Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mia acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on from Mamma Ma. I'm mea Friedman. You're
Speaker 1: listening to no filter, and you're about to hear a
Speaker 1: very big story. When she was just fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: Darcy Olick was sexually abused for the first time by
Speaker 1: a woman called Malka Laifer, who was the principal of
Speaker 1: her school. So were Dussi's sisters and likely many many
Speaker 1: other young girls. And these girls were particularly vulnerable because
Speaker 1: they were part of an extreme ultra orthodox religious community,
Speaker 1: which meant that they had no understanding of their bodies
Speaker 1: or their body parts, let alone what sex or abuse
Speaker 1: even was. Many of these girls faced unimaginable cruelty at home,
Speaker 1: and they had no content act whatsoever outside their community.
Speaker 1: Even though it wasn't in some far off remote location,
Speaker 1: it was in the middle of Melbourne. The girls in
Speaker 1: this community were barely educated and they quite literally didn't
Speaker 1: have the words for what was happening to them, and
Speaker 1: so the abuse went on and on and on for years.
Speaker 1: This chronic abuser of girls who were in her care
Speaker 1: hid in plain sight as a pillar of her community, powerful, admired, respected.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until later in Dussy's life that she learned
Speaker 1: the words for what happened to her and found her voice.
Speaker 1: And finally, thanks to Dussy's incredible courage, the crimes of
Speaker 1: Malchalafer were finally exposed to the world. But that wasn't
Speaker 1: the end of the story, because soon after she spoke up,
Speaker 1: the leaders in Dussy's community spirited Leafer out of the
Speaker 1: country and back to Israel overnight to protect her, and
Speaker 1: he could be said to protect themselves. Darcy, along with
Speaker 1: her sisters, police and prosecutors, would spend the next thirteen
Speaker 1: years trying to bring Malchaleffer back to Australia to face justice.
Speaker 1: So how do you survive all of that? Because Darcy
Speaker 1: didn't just survive it. She is finally tentatively thriving and
Speaker 1: she's ready to talk. She's written an extraordinary memoir about
Speaker 1: her life called In Bad Faith, and after reading it,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how she got through it and
Speaker 1: how she's doing now. It is a story unlike any
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. Before you meet DUSSI though, I want
Speaker 1: to emphasize that the community in which she grew up
Speaker 1: practices an extreme type of ultra orthodox Judaism, and like
Speaker 1: any form of religious extremism, it bears very little resemblance
Speaker 1: to the lives of most Jewish people living in Australia
Speaker 1: I'm one of them, or around the world, including Israel.
Speaker 1: There are pockets of extreme religion in many countries, to
Speaker 1: be sure, but please do not let this color your
Speaker 1: view of Judaism, which even in its orthodox form, is
Speaker 1: nothing like what Darsi has experienced. Thank God. Now Dussi
Speaker 1: is unflinchingly honest about the nature of Malkalaifa's abuse, So
Speaker 1: please listen mindfully, and there are links in the show
Speaker 1: notes for anyone who may need support. Here's Dussi. For
Speaker 1: those who don't really understand where in the spectrum the
Speaker 1: Jewish community that you grew up in sits. I guess
Speaker 1: every religion is on a spectrum, right, And at one
Speaker 1: end there's people who have a very loose relationship with
Speaker 1: their faith and are maybe more culturally Jewish, And at
Speaker 1: the other end there is the most extreme form of Judaism.
Speaker 1: Where did the Adas community and the community you grew
Speaker 1: up in sit on that spectrum?
Speaker 2: Well, from people looking in towards the religion just community.
Speaker 2: They would see it as the most extreme way of religion,
Speaker 2: the extreme way of living religion. But growing up in
Speaker 2: that community, that's not at all what I thought. I
Speaker 2: was taught that the best way to practice religion at
Speaker 2: all was to live the way that I did and
Speaker 2: to be in the community that I did, and that
Speaker 2: if you did not live in that way, if you
Speaker 2: do not experience religion literally every single moment of your day.
Speaker 2: We looked at the Jewish people outside of our community
Speaker 2: and didn't really consider them Jewish, or we saw them
Speaker 2: as Jewish but not living the right way. And if
Speaker 2: only they opened their eyes and saw that, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a better way to live, There's a more superior
Speaker 2: way to live.
