3rd Arrest Made at Scandal-Ridden Melbourne Yeshiva
Melbourne’s orthodox Jewish Yeshivah community has been rocked by another alleged child abuse scandal with a youth worker arrested on indecency charges.
Former Chabad Youth leader Aron Ezriel Kestecher, 26, of East St Kilda, has been charged with four counts of indecent acts on a child under the age of 16.
Kestecher, known as ”Ezzy”, is also understood to have recently worked as a substitute teacher at Yeshivah College, the East St Kilda boys’ school at the centre of a police investigation into paedophilia.
The arrest comes a month after Yeshivah College security guard David Samuel Cyprys was charged with multiple counts of indecent assault and gross indecency after he allegedly repeatedly abused boys from the school between 1984 and 1991. When Cyprys appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court last month, Detective Senior Constable Lisa Metcher accused members of the Yeshivah community of lying to police and trying to cover up abuse claims. ”They failed to act in any way to protect children,” she said in court.
Police wrote to former Yeshivah College students earlier this year, urging them to contact Crime Stoppers if they were assaulted or witnessed an assault between 1989 and 1993. The investigation was prompted by claims that former Yeshivah College teacher David Kramer had fled Australia in the early 1990s after parents complained he had abused their children.
The school did not report the claims to police at the time.
The Age understands Victoria Police hope to extradite Kramer from the United States when he is released from prison, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for molesting a 12-year-old boy at a synagogue in St Louis.
Earlier this year Yeshivah College principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler wrote a letter encouraging anyone who was aware of or suspected abuse to contact child protection services or police.
”If you have any concerns about abuse … please contact me directly … and I will immediately contact the relevant authorities,” Mr. Smukler wrote.
Meanwhile, Kestecher has been released on bail and will appear in the Moorabbin Magistrates Court on November 29.
shay
omg!
Past Nisht
Remove this story…..
who cares
seriously…this is an outrage
aussie
This is rubbish. Ezzy was thrown out of his job and Yeshivah a few years ago after some stuff happened, even though it was nowhere near deserving of prison, the Yeshivah did their best to ostracize him. Most of the story just repeats stuff which was already written before.
student at yeshivah
he was NOT a substitute teacher ever! and never had something to do directly with the school!
be clever
Im not purporting to claim his innocence or guilt. But everyone should just know – these allegations have been made by ONE person – and the courts have to yet to prove guilt.
THis is not the same as man who has been preying on children for tens of years and has many victims. Maybe g-d forbidit would have ended up taht way….
But until he is PROVEN guilty- PLEASE RESERVE YOUR JUDGEMENT.
There are many things at play…and we just have to wait and see…
exaggerated
Why are you saying theres a third? There is one in jail in the US, and this is the second arrest in recent times!?
G-d is the True Judge
I don’t understand why this has to be published. A scar on the community, a scar on the school and a scar on Ezzy. Editors, you have a big zchus to bring people news and a big achrayus. It should not be used for shaming; haven’t we learnt that shaming is like murdering?
ce
somehow we need “checkers” to drop in on all administration of yeshivas. thats all we should be worried about. Its coming out now and we need a way to protect the innocent.
its time.
this ligit issue was hijacked
this ligit issue was hijacked by ppl with an alterior motives,
those who are in the know, are well aware who is trying to exadderate & embelish the problem beyond the literal facts!
just to knock chabad & orthodoxy!
in reality they had to dig up incidents that ended over 20 years ago! AS iF ITS fresh hot news
agreed! hidden agendas
good people, mean well! but dont realize that the story is intended to justify why they reject 95% of ligit teachers rabbis judaism etc
the main accusor
just for the readers interest
the allegations have been made by one person (as mentioned in comment 6) and that one person is the none other than the perpetrator mentioned in the article (DSC), YES, the one who is being charged is the one who is behind the allegations of Ezzy!
Chani
Any individual with intellectual integrity will be able to understand immediately that this is an indefinite charge, since only one child has expressed concern. Additionally, this article was taken from an anti-Semitic paper, of which the editors enjoy exaggerating and developing the stories which effect the Jews. There is no hard proof that this young man is guilty.
With some inside knowledge I would like to add that the people who are responsible for this charge wanted to prove that the school takes action when allegations are made, after the incident with DSC which caused the public to think the opposite. Therefore, this story has nothing to do with justice or truth.
