The Supreme Court of Victoria in Australia awarded a former yeshivah student who was sexually assaulted by his karate teacher $804,170 in a civil case against his perpetrator and serial abuser.
Manny Waks was 13 when the abuse by his former karate teacher, David Cyprys, then 20, started in 1988 while he was a student at the Yeshivah College in Melbourne, a primary and secondary Jewish day school for boys.
The karate classes taken by Waks, which were organized by the school, were mostly held at the Elwood synagogue up to twice a week.
Waks was abused at the synagogue and the Chabad Yeshivah center in Melbourne, where Cyprys was a caretaker, security guard, locksmith, martial-arts instructor and a youth camp leader, reported The Guardian.
Cyprys touched Waks before and after classes, and while around other students, according to the court ruling. The abuse ended in 1990, Waks told his father of the sexual assault in 1996 and went public as a victim in 2011.
Cyprys was previously charged and pleaded guilty to various wrongdoings, including 12 offenses of child sexual abuse against other children.
Waks settled damages regarding claims of psychiatric injury in September 2018 from Cyprys and 11 other defendants associated with the Yeshivah Centre and Yeshivah College, the Australian Associated Press reported.
Waks now lives in Israel and is the founder of Kol v’Oz, an advocacy and support group for survivors of childhood sexual abuse in Jewish communities around the world.