Speaker 1: It was Judaism, or it was religion really in its
Speaker 1: most extreme form. Can you explain what the life of
Speaker 1: a Jewish girl as you were growing up would look
Speaker 1: like according to the faith and the way your religion
Speaker 1: was practiced in your community, some of the things that
Speaker 1: you had to do, say, dress, all of those things,
Speaker 1: like from the moment you woke up, can you take
Speaker 1: us through a typical day.
Speaker 2: I mean, when I look back at my life and
Speaker 2: I see that it was already predetermined before I even
Speaker 2: was born, who I was going to be, what I
Speaker 2: was going to do, what my journey was going to
Speaker 2: be like. As a young woman growing up in the
Speaker 2: Dusk community, and I knew my role was to do
Speaker 2: everything that I needed to do in order to prepare
Speaker 2: to become a wife and a mother. I was told
Speaker 2: from very very young, I needed to be the person
Speaker 2: that could support my husband in learning Torah and bring
Speaker 2: up a Jewish family. That was my role, and a
Speaker 2: lot of my childhood was framed around that idea. So
Speaker 2: from very very young, we learned all the rules about
Speaker 2: how to have a proper Jewish life. So I remember
Speaker 2: being three years old and waking up and getting really
Speaker 2: nervous about what way do I wash my hands? Because
Speaker 2: there was a certain way about how to wash your hands.
Speaker 2: What foot do you put out of your bed first?
Speaker 2: Because it goes down to the minutus details. How do
Speaker 2: you step out of bed, how do you get dressed?
Speaker 2: There was rules around absolutely everything, how to go to
Speaker 2: the bathroom, what do you do after the bathroom? So
Speaker 2: I remember being very nervous as a little kid that
Speaker 2: I was going to make a mistake and that I
Speaker 2: wouldn't know what to do. But there was our schooling,
Speaker 2: and my parents were reminding us all the time about
Speaker 2: how to be that good Jewish girl. From three, I
Speaker 2: knew that I had to in some ways be invisible
Speaker 2: and not be seen, and not be recognized and be hidden.
Speaker 2: And I knew I had to wear tights and long
Speaker 2: dresses and skirts that go over my knees. The idea
Speaker 2: was that modesty was very, very precious and I shouldn't
Speaker 2: all bring attention to myself, and that was something that
Speaker 2: you know, carried through right till I was an adult.
Speaker 2: There was a very big separation between men and women
Speaker 2: in the community, and I didn't speak to a man
Speaker 2: except for my father until I actually sat down with
Speaker 2: the man that I was going to marry.
Speaker 1: How old were you then?
Speaker 2: I was eighteen at the time, and my mother was
Speaker 2: in the next room supervising our date to make sure
Speaker 2: that we didn't touch. You know, I would have not
Speaker 2: even thought about touching. The idea of touching this man
Speaker 2: that I didn't know, this stranger, when I had never
Speaker 2: spoken to another man, was so ludicrous to me. But
Speaker 2: she was there to make sure that nothing underwards happened,
Speaker 2: and we had four dates. I think it was over
Speaker 2: a week, and by that weekend we were engaged.
Speaker 1: The idea of following all those rules was that to
Speaker 1: please God.
Speaker 2: I grew up with a very fearful idea of God.
Speaker 2: So God would punish anyone or anytime anything bad happened
Speaker 2: to the community is because we had angered God or
Speaker 2: you know, God was displeased in some way. And I
Speaker 2: know my parents also really drew on that fear a
Speaker 2: lot that you know, we would be bad Jewish girls.
Speaker 2: And I wrote about this a little bit in my book.
Speaker 2: But when I turned twelve, I knew that the responsibility
Speaker 2: of being a good Jewish girl was on me. It
Speaker 2: was no longer on my parents. And this idea that
Speaker 2: I could be a good Jewish girl was something, you know,
Speaker 2: I would rather die than turn twelve and know that
Speaker 2: that responsibility was on me.
Speaker 1: Were your parents born into that community.
