Office is fighting to have her extradited.
Shameful?
“Judge Amnon Cohen also began to question Leifer’s hospital admissions.”
Shameful?
“The defendant arrived at the hospital with a referral letter to the psychiatric emergency department with recommendation of hospitalisation from her physician from 30/12/2015 and it’s not clear why she went to the hospital only on the 3/1/2016.”
Apparently, the villain is not the State of Israel, but rather, the insular and backwards community in which defendant lives and which apparently provides her a degree of sanctuary.
Some blame MAY be placed on defendant’s referring doctor, and maybe even on Judge Cohen for his ruling, which ruling is being APPEALED by the State Prosecutor.
MAYBE the actions of the doctor and Judge are questionable..
Shameful?
I’m confused about all the kidnapping in this piece.
Not really clear what happened with Yehudah Cohen (an underage child whose name will now be forever on the interenet in that context b/c of you) or with Lory Shem Tov kids. You moved between one case to the other in what I thought was moving to the blogger stories but then her kids appear all of the sudden.
Can you please clarify (after you call me a moron who can’t read English)
Yehudah Cohen, whose name and slapped face will forever be on the internet.
Couldn’t you guys have called the child Yehudah C., the same way they do in court proceedings? Couldn’t you have blocked out the child’s face on the video, like the newspaper’s do?
@Abby: I didn’t create the video and hv no control over its contents. I have nothing but rochmonis for the boy & nothing but shame for his mother. I could not call the baby “Yehudah C.” because I’d already identified his father as Roi Cohen. The child’s last name would be obvious. So I would’ve had to have left the child entirely anonymous. But since Israeli sites have already identified the child as “Yehuda C.” anyone reading this site & the Israeli ones would easily identify his full real name.
So… in the name of free journalism, freedom of speech or whatever other ideals you identify the child over the internet!!
Did you stop to think for just a second whether the court was right to conceal it? Or are you too far on the trip of fighting the “national security state”.
SHAME ON YOU!
@Israel: Spare me yr new-found sense of moral self righteousness. I identified all the parties because concealing their identities only serves the interests of the police & accused child-beater-mother.
Now a movement to protect Yehuda Cohen can focus on a real child with a real name. That’s far preferable to a hidden child with no name. BTW, since you’re so concerned with little Yehuda, will you speak out publicly on his behalf? Join a protest on his behalf? Or just sit back at Hasbara Central & bloviate?
I don’t trust any decision of a judicial & child welfare system as opaque & dysfunctional as Israel’s.
It is hilarious reading your writes about self righteousness. How does revealing the child identity help him? Somehow you feel like dropping a secret from your cozy house in Seattle help Yehuda???
You exercise extreme liberalism where freedom of speech is above everything, even the goodwill of a child.
You can make any excuse you want but it is nonsense
This case reminds me of the McMartin trial with more than 100 counts of child abuse, and other completely false cases of child abuse hysteria in day cares that popped out around this country twenty-thirty years ago. Unscrupulous and incompetent prosecutors and investigators who implanted false “memories” of chid abuse in children. It was a witch hunt, a disgrace that did great damage to the integrity of the judicial system and left poor children traumatized for life. I find it very doubtful that this lady sexually abused 74 children. This smells like one of those witch hunts.
Israel’s raison d’etre is to protect Jews around the world from anti-Semitism. You are correct in linking this case to the Mossad’s passport case as this Orthodox Jewish lady could very well be the Australian’s way of retaliating against the Jewish State. Israel should force Australia prove its case in an Israeli court. It took more than 30 years for this “dingo baby” lady to finally clear her name after falsely being accused and wrongly convicted of murder of her own baby. If the “dingo baby” case is a reflection of Australian judicial system, Israel should be commended for exercising caution before extraditing this Jewish woman. History is replete with Jews being falsely accused, burned and executed victims of anti-Semitism. Jews today are fortunate to have Israel protect them and give them refuge, its part of Israel’s obligation in ensuring that “never again” is never again.