For the above reasons it is absolutely ridiculous and a shame on crownheights.info that it has been posted.
Does this website have policies which ensure that the information published is factual and objective? Or do the editors lack common sense and merely copy and paste articles from papers which arrogant Jew-hating morons write? I urge the readers as well as the seemingly oblivious editors of this website to filter carefully between fabrication and fact.
On second thought, are you editors just like those of The Age, in that you smile each time the Australian Jewish community is yet again shamed with these issues.
corruption!
For your intellectual integrity you should know that the one who is responsible for Kestecher’s charge is DSC as he is trying to divert the attention from himself unto someone else; the “victim” is DSC’s son; such corruption.
Mendel Also
No.4, Aussie writes, “Ezzy was thrown out of his job and Yeshivah a few years ago after some stuff happened.”
I would really be curious to know what “some stuff” means. C’mon fill me in (not meant literally, you may be one of those too).
# 12 and # 6
really? really? i am related to one of the victims. and it is NOT the one mentioned in the article. besides him there’s another two.
ezzy was never a substitute teacher
Bob
Thank you, CrownHeights.info, for bringing this report to the community’s attention. The more we are aware that predators exist within our community, the safer our children will be. There is nothing fabricated in this article; it is merely a report of allegations and an arrest that was made. The legal process will take its course and we will then know whether Mr. Kestecher did what he is alleged to have done.
mother for the safety of minors
BARUCH HASHEM!!!! This is so WONDERFUL, as soon as we can start holding people accountable, we can start protecting our children!!!!! Surely every parent supports the right to have their kids safe at school???
Keep our kids safe
How wonderful that we are FINALLY exposing and investigating allegations of molestation in one of our Mosdos, BORUCH HASHEM. which parent doesnt want to sent their child to a safe school?
the bottom line
Whether or not the allegations in this article prove accurate let’s emphasize what is really most important about this subject and the fact that criminals and victims in this area are finally albeit alarmingly SLOWLY being recognized in Chabad.
Ironically the Melbourne Yeshiva is being labeled “scandal-ridden” when in fact they are possibly the only Chabad yeshiva that is currently participating in REMOVING these scandalous crimes from their midst and in doing so saving the lives of their future students.
Besides for the steps taken by http://www.crownheightswatc… to report individual cases in the Crown Heights community – some of which have occurred in yeshivos – there have yet to be true and bold steps taken by Chabad yeshivos themselves in communities across the USA, Europe and Eretz Yisroel to address such crimes that have taken place in the past and CONTINUE TO TAKE PLACE TODAY.
ie. it is KNOWN that there have been serious incidents of child molestation in Oholei Torah Crown Heights and Toras Emes Yerushalayim and those very teachers who have destroyed students lives were never confronted and CONTINUE TO SERVE IN THESE YESHIVOS likely messing up the future of young innocent boys.
Molestation criminals are UNWELL and require serious therapy. Their behaviors are not one-off and will be repeated wherever they are allowed to work so you achieve NOTHING when you silence a story and keep these people in a boys yeshiva but perpetrate destruction.
Our community has established boards of Rabbanim for so many big and important projects – Shluchim’s needs, annual kinnus events, etc. What about the safety and protection of our children and the emotional health and credibility of yeshiva hanhala???? It is HIGH TIME to set up a serious board of true Rabbanim to CLEAN OUT THE DANGERS IN OUR CHILDREN’S YESHIVOS.
If YOU serve in a yeshiva consider it your CHIYUV to take action regarding teachers or mashpiim who are messing with the lives and souls of helpless boys.
Do not respond that it is merely your suspicion and the victims must speak up in order to convict anyone – the victims WILL NOT SPEAK UP at least not for many years and maybe never. They are TRAUMATIZED and have been taught to hide their abuse in shame.
If you are the principal of a yeshiva and are choosing to sweep a story like this under the carpet remember that when you do that you are sweeping hundreds and maybe thousands of boys lives away. If you care b’emes to be mechanech our youth and protect neshomos of klal yisroel then START WITH THIS.
To all the scandal-ridden yeshivos who pretend they know nothing about such stories: it is your CHIYUV to make a move. Bemokom sheayn ish…STAND UP AND DO SOMETHING!