Speaker 2: They actually weren't. They joined the community when they moved
Speaker 2: to Australia before I was born, quite a few years
Speaker 2: before I was born, and they were welcomed by another
Speaker 2: ultra Orthodox community, the Hubbad community. I imagine, coming as
Speaker 2: immigrants to a new country, where did they come from.
Speaker 2: They came from England. My mother was born in Israel,
Speaker 2: my dad was born in England and they met when
Speaker 2: they were both quite young as well. I think my
Speaker 2: mother was sixteen and got married at seventeen to my
Speaker 2: father and moved to England several years later with two
Speaker 2: young children.
Speaker 1: Were they both always very religious.
Speaker 2: No, they weren't religious, so they kind of were traditional
Speaker 2: culturally Jewish. They weren't religious at all actually, so they
Speaker 2: moved here and were welcoming into this religious community. The
Speaker 2: Hubbad community does do a lot of outreach, so they
Speaker 2: were instantly you know, as these new immigrants had this
Speaker 2: ready made community for them where people were very welcoming,
Speaker 2: they were friendly, they were open. By the time I
Speaker 2: was born, though, my parents had realized this was what
Speaker 2: religious life was like. But they didn't want to be
Speaker 2: in a community that welcomed outsiders and allowed everyone to
Speaker 2: be a part of the community. They wanted the more exclusive,
Speaker 2: a dust community that was very closed and very insular.
Speaker 1: So it was almost like an even more extreme version
Speaker 1: that they were looking for that was completely separate from
Speaker 1: the rest of Melbourne and the rest of Australia and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. How many people were in
Speaker 1: that community, and how do you actually live in a
Speaker 1: community within a big city and not have any exposure.
Speaker 2: Very easily actually, when you don't really go outside of
Speaker 2: the community more. I think it was four blocks. I
Speaker 2: pretty much lived my entire life up until eighteen. I mean,
Speaker 2: of course we journeyed out and went to the country
Speaker 2: or the beach or stuff like that. But I remember
Speaker 2: going in the car and my parents passing a billboard
Speaker 2: and telling us all to look down because there was
Speaker 2: something immodest on the billboard and we couldn't look. So
Speaker 2: we lived pretty much within those four blocks where everything existed,
Speaker 2: Jewish shops and my school or my friends lived within
Speaker 2: that you know kind of area.
Speaker 1: You know, what about things like services like doctors and police,
Speaker 1: and you know, having to go and get your driver's license.
Speaker 1: The members of the at US community must have had
Speaker 1: to interact with the secular world to do those things,
Speaker 1: or was everything within those four blocks.
Speaker 2: Not as a young girl, and definitely not even as
Speaker 2: a teenager, so I didn't get my driver's license. That
Speaker 2: was something that, you know, if my husband allowed it
Speaker 2: when I got married, that would be something that I
Speaker 2: would discuss with him. There were people that existed outside
Speaker 2: of the community or worked outside of the community, but
Speaker 2: it was kept very, very protected from the young people
Speaker 2: and the community. Like my father had to sign something
Speaker 2: with the school to say that he didn't use internet
Speaker 2: at home, and if he did have internet at home
Speaker 2: was heavily heavily filtered. But he worked in it, so
Speaker 2: he needed to have internet at home.
Speaker 1: So people within the community, there are about two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty families. You said within Theodas community, they did
Speaker 1: often the men, I assume not the women worked outside
Speaker 1: the community, right, because how did they earn money.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different businesses within the community. And
Speaker 2: as a young person, I wasn't aware of people working
Speaker 2: outside of the community. I mean I kind of had
Speaker 2: a knowledge, but it was something, Oh, maybe the men
Speaker 2: do that and they don't bring it at all into
Speaker 2: the community.
Speaker 1: What was your understanding of the outside world, Like you
Speaker 1: had a lot of siblings. How many siblings did you
Speaker 1: have growing up?
Speaker 2: Six siblings?
Speaker 1: What was your understanding of what was outside the community.
Speaker 2: It wasn't something that was of any importance to me, actually,
Speaker 2: so I'm just trying to think back. I don't remember
Speaker 2: having conversations with my siblings about what was beyond the
Speaker 2: existence that we were living within. There was too much
Speaker 2: going on, you know, within my family home and even
Speaker 2: within my schooling to even think on that. When I
Speaker 2: would see it on the street, it was this other.
