Australian Jury Finds Malka Leifer Guilty Of Raping And Abusing Two Former Students

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Malka Leifer, the former principal of a chareidi Jewish school in Melbourne, has been found guilty of sexually abusing two former students after a 15-year campaign for her to face justice.

After a six-week trial in the County Court of Victoria, a jury on Monday found Leifer, 56, guilty of charges including rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child aged 16 or 17 against two sisters.  However they cleared her of all charges relating to a third sister.

The jury reached the verdict despite not being told about Leifer’s fleeing to Israel when the allegations of abuse began to emerge in 2008. Her flight overseas sparked a drawn-out extradition process which strained relations between Australia and Israel, but she was ultimately brought back to Victoria in 2021.

Leifer will return to court on April 26, to fix a date for the plea which will determine her sentence.

Leifer was found guilty of offenses which occurred against sisters Elly Sapper and Dassi Erlich between 2003 and 2007, when the sisters were pupils of Adass Israel School in Elsternwick, part of a small enclave of chareidi Jewish families in Melbourne’s inner south-east.

The jury found Leifer guilty of 18 rape and sexual assault charges and not guilty of nine other charges. She was cleared of all charges relating to a third sister, Nicole Meyer.

The former principal pleaded not guilty to all 27 charges against her, despite having fled the country in the middle of the night in March 2008 as the allegations against her began to gain ground.

Halfway through the trial, Judge Mark Gamble ordered that Leifer be acquitted on two charges after evidence emerged that the dates of the alleged offending did not match those charged by investigators.

Leifer has been in custody since January 2021 when she returned to Australia, and was transported to court each day in the prison van away from public view. During the trial, she focused closely on her barrister Ian Hill, KC, and rarely looked at the jury.

Leifer was extradited to Australia in January 2021 after a six-year legal battle that at times made the relationship between Australia and Israel uneasy, and angered Melbourne’s Jewish community, which was supportive of the sisters.

The jury was told Leifer had travelled between Israel and Australia, but given no context about what prompted the travel, or whether it related to the allegations.

The jury was also shielded from the ongoing scandal which ended the ministerial career of senior Israeli politician Yaakov Litzman, who struck a plea deal with Israeli prosecutors after admitting to obstructing justice by hindering Leifer’s extradition from Israel to Australia.

Litzman, a former health minister and longtime ally of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was accused of pressuring ministry employees to alter psychiatric evaluations to make it appear that Leifer was unfit to stand trial.

During the trial, the three sisters gave evidence in closed court, with only lawyers, the jury and the judge’s staff allowed to attend while they detailed the abuse Leifer perpetrated against them.

Social worker Chana Rabinowitz, one of the first people to hear the allegations of abuse from one of the sisters, did not give evidence in person in front of a jury.

Instead, a pre-recorded version of her evidence and cross-examination over video link was taken in closed court and played to the jury.

Sex abuse advocate Manny Waks thanked the sisters for sharing their personal and difficult story publicly.

“Today’s guilty verdict is a great day for justice and vindication of the courageous survivors … whose perseverance and dignity have been a hallmark of their long and extraordinary fight for justice,” Waks said.

“We hope that today’s verdict provides them with some peace of mind and contributes to their long-term healing and wellbeing.”

Waks, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse in the chareidi community in Australia, and now head of VoiCSA, an organisation combating child sexual abuse within Jewish communities, called on the Adass Israel School to apologise to the sisters.