Australian Jews blast Netanyahu’s health minister candidate implicated in pedophile case
Malka Leifer faces 74 charges of sex abuse in Australia during her eight-year stint at an all-girls school
Israel’s beleaguered premier Benjamin Netanyahu has submitted his recommendation for the cabinet to appoint as health minister a controversial Orthodox rabbi also embroiled in a corruption case involving the former principal of a Jewish school down under wanted for pedophilia.
Israeli police have recommended that United Torah Judaism’s Yaakov Litzman, currently serving as deputy health minister, be charged with fraud and breach of trust for allegedly pressing ministry employees to produce a false psychiatric report for Malka Leifer claiming she is unfit for trial in order to block her extradition to Australia.
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Australia’s Jewish communities denounced the prospect of Litzman’s appointment to an important ministerial position, with the Zionist Federation of Australia publishing a lengthy open letter to Netanyahu entreating him to reconsider.
Israel Police have also recommended that Litzman be charged with bribery for his role in preventing the closure of an unsanitary restaurant of an associate.
Leifer faces 74 charges of sex abuse in Australia, having left Israel in 2000 to go work at the all-girls Adass Israel ultra-Orthodox school in Melbourne. Once allegations of her sexual abuse surfaced eight years later, school board members helped the mother of eight purchase a plane ticket to escape back to Israel, according to the Times of Israel publication.
Netanyahu's nomination comes as he fights to maintain his grip on power following two back-to-back failed elections that coincided with the attorney general's announcement to indict the veteran leader.