Speaker 2: It was very much that was something that I would
Speaker 2: never be a part of, never expected to be a
Speaker 2: part of, and almost didn't never want it to be
Speaker 2: a part of, because I was taught that the way
Speaker 2: I was living was so superior and so much better,
Speaker 2: that that was the most important and best way to live.
Speaker 2: So it was almost like everything else was beneath me
Speaker 2: or beneath our way of living.
Speaker 1: When you were around twelve, there was a break in
Speaker 1: at your house and your parents had to call the police.
Speaker 2: What happened, we were sent to our rooms so that
Speaker 2: we at all, you know, didn't interact with the police
Speaker 2: or didn't have an understanding of the secular world outside
Speaker 2: of our community. In any case, we were terrified of
Speaker 2: the police, and we were told, you know, as young kids,
Speaker 2: that engaging with any of those people outside of the community,
Speaker 2: including the police, would pull us away and tear us
Speaker 2: away from our way of living.
Speaker 1: When I heard your story and when I picked up
Speaker 1: your book. I expected the period in your life when
Speaker 1: you were abused by Michael Laifert to be the low
Speaker 1: point in your life so far. What shocked me was
Speaker 1: the devastating abuse you'd experienced in your own home before that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to push you on all of the
Speaker 1: things that happened, but I want you to tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about your mother.
Speaker 2: So, my mother was extremely abusive, but her abuse had
Speaker 2: a cruelty to it. We were utterly, utterly terrified of her,
Speaker 2: and I think she wanted that fear. She wanted us
Speaker 2: to be these little robots that did and exactly as
Speaker 2: she expected, and when we didn't, there was a very
Speaker 2: very heavy price to pay. And maybe instead of explaining
Speaker 2: to you kind of what that was like, I can
Speaker 2: kind of share a story with you about that speaks
Speaker 2: to how it was to live in that house. I mean,
Speaker 2: we experienced a lot of fear and a lot of hunger.
Speaker 2: Those are the two emotions that I look about and think.
Speaker 2: We were hungry all the time. Food withdraw was used
Speaker 2: as a constant punishment. And I remember when we were
Speaker 2: maybe young teenagers. By this time, my siblings had kind
Speaker 2: of were banded together and realized that we needed each
Speaker 2: other in order to survive. And my young brother would
Speaker 2: steal a little, you know, a couple of dollars from
Speaker 2: my father's draw and he would ride off because as
Speaker 2: a boy he was allowed to, you know, ride on
Speaker 2: a bike. We weren't allowed to as girls because it
Speaker 2: wasn't modest. But as a boy, he would get on
Speaker 2: his bike and ride down to the stores and he
Speaker 2: would buy something for us to eat, and he would
Speaker 2: bring it home. And we were so terrified of my
Speaker 2: mother finding out that we had bought something to eat,
Speaker 2: and our time was so so so controlled that she
Speaker 2: knew what we were doing at all times. So my
Speaker 2: brother would actually tie up the food in a bag
Speaker 2: and throw it up onto the roof of the garage,
Speaker 2: and then later on in the evening, when my mother
Speaker 2: had gone to sleep and we knew that it was safe,
Speaker 2: he would actually climb back up onto the roof, bring
Speaker 2: down the food, and then we would all share it together,
Speaker 2: and it was a moment of really close bonding. But
Speaker 2: it really speaks to that fear that we had and
Speaker 2: the control of every minute of what we were doing,
Speaker 2: and that intense hunger, but also the way that we
Speaker 2: kind of banded together as siblings, you know that still
Speaker 2: exist till today, to help each other survive through that time.
Speaker 1: The idea that there could be little children being staffed
Speaker 1: by their own parents as a form of abuse in
Speaker 1: the middle of a bustling city and what should have
Speaker 1: been from the outside a loving community is so deeply shocking.
Speaker 1: But to you, that was just life, That was just
Speaker 1: your childhood.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, And it wasn't something that the community even
Speaker 2: were aware of, or I mean, there must have been signs,
Speaker 2: but they weren't educated enough to understand what those signs were.
Speaker 2: I was led to believe that if I was abused,
Speaker 2: there was something wrong obviously with me that you deserved it.