@ Gaby: Ridiculous. Dingo babies & tired discredited abuse cases. Is that the best you can do?
The McMartin case was brought in the 1980s, in the infancy of such cases. The mistakes made in that case have not been replicated based on the lessons learned from it. THere have been numerous proven cases against Orthodox Australian educational institutions thanks to Manny Waks and others. They have resulted in prosecution and convictions. They’ve resulted in rabbis resigning their positions or going into exile in Israel or the U.S. The Australians cases have nothing whatsoever to do with McMartin & your specious claims are offensive on their face. I’d like you to personally apologize to Manny Waks & Malka Leifer’s 74 victims. This is also deeply offensive to Australian investigators who carried the case forward once the Jewish victims came forward.
If Leifer was innocent her responsibility was to remain in Australia and prove her innocence. In the law, flight may be construed as an admission of guilt. In this case, it should be.
How could you sell these poor defenseless Jewish child victims down the river?? How could you?
As for the Dingo baby case, there were not 74 victims in that case as there are in Leifer’s case. And your defense of Leifer is disgusting.
Nonsense. Israel’s raison d’etre is to promote its interest as a state. Israel doesn’t need to protect anyone from anti Semitism since no Jews in the Diaspora are endangered by anti-Semitism (any more than any other citizens are endangered). World Jewry hasn’t asked for Israel’s help in combatting anti-Semitism. Nor does Israel do anything to help Jews in the Diaspora. Rather, it stirs up fear of anti-Semitism & inveigles Jews to make aliyah. That’s isn’t meant to benefit world Jewry, but Israel.
That’s not the way the law works. You are tried in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred. Unless it involves a violation of international law or war crimes. Israel has no provision for trying Jews for crimes committed outside Israel, nor should it. Israel is a signatory of international conventions and must extradite accused criminals if it wishes Australia to ever extradite any Israeli citizen who takes refuge in Australia. This works both ways. But Israel thinks everything works one way–its way.
Further, as Australian Jews have noted: does Israel want Nazi war criminals to be extradited to face justice? Or does it want them protected in whatever country they live in, if that country refuses to extradite? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
More hilarity. Malka Leifer as the Dreyfuss of Australia. A falsely accused Jew & victim of anti-Semitism no less. So all her Jewish child victims are sacrificing poor Malka on the altar of Jew hatred???
I’ve already moderated you. The next step is banning. You are one step closer with this obscene, stupid, offensive piece of dreck.
Without a trial, and without anyone ruling on the veracity of these allegations, you call these 74 women “victims”, Malka Leifer a “sex offender who preyed on so many Jewish children”, and my defense of Leister to be disgusting. Why bother with due process? Burn her at the stake now along with her disgusting lawyer!! And this is the common reaction to all child sexual abuse accusations, children don’t lie, they are victims, the accused is a pedophile and his lawyer disgusting.
But the bottom line is that the story is not credible, it doesn’t add up, a family woman in her 50’s mother of eight, raping and sexually molesting 15 year old girls, 74 of them, at the school, during the course of many years, all of these rapes undetected by anyone, unreported at the time, it’s just not believable. Its sounds as preposterous as the 100 McMartin “victims” having been sodomized in underground tunnels during satanic rituals.
And according to you I am also “offensive to Australian investigators who carried the case forward”. Do you know how many investigators, experts, prosecutors and witnesses carried the case forward in the McMartin case during 7 years including the 30 month’s trial? Was Ray Buckley’s lawyer offensive to all of them who carried the casxe forward during the 7 years? And you ask me “how could I sell these poor defenseless Jewish children down the river?” Tell me, who sold the poor 360 McMartin children down the river? Who?
This story does not add up, and I am joining your lynch mob.
@Gaby: No, children don’t lie. 74 children don’t lie. Especially considering the veil of silence & ostracism which confronted these victims. To face the opprobrium they did in their community for coming forward…what motivation would they have to lie in these circumstances? You are a typical Orthodox abuse denier. It’s a shameful practice. You believe no Orthodox school principal would do such things despite the fact that scores of Orthodox rabbis & other similar figures have done precisely that & been prosecuted & convicted.
