A former Israeli headmistress has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two teenage students at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Australia, 15 years after fleeing to Israel to avoid arrest.
The jury found Malka Leifer guilty on all 18 charges, including raping a student during a sleepover and sexually assaulting another adolescent during a school camp. She was cleared of nine more charges.
When she was first accused of sexual assault in 2008, Leifer was the principal of the Adass Israel School in Melbourne.
An Israeli headmistress was convicted of sexual abuse at an Australian school.
Leifer, a dual Israeli-Australian citizen, fled to Israel before being apprehended, resulting in a protracted court battle spanning more than 70 extradition hearings.
The fugitive mother-of-eight was finally flown back to Australia in 2021 and is scheduled to stand trial in February of this year.
During the trial, prosecutors claimed that Leifer sexually assaulted three sisters who attended the Adass Israel School, which is part of a reclusive Jewish sect on the city’s outskirts.
The jury convicted Leifer of sexually assaulting two of the sisters after a seven-week trial and seven days of deliberation.
As the verdicts were read, Leifer, who has maintained her innocence throughout, sat with her hands folded and stared straight ahead.
Dassi Erlich, one of the sisters, said that Leifer’s abuse “held us hostage for many years.”
“Today, we can begin to reclaim the power she stole from us as children,” she told reporters outside the court.
Elly Sapper, another sister, stated that justice had been served.
“She abused the three of us for years, and while today’s verdict may not adequately reflect that, Malka Leifer was finally found accountable today,” Elly Sapper said.
The court heard how Leifer took advantage of her high status in the Adass community to prey on the sisters.
According to the indictment, Leifer raped one of her students in 2006 after inviting her to her home to “sleep over for kallah lessons” – a type of pre-wedding etiquette class that includes sexual education.
Prosecutor Justin Lewis said in his opening statement that Leifer told the students on other occasions that she was preparing them to be wives.
“This will help you for your wedding night,” Leifer told Lewis after one sexual assault.
During another incident, she allegedly said, “This is what is good for you.”
Leifer left Australia in 2008 after one of the students revealed the sexual assaults to her therapist. She eventually settled in the occupied West Bank’s ultra-orthodox Emmanuel settlement.
In 2012, Australian police charged Leifer and requested her extradition from Israel two years later, kicking off a lengthy legal saga.
Leifer claimed that she was catatonic due to crippling depression and that she was mentally incapable of standing trial.
The extradition procedure was halted until a private investigator secretly filmed Leifer going about her daily chores, seemingly unaffected by the mental illnesses she claimed.
In 2021, she was finally extradited to Melbourne.
According to Leifer’s lawyer, Ian Hill, she denied “all of the criminal conduct alleged by each of the complainants” and that her interactions with the students were “professional and proper.”
“We don’t believe they’re telling the truth,” he said.
