This week, Israeli authorities extradited a woman to Australia, where she faces 74 offenses of rape and child sexual abuse. Malka Leifer is believed to have committed the crimes while she was the principal of a Jewish girls school in Melbourne between 2004 and 2008.
“Victims are absolutely relieved and ecstatic to achieve their goal,” Manny Waks, CEO of VoiCSA, an Israel-based organization dedicated to combating child sexual abuse in the global Jewish community, told CBS News. with Leifer’s victims. “But let’s not forget that this is just the beginning. Now his case is really starting in Australia.”
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Leifer fought his extradition for six years. The 54-year-old defense team said she was not healthy enough to stand trial. But last year, a group of Israeli psychiatrist experts determined that Leifer was lying, prompting her extradition.
Leifer’s long legal battle included more than 70 court hearings, he says Waks. But on Monday, local media showed her boarding a handcuffed plane at Israeli Ben Gurion Airport.
“His extradition sends a strong message of hope and encouragement to survivors around the world,” Shana Aaronson, executive director of Magen for Jewish Communities, an Israeli organization that monitors American pedophiles, told CBS News. works to bring them to justice. “I think it’s so important for other victims to see it and be motivated and inspired to fight for their own rights and justice.”
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Israel has become a haven for Jewish sex offenders around the world. A CBS News Research last year it was found that the problem is widespread. Bringing wanted men and women to justice can be difficult, as they often exploit a process called the Law of Return, whereby any Jew can move to Israel and automatically obtain citizenship.
Since Aaron began tracking down the accused pedophiles, he says more than 60 have fled the United States to Israel. He says that because his organization is small and has limited resources, the actual number is likely to be much larger.
“The same thing that is happening in the Catholic Church right now around the world is happening exactly the same in our (Jewish) community,” said Meyer Seewald, the founder of Jewish Community Watch (JCW), a North American organization. American pedophiles told CBS News during our investigation. “The cover-ups are the same, the stigma, the shame.”
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CBS News was there when JCW helped track down convicted pedophile Jimmy Julius Karow in Israel. He fled the United States after being accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Oregon. Once in Israel, he continued his abuse and in 2002 was convicted of child molestation. We were there when JCW confronted him with the Israeli police. In September, he pleaded guilty in an Israeli court and was convicted in other cases on various charges of rape, sodomy and indecent acts.
Karow awaits his sentence.
Months after the transmission of the investigation, Israel changed its procedures to require all Americans who emigrated to the country to undergo an FBI background check.
But activists like Aaronson, Waks and Seewald say there is an endemic problem that helps these perpetrators get help from their communities to flee and then evade justice.
“There was a mechanism behind this campaign to prevent Malka Leifer from being extradited to Australia,” Waks says. “What we saw in her case is that a lot of older rabbis are going to fight for her.”
Aaronson says many difficult questions now need to be asked to make sure this never happens again.
“How was he able to manipulate the judicial system by claiming mental illness? Someone in a government role played a role in protecting him and, if so, what kind of transparency and oversight is needed to ensure that something like this never happens. can’t it happen again? ”he told CBS News. “What can be done to streamline this process, so that victims are not required to wait so many years simply to have a chance to confront their abuser and leave behind this difficult chapter?”