A Welcome 180

Manny Waks at the podium - panel members seated to his left (NYJW)

At 18, he left the Orthodox community, his family publicly confronting his abusers, his faith shattered by the abuse he had suffered and the indifferent response he had encountered from many leaders of his then-charedi community. 

In an opening night panel discussion, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of the charedi Agudath Israel of America, said the umbrella organization’s rabbinic leadership now supports an extension of the statute of limitations in New York State for sexual abuse victims to bring civil and criminal suits.
 Agudath had earlier opposed such an extension, citing the potentially financial liability that day schools, camps and other institutions could face…
 Sexual abuse is “a very, very important issue. This is something we can’t ignore,” Rabbi Zwiebel said... “We’ve become more and more aware of it. 

(T)he concept of mesira… is not applicable when the evidence against an accused abuse perpetrator is clear. He said charedi rabbis are instructed to tell members of their communities to immediately bring accusations of clear sexual abuse to police, instead of to rabbis. And he invited Jewish victims of sexual abuse at the hands of other Jews to bring a case in a beit din (Jewish court), where no statute of limitations exists. 

“Twenty years ago, nobody came to these conferences” — if they even took place, Munk said. In the conservative charedi world, where topics like sexuality are traditionally considered a violation of modesty standards, and abuse at the hands of community members would be considered a collective embarrassment, the topic was rarely discussed openly.
 “Nobody’s quiet anymore,” Munk said. 

 (I)t “was not a small thing” that Rabbi Zwiebel “was willing to state on the record that he supports an extension of civil” statutes of limitations. “It is a big deal and he should be given credit for it … and held to it.” Berkovits praised Waks’ initial advocacy work in Australia as being “light years ahead of anywhere else. He didn’t quit until the institutions began dealing with the issue. He’s done it at great personal cost.” She called Waks the most successful anti-abuse activist who had been a survivor.