You have one last chance. The next offensive remark will be yr last here.
Richard, the McMartin case is not at all similar to the current one. The alleged victims in McMartin were between the ages of 4 and 6. They were all interviewed by psychiatric social workers who, as it was eventually established, provided the stories to the children who then confirmed them. Responsible child psychiatrists who reviewed those interviews testified that children that age are very suggestible and will agree with suggestions if they are encouraged by supportive adults. This current case is based on testimonies of teen age girls. Totally different demographic.
@ToivoS: Thanks.
@Gaby Miliki
The Australian Royal Commission investigating allegations of child abuse has thus far dealt with allegations concerning all kinds of institutions, roman catholic, protestant, yes even those set up by the Salvation Army and a secretive Yoga centre.
Here is the Wiki on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Institutional_Responses_to_Child_Sexual_Abuse
The suspicion that accusations regarding this school of the Adass community in Melbourne were dealt with because of anti-Semitism is silly. The accusers come from WITHIN this ultra-orthodox Jewish community which is largely unknown to the outside world. Dan Goldberg. a former editor of Australian Jewish News, who made a documentary about it for the Australian ethnic broadcaster SBS, said that in many ways his experience there was an eye opener to him even though he had written about this community before. Here is the documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axv_kqIO5_0
It must have cost the victims a great deal of anguish to have to open up on what happened to them in this school. This is what the Guardian wrote about cases of sexual abuse in a Yeshiva college:
“The rabbinic law of mesirah – the prohibition of a Jew informing on a fellow Jew to secular authorities – was used by leaders to keep victims silent, the commission heard. When victims did go to police, they were labelled mosers, or “informers”, a charge so serious they were threatened with exclusion so severe it was akin to being excommunication, which would mean being ripped away from a culture, identity, religion and community. It meant everything from marriage prospects to opportunities for religious honours would be forever taken away.”
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/16/manny-waks-i-was-the-yeshivah-troublemaker-i-hope-now-everyone-can-see-why
The hypothesis that people might be dealing here with a case of “false memory” is also extremely shaky. There is more than one accuser. Are these all afflicted with false memory?
Also, if there is even there slightest reason to suspect that anti-Semitism has played a role in this case why has this woman continuously evaded Israeli court hearings? If anywhere she should have received a sympathetic hearing there.
Anyway this is part of the reaction of Australian Jewish News which, happily, is not edited by Gaby Miliki:
“The Israeli state prosecutors who pushed the extradition case hoped to eventually convince the judge that she was fit to stand trial. Last Thursday judge Amnon Cohen accepted a new psychiatrist’s report and decided that she is unfit to face extradition proceedings.
But while her condition was deemed serious enough to take extradition off the agenda, it was not deemed to require institutionalisation. Leifer only needs to attend psychiatric treatment as an outpatient. Apart from during these compulsory sessions she will live freely, liberated from the house arrest she has been subjected to for months. While proceedings have been halted but not dropped, the latest ruling may pave the way for Leifer to remain in Israel indefinitely.
Waks is outraged. “if she is that unwell that she’s is unable to face court for an extradition hearing surely she needs to be institutionalised,” he said.
Jewish Community Watch, an international group that promotes justice against paedophiles , called the decision “a disgrace to the Israeli justice system and the entire country.” “
https://www.jewishnews.net.au/leifer/54140
There is suspicion that members of the school board of this Adass college helped Leifer to escape to Israel. This has happened before. Here is an item concerning:
“ … accusations against former Yeshivah teacher David Kramer, now behind bars for sexually abusing a child in the US, who was spirited out of Australia in 1993 after several students alleged they had been molested by him, prompting outraged parents to demand his removal.
The then chairman of the school’s executive, Harry Cooper, this week confirmed that Kramer was flown to Israel at the school’s expense.”
