‘Leifer stole my body’: Sisters reveal lasting impact of abuse agony
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Two sisters who were raped by Malka Leifer, the former principal of a Jewish ultra-Orthodox school in Melbourne, have described the agony caused by their former teacher’s abuse, saying it has permanently impacted their lives and relationships.
On Wednesday in the Melbourne County Court, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper confronted Leifer – who was found guilty in April – saying her abuse and subsequent abscondment overseas meant they were constantly, and unexpectedly, seized by intrusive thoughts and struggled with intimacy for years after.
Sisters Elly Sapper, Nicole Meyer and Dassi Erlich leaving the County Court in April.Credit: Simon Schluter
Prosecutor Justin Lewis reoriented the lectern to allow Erlich and Sapper, both former students at Adass Israel School who were abused in the mid-2000s, to address Leifer directly from the bar table, and look at her as they spoke.
Leifer, 56, appeared from the Murray Unit at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and listened intently, seated slightly sideways in blue prison clothing and not reacting to their statements. Leifer spoke briefly, confirming her name, age and that she did not have an occupation due to custody.
Erlich, who spoke first, told the court she believed Leifer would be a source of safety from the traumatic household she grew up in. Instead, her former teacher became the architect of her pain.
“Malka Leifer stole my body, I was forced to sever the connection with my physical self. I did not know how to protect myself, abuse became my norm,” she told the court.
“I dream sometimes of the future I could have had. A future that didn’t revolve around her abuse or the fear that she was hurting other vulnerable girls in the way she did me. The way I know she hurt my sisters.
“Malka Leifer, you shattered my trust, stole my body, and altered my life’s course, but you could not break my spirit.”
She admitted that, even to this day, Erlich worries about the influence Leifer still holds over her, but said she has chosen to “focus on the light within herself” and the “power of [her] own voice”.
“I am resilient, I am powerful, and I am so much more than the limitations you imposed on me.”
A sketch of Malka Leifer in the County Court earlier this year.Credit: Mollie McPherson/Nine News
Sapper, who spoke next, told the court that Leifer was the first person to tell Sapper that she loved her, a feeling alien to her after growing up in a household where she was denied love by her parents.
“She was the first person who said to me she loved me,” Sapper said. “It was a feeling that I had never felt before.”
“When confronted with the painful truth that her love wasn’t real, it was a betrayal of such magnitude, it left me utterly broken.”
Sapper said that during her grief, she had suffered a pregnancy loss: a little girl. Intrusive thoughts would ambush her, paralysing her, she said, and the abuse had changed the way she perceived physical affection.
Malka Leifer (right) appears in a court in Israel in 2018.Credit: AP
“For me, touch can be a beautiful thing … it can give warmth and love. Her touch was a fraudulent lie and robbed me from the security I should have found in someone else’s arms,” she said.
“I refuse to let the broken fragments within me define me entirely … every day forward I will learn to be more free to laugh, to cry and love with an open and genuine heart.”
The sisters have granted The Age permission to use their names. Their sister, Nicole Meyer, also attended.
After a six-week trial, a jury found Leifer guilty in April of 18 charges, including rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child aged 16 or 17 against two sisters. They cleared her of all charges relating to Meyer.
The former principal’s prosecution became an international scandal when she was rushed out of the country in the middle of the night in March 2008, as allegations of her sexual abuse against students began to mount. She would not return to Victoria to face justice for more than 10 years.
Earlier this month, police reopened their investigation into board members from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish school who in 2008 may have assisted Leifer in fleeing to Israel.
The jury was told Leifer had travelled between Israel and Australia but given no context about what prompted the travel, or whether it related to the allegations.
Time served in Israel may be considered in Leifer’s sentence in Australia.
If you need support, call the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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