Upheaval in the Land Down Under

 

Australia is a very strange place. 

Aesthetically it is known to be a very beautiful place. Breathtaking scenery, lots of sunshine and greenery and nice urban areas, as well. The folks there are very friendly to each other and even address their fellows as "mates".

כולה משקה כגן השם כארץ מצרים באכה מלבורנה.

Kind of like Sodom.

But, to us, it is strange. It is totally on the other side of the world, beneath the equator and many time zones away. Their winter is our summer and their summer our winter. Despite the British influence from the colonial era and our "common language", it is a foreign land with a foreign culture. Strange plants and stranger beasts.  To me, it comes across as a very inhospitable place that has always been dominated by the law of the jungle – might makes right.

Kind of like Sodom.

We know that parts of it used to be a British penal colony. All the rough and tumble riffraff was sent there to fend for themselves. These were the original “white men” of Australia. These were the ones that subdued the natives and industrialized the continent. They “civilized” it to be just like Europe. Just like the noble Spanish conquistadors who wiped out built up Latin America and just like the puritan Dutch who adored abhorred apartheid in Africa. These are the good white folks who run the place today. And they haven’t changed much.

Many people assume that Australia is a liberal western democracy like all others. This is not entirely true. It is indeed very liberal – anything goes. It can also be called “western” as in the “wild west”. (I think they call it “outback” there.) And I guess it can be called a “democracy”. They vote for their tyrannical rulers – just like we Americans do. But even if it may be the home of the brave, it is not the land of the free.

It is known as the only western land with a constitution that does not have a Bill of Rights. As such, there is no basic right to free speech, no basic right to privacy, to remain silent or to bear arms. Many of these things are protected by what is called “common law” or by separate state laws but they are not fundamental rights.

It is almost the same thing, so what is the difference?

The difference is as follows. If something is a fundamental right, the burden of proof is on the aggressor that he did not infringe upon the rights of the victim. If it is only a common law, such as a law that forbids “invasion of privacy” even though there is no basic right to privacy, then the burden of proof is on the victim to prove that the law protecting his privacy was violated.

Kind of like Sodom.

Of course, our State of Israel is a very close rival. I am not sure why the sources that stated that Australia is "the only” western liberal democracy that does not have a bill of rights overlooked our tiny enclave. It may be because we are considered a middle eastern “oriental” country and not “western” (even though they are way more “east” than we are). Or it may be because, not only do we lack a bill of rights, but we don’t even have a constitution! Hence, Australia is the only western liberal democracy with a constitution that has no Bill of Rights.

As such, I am told that there is a lot of unrest going on down [under] there of late. This is largely due to very draconian Covid and vaccination mandates for which there is no legal recourse to oppose. To begin with, Victoria and NSW have just undergone a four-month total lockdown – the longest in the world! They have even closed borders between their own neighboring states.

Kind of like Sodom.

I am told that people – adults and minors - have been physically forced to be vaccinated against their will (this is not verified). People who don’t want to vax are losing their jobs and livelihood and peaceful, protesters are getting arrested, fined and beaten up. Oh, and qualified doctors are losing their licenses. 

Kind of like Sodom.

This is really something for the nation that ranks 103 in total cases (Israel is 31) and 164 in cases per million (Israel is 14 and ahead of the US); 111 in total deaths (Israel is 61) and 170 in deaths per million (Israel is 81). They sure have one deadly plague raging there! 

To be fair, there are indeed strict Covid mandates here in Israel and in the US and other “democratic” countries. Nevertheless, Australia stands out as the most unforgiving and heavy handed and causing the most economic and social damage for a very trivial amount of actual damage from the “pandemic”. (Don't more people die from snake bites and croc attacks there every year?)

Sure enough, the ground is shaking in Australia. On Sept. 21 (the first day of Sukkos), there was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in the vicinity of Melbourne. Earthquakes over there are very rare, and some reports said that it was the most powerful on record. It caused a good deal of moderate damage and, B”H, no serious casualties. According to the NY Times, “the quake…collapsed the walls of buildings in Melbourne... It forced residents to flee apartments, shattered windows, left cracks in roads and led to power outages.”

I wonder if anyone’s sukka collapsed!

In any case, we Torah Jews are taught to look at this sort of event as a very significant message from the “Boss”. He is not happy with what is going on in Australia and Melbourne in particular.

וישקפו על פני סדום.

Later, on October 1, Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales in Sydney, resigned her post. The official story line is an investigation into some personal hanky-panky and a related funding grant in Wagga Wagga (that's an aboriginal term for "hanky-panky"). The rumor mill claims that she and her colleagues were on the take for a 65m (Australian?) dollar payoff from Pfizer to impose these lockdowns and vaccination mandates.