Retaliation against Israel from Australia’s judicial system? You do know Gaby that Australia is one of the four strongest supporters of Israel in the world.
http://www.unwatch.org/new-canadian-pm-trudeau-votes-no-on-16-anti-israel-u-n-resolutions/
All of our MSM is pro-Israel in the extreme as are all of our recent governments. We are almost daily being told what a wonderful country Israel is by our MSM.
Re the failure to extradite, treat your very few friends like this and soon you’ll have none! As Arie says, this inquiry into child sex abuse has been willing to delve into the secret practices of every organised religion in Australia without fear or favour. Why should ultra-orthodox judaism get a pass?
I just looked up the extradition treaty between Australia and Israel. There are a few “discretionary grounds” why a country may refuse to extradite. A Party may refuse to extradite where “ there are substantial grounds for believing that a request for extradition for an ordinary criminal offence has been made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing a person on account of that person’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, political opinion or that the person’s position may be prejudiced for any of those reasons”
Instead of claiming these nonsense psychiatric reasons for not extraditing, Israel should openly mention this Article in the Treaty and state that it believes that this prosecution is being carried forward with the intent of shaming its Jewish population, and demand that the trial be carried in Israel with Australia proving its case in front of impartial Israeli judges. In fact Israel should offer to pay the expense of the trial including bringing the witnesses to Israel. Since Malka Leifer has dual citizenship, under the Treaty she has the option of serving her sentence in Israel.
@Gaby: No more comments in this thread for you.
There is absolutely no grounds for an exception in Leifer’s case. Her criminal offense and investigation have nothing to do with her religion. Australia has prosecuted Roman Catholic priests and other religious figures for sex abuse against child of various religions. She’s being prosecuted solely for her crimes.
Not to mention that Jews were the victims & Jews demanded Australian authorities take action.
Contrary to what you claim, refusing to extradite her shames Judaism, and the Jewish victims whose suffering is demeaned.
I am so disgusted with you I’m placing you on an unprecedented short leash. I’ve never done this to any commenter before, but demeaning the suffering of children is beyond the pale. You may publish only one comment every 24 hrs. Do not violate this or you will lose all comment privileges.
I thought you were a great champion of free speech and free press, but I guess that when its your own backyard, you love the gag orders.
I told you you were done in this thread. Since you ignored me you are now banned.
Keep it up Gaby – there’s only one outcome of this kind of attitude if pursued by the Israeli government. Israel needs all the friends it can get and this is not the way to achieve that.
This sort of thing isn’t new at all. Here’s a different kind of criminal, but of course there’s the same kind of response:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Morel
“Poland twice requested his extradition, but Israel refused to comply and rejected the more serious charges as being false, potentially part of an antisemitic conspiracy, and again rejected extradition on the grounds that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out, and that Morel was in poor health.”
And in more depth:
“In 1998, Poland requested that Morel be extradited for trial, but Israel refused.[4] A reply sent to the Polish Justice Ministry from the Israeli government said that Israel would not extradite Mr. Morel as the statute of limitations had expired on war crimes.[4]
In April 2004, Poland filed another extradition request against Morel, this time with fresh evidence, upgrading the case to “communist crimes against the population.”[4] The main charge against Salomon Morel was that, as commandant of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice, he created for the prisoners in this camp, out of ethnic and political considerations, conditions that jeopardised their lives, including starvation and torture.[4] The charges against Morel were based primarily on the evidence of over 100 witnesses, including 58 former inmates of the Zgoda camp.[4] In July 2005 this request was again formally refused by the Israeli government. The response rejected the more serious charges as being false, potentially part of an antisemitic conspiracy, and again rejected extradition on the grounds that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out, and that Morel was in poor health.[4] Ewa Koj, a prosecutor with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, criticized the decision, but the Polish Foreign Ministry decided not to press the matter further.[6] Morel died in Tel Aviv on February 14, 2007.[4][8]”