Why Malka Leifer's Extradition Gives Me Hope

    

    Sitting at the Friday night Shabbos table last week, I was hit with some shocking news. Casually, one of our guests threw the bombshell that Malka Leifer was extradited to Australia from Israel. 

    "What, you didn't hear yet? It was all over the news last week." 

    She said it so casually, as if discussing last night's meatball and spaghetti dinner or the latest celebrity gossip. Meanwhile, my jaw had dropped so low that I was incapable of forming coherent words. After so many attempts to extradite her, countless interventions of the three sisters at the forefront of the case, and the strained relations between Israel and Australia, it had almost become somewhat of a righteous yet unattainable goal. The kind of thing that you hope for desperately but resign yourself to the thought of it never being achieved. 

    The fact that it was now a reality stunned me speechless. The relief and ecstasy that the news brought me rendered me a jiggling glob of jello, crying while reading article after article describing the case. Her extradition meant that the abuse that Leifer inflicted on so many girls was now taken seriously. Understand me when I say that molestation is not simply a bad experience that happens and then a person gets over. There is no getting over childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Each girl molested was a life snuffed out too early, innocence ripped from the hearts of the young. Childhood sexual abuse goes to the core of a person's humanity, to their very soul, and rips it out to shreds. This leaves the person an empty shell, with shame and guilt filling the hollow of where their youth used to be. Every story I hear of another young child suffering in such a horrific way breaks my heart anew. 

    As a survivor of CSA myself, Malka Leifer's extradition gives me hope. After all of her defense lawyers' attempts to deflect the blame off of Leifer, including claiming her supposed mental illness, the fact that Leifer came and stood trial (albeit virtually) is proof to me that she is being held accountable for her actions. This shows me that although the defense will try everything in their power to prove that she was not responsible for her despicable deeds, she will still in the end be found guilty of the atrocities that she committed. 

    Personally, I have not as of yet gone to court. It is a grueling experience, and many women do not report their abuses and assaults for fear of the hell that the court system puts women through. This perpetuates the silence and shame that accompany so many victims and survivors. To pile on top of that the idea that the lawyers are now trying to plead insanity of the abuser to absolve her of the guilt of her deeds is nauseating and atrocious. A woman with enough sense to flee when the slightest bit of suspicion reflects on her is in no way insane. She is cunning. She is ruthless. She is despicable. But she is not crazy. 

    Malka Leifer's case and extradition represents to me the bringing to justice of all the men and women who made gravely wrong decisions to steal children's childhoods. It brings me solace that justice may prevail amongst the pain of loss and abuse. Although it deeply pains me that this happened to them, I support all of the girls involved in the case, and wish them all healing and the best of luck.