By Oyintari Ben
At an ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Australia, a former Israeli headteacher was found guilty of sexually assaulting two teenage students.
A Melbourne jury found Malka Leifer guilty of raping and indecently assaulting Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper between 2003 and 2007.
However, Nicole Meyer, the third sister, was ruled not guilty of being abused by her.
Leifer, 56, fought extradition from Israel for years and had pleaded not guilty to more than two dozen counts.
But in 2021, a court in Israel demanded that she be returned to Australia.
Evidence that Leifer was a beloved figure at Melbourne’s Adass Israel School, where the three sisters were pupils, was presented during the six-week trial in Victoria’s County Court.
They claimed Leifer had abused them in segregated classes at school, on school trips, and at the head teacher’s house.
After graduating and returning to the school as student teachers, they claimed the abuse persisted.
With her sisters standing by her side, Ms Erlich told reporters outside the County Court of Victoria, “When we look back at the journey that it took, everything that happened in Israel, it was so unbelievable that we get to this time and we have: she’s guilty, she’s guilty; that can’t be taken away, she is guilty.”
Justin Lewis, the prosecutor, claimed Leifer had demonstrated “a tendency to have a sexual interest in girls.” He claimed that she had abused not only the sisters’ “vulnerability [and] their ignorance in sexual matters” but also her position.
The then-teenager’s upbringing, which was centred on their extremely conservative Jewish religion and community, left them with little knowledge of sex, he claimed.
“She pretended that she loved them and told them she was helping them, knowing full well that they were neglected at home,” Mr Lewis argued.
But Leifer’s defence barrister Ian Hill claimed the allegations were false and questioned the reliability of witnesses. Leifer’s legal team did not summon any defence witnesses – including Leifer herself.
In addition, they claimed Leifer was at a deficit in defending herself against the accusations due in part to the passage of time.
Following allegations against her, Leifer fled to Israel in 2008.
The mother of eight was detained at Australia’s request in 2014, but an Israeli judge suspended her extradition two years later because she was mentally unfit to stand trial.
She was later captured on camera by covert private detectives shopping and depositing a check at a bank. This prompted Israeli authorities to launch an investigation and detain her once more in February 2018.
She had been “impersonating someone with mental illness,” according to the Israeli court that ordered her extradition in 2021.
After nearly two weeks of deliberations, the jurors found Leifer guilty of 18 offences involving Ms Erlich and Ms Sapper despite hearing only a small amount of evidence regarding her trip to Israel and the extradition.
They cleared her of nine counts, including the five involving Ms Meyer and several involving Ms Erlich.
At a later date, Leifer will be sentenced.