We may never know the truth (though we can probably all believe the hanky-panky Wagga Wagga part), but the rule of thumb is never to believe anything until the fact checkers officially deny them.

Regardless, it is clear that politically, socially, economically and even geographically, Australia is not very stable right now. 

Let’s bring this a bit closer to home.

I noted that, for all its deficiencies, Australia is not very different than our own State of Israel. Both of us are not very democratic and do not profess guaranteed rights and liberties. I believe that both of us preserved many antiquated tyrannical British laws, except that the ones that we preserved are from the Mandate and not from the Kingdom. As such, one constitutional “right” that they do have there that we don’t have here is a right to trial by jury (Section 80), at least for criminal offenses.

On the other hand, just like in the US, in our wonderful State of Israel, and in most other progressive “western” countries, in Australia as well, one does not need any objective evidence or testimony to convict an accused person. The testimony of the accuser alone with nothing more can suffice to convict. As I have written incessantly in the past, I find this very distressing. One need look no further than the National Registry of Exonerations (US) to determine how corrupt and unjust such a system truly is.

It's kind of like Sodom.

I’m sure my loyal readers (both of them) know where this is going.

As I was saying, Australia is becoming a very rough place. It is getting rough on its non-Jewish citizens so there is no room to imagine it is any better for the Jews. Of course, there are some fine Jewish communities in Australia and some fine Jewish people, but living Jewish in Australia is more in spite of its environs than because of them. My personal opinion is that things will get worse for the Australian Jews before they get better and they should think about leaving.

But I say that about everyone in chutz l'aretz.

I have mentioned many times that for any Jew to leave Eretz Yisrael for anywhere in the diaspora, especially nowadays, is a tragedy. This applies to the US and Canada (don’t get me started), South Africa and, of course, Europe. But Australia looks to be especially worrisome. It is a volcano that is pre-erupting. No telling if and when it will “upheave”.

Just - don't look back behind you.

I think it’s a tragedy as well as halachically questionable for any Israeli Jew to choose to settle there. But to kidnap somebody from Eretz Yisrael and send them to the thugs in Australia for any reason whatsoever is a grievous crime both morally and Halachically and a tremendous chillul Hashem.

And when some of the main players and supporters of this chillul Hashem claim to be religious, mitzva observant Jews and are doing it for some unwarranted, un-Jewish perverted concept of “justice” unsupported by our Torah (or Rabbanim or any Beis Din), it is a chillul Hashem to the n^th power.

And so, I was deeply distressed last January when the forces of the erev rav prevailed to allow the secular post-Zionist government, with the aid of religious Jews, to extradite a Jewish person from the land established to protect all Jews, to the treifene medina of Australia to “face justice” in the courts that need no evidence.

I believe it is the most blatant act of mesira l’mehadrin that I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. Perpetrated and supported by “religious” Jews as well as the non-religious ones.

שמעו דבר השם קציני סדום!

So, what has happened in Australia since January?

There hasn’t been much news until very recently, but over the last month there have been a few developments - some grim and some slightly optimistic.

Firstly, for some reason, the authorities needed to drop 4 of the 74 charges and this left her defense team with a mere 70 charges to fight against. What a break!

Alas, to compensate, the justice loving Australians managed to come up with another 20 charges to tack on to the list! This was due to “new information of two of the three complainants who described additional, severe sexual incidents”.

Problem is, she was only extradited on the basis of the initial 74 charges and that is all they are allowed to adjudicate without additional extradition hearings about the new charges. However, if they get “permission” from the Israeli government to add on the extra 20 charges, they are allowed to do so (clause 17).

So, the Australians requested the Israeli Minister of “Justice” to approve the addition of another 20 charges. The current Minister of Justice is Gideon Saar – leader of the “New Hope” party. He was only too happy to comply. No worries, mate!

What a guy! We religious Israeli citizens can feel safe with our Shofet Gideon. He is definitely our New Hope. השם עמך גיבור החיל!

On the other side of the coin, there was a “committal hearing” (I suppose this is like a grand jury) which was held precisely during aseret yemei teshuva and across Yom Kippur. (They adjourned the hearing for Yom Kippur itself but I don’t think on erev Yom Kippur or the day after which was erev Shabbos.) The media is saying that they cannot disclose much because most of the testimony was done behind closed doors and a lot of it was deemed inadmissible. Nevertheless, there were four very interesting “witnesses” that we know at least part of what they said and it does not really help the prosecution’s case.

The first is a Spanish speaking "cleaner" at the school who said that he witnessed Mrs. Leifer bringing girls into her office on Sundays but he has no idea what she discussed with them. Incidentally, this fellow does not seem to know English very well (and surely not Hebrew or Yiddish). The article says he required an interpreter.

This testimony seems to be rather neutral. I assume that nobody is denying that Mrs. Leifer had private discussions with her students, so it doesn’t support anybody’s case. But the fact that he could not see any indication of “foul play” and the fact that, technically, burden of proof of wrongdoing is upon the accusers and prosecution, I think it helps the defense.

The second was a co-worker at the school who was present at a board meeting where it was decided to terminate Mrs. Leifer’s position. She was not told why. Also, Mrs. Leifer was not at the meeting.

She said that when she went to say goodbye to Mrs. Leifer: "She was very upset with what they were doing to her … she definitely said, 'I did nothing wrong,' and pretty much, she felt very unfair with what was happening."

Again, this does not make anybody’s case, but it does confirm that Mrs. Leifer maintained her innocence from the very start. This adds to the prosecution’s burden of proof.

The last two were much more interesting.

One was the Australian/Israeli counselor, Mrs. Chana Rabinowitz, who was counselling Dassi Erlich and was the first to convey the allegations to Australia. Apparently, when the accusers filed their complaints in the year 2011, the Victorian police contacted her and asked her for an official statement. She refused and explained her reasons in an email. A part of this email was made public and she stated as follows:

“I’m not sure I want to go on record testifying. I have been warned it is totally possible she can one day turn to me and decide to sue me too for speaking to the police. I guess I’m a bit suspect that when someone is in something for the possible payoff then perhaps in the future they will think to get money from me as well if they could.”

The article continues:

In court on Thursday, Ms Rabinowitz said she could not remember who had told her the complainants were trying to access a victims-of-crime grant, but she confirmed she had been warned by her legal counsel not to go on the record because she could be pursued by the complainants for money in the future.

In other words, she is saying that she had grounds to suspect that the accusers are in this for ulterior motive$. She had reason to fear that she may also become one of their victims.

Interesting.

But the last and, I think, most revealing was Dassi Erlich’s ex-husband, Joshua Erlich.

He claimed that after they married and first moved to Israel, the couple actually stayed in Mrs. Leifer’s vacant house (she was still in Australia). He said that throughout their relationship, his ex-wife would speak highly of the woman she is now accusing of abuse. He said:

"All the time that she had spoken about her, she had spoken about her being in place of her mother and being a supportive figure."

He said that during their first year of marriage, Mrs. Leifer visited Israel on a number of occasions and they would meet up. When he spoke with her about the meetings, "She would speak very positively of them."

Then he said that in January 2008, he overheard a conversation between his ex-wife and one of her sisters, Mrs. Meyer, about a session she had with a social worker in Israel. His wife sounded panicked and had "mentioned something about her relationship with Mrs Leifer" to the social worker, Chana Rabinowitz.

"Dassi was very worried about how it had been taken, and that Mrs Rabinowitz was going to contact other people in Melbourne to speak about it," he said. "She was very concerned about what was going to happen next, and she was not sure why it was being taken in such a serious way."

When asked by Mrs Leifer's lawyer whether the social worker had taken things "out of all proportion", Mr Erlich agreed.

"That was my sense from the conversation, yes," he said.

Mr Erlich also recalled another conversation in 2011 between his ex-wife and one of her sisters, Ms Meyer, about the former principal.

"I heard them saying they wanted to call her up and to cause her problems. They were laughing about it. It seemed to me that they just wanted to harass her," he said.

"When you say they were laughing about it, do you mean that literally … as though it was a fun and exciting thing to do," Mr Hill asked.

"That was my sense," Mr Erlich said.

Taken things "out of all proportion", huh?

Clearly, these last two testimonies do not help the prosecution’s case. I am fully aware that there were the testimonies of the accusers which probably portray a different picture, but the impression I get is that they do not have much in the way of outside evidence or outside testimony to back them up. And, if that is so, then it ought to be a hard case to prove.

If I was the judge and I got this impression at this stage, I would probably rule that there is not enough evidence to pursue the case and dismiss it. But this is because I am a Torah student and think like a Jew. I think using Talmudic logic and Talmudic principles. 

Alas, the western system of justice and the western non-Jewish mentality is that the “eye-witness” testimony of an accuser is first-class testimony. The testimony of anyone who is willing to swear on a Bible and claims to be telling the truth is as good as gold no matter how biased, untrustworthy, implausible or unsubstantiated he or she may be.

This is Midas Sodom.

And so, the accused was indicted and ordered to stand trial.

The “western” world is a world of keri. It is not a world of justice. Certainly not our definition of "justice". It is the justice of Sodom.

For us Jews, the West is a very inhospitable, hostile, and scary place. This applies to North America, Europe, even to liberal secular Israel and certainly to Australia. All of it is Sodom.

Let’s get away from there and - don't look back!

לולי ה' צב-אות הותיר לנו שריד כמעט, כסדם היינו, לעמרה דמינו.