Speaker 2: There's this big black mark against my name. I would
Speaker 2: never get married if people know that I'm abused. So
Speaker 2: there was all the intention in all of my sibling
Speaker 2: to hide that abuse as much as possible, because we
Speaker 2: would be seen as something wrong or bad, and we
Speaker 2: knew the only way of leaving home and maturing and
Speaker 2: having an independent life was to get married.
Speaker 1: So in that way, that's so evil. Your parents conscripted
Speaker 1: you into hiding their abuse. We would have been scandalous
Speaker 1: had it have been known or is that what was
Speaker 1: happening in every family? What have you learned since then?
Speaker 2: That was definitely happening in many, many families. The abuse
Speaker 2: and still even today, you know, abuse at home, domestic violence,
Speaker 2: sexual abuse, sexual abuse happening between siblings, all of that
Speaker 2: is still kept extremely, extremely hidden. And it's this idea
Speaker 2: that if the abuse is a part of your family,
Speaker 2: it affects all the children in the family. The matchmakers
Speaker 2: just won't look at you. And that's still the way
Speaker 2: that marriage happens within the community.
Speaker 1: Wow, So your well, parents would do things like just
Speaker 1: drop you off at a park. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well, at different points, my mother would just you know,
Speaker 2: announce that one of her children or several of her
Speaker 2: children were not her children anymore, and you know, she's
Speaker 2: disowned them. They're not her children anymore. They don't deserve
Speaker 2: to be a part of our family. And she would
Speaker 2: ask my father to take one of us, or sometimes
Speaker 2: a couple of us, and just drop us off at
Speaker 2: a park and you know, leave us there, abandon us there.
Speaker 2: And of course, as young children, we didn't know that
Speaker 2: eventually she would come back and pick us up. When
Speaker 2: hangar had settled, we literally thought we had been abandoned,
Speaker 2: and we had no idea what to do, and being
Speaker 2: so insular and not having any understanding of the outside world,
Speaker 2: we did nothing. We literally just stood there hiding behind
Speaker 2: some bush or some bench or something, not knowing what
Speaker 2: to do or where to go or how to exist.
Speaker 1: And you were taught to have such fear of the
Speaker 1: secular world and the people in it that it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have occurred to you to go and ask someone for help.
Speaker 2: Not at all. This idea that my mother could send
Speaker 2: us to this outside world really double down on the
Speaker 2: idea of how bad we were. We must have been terrible,
Speaker 2: terrible children, because you know, the secular world is so
Speaker 2: bad and here we are being sent.
Speaker 1: There, literally cast out into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it felt.
Speaker 1: So where did school fit into all of this? I mean,
Speaker 1: you had to go to school. What is school for
Speaker 1: girls and boys within the ad Us community.
Speaker 2: So school was my safe place for a long time.
Speaker 2: You know, it was a place that turned up. At
Speaker 2: eight thirty we started school. We did prayers for half
Speaker 2: an hour, We had Jewish classes till about one or
Speaker 2: two o'clock in the afternoon, had lunch and then we
Speaker 2: would have our English and maths, and of course we
Speaker 2: were taught at school. You know, we don't need English
Speaker 2: and maths if we're going to grow up and have
Speaker 2: kids and support our husbands. What do we need that for?
Speaker 2: Our school life was very heavily focused on Jewish studies.
Speaker 1: And how is the education or the school life a
Speaker 1: girl different to the school life of a boy. What
Speaker 1: did your brothers do at school?
Speaker 2: My brothers had quite a similar life, but they were
Speaker 2: actually taught in Yiddish and they had I would think,
Speaker 2: even less secular education than we did. The idea is
Speaker 2: that the boys grow up and study Torah and they
Speaker 2: finish studying any secular education at around year eight.
Speaker 1: So what did you see as a girl when you're
Speaker 1: at school that your life would be like? Like when
Speaker 1: you looked at Darcy's future, what did you imagine that
Speaker 1: it was going to be.
Speaker 2: I very very much hoped that the matchmaker would find
Speaker 2: me someone that I could get married to, that I
Speaker 2: would get married and create a home with my husband,
Speaker 2: and that I would have as many children as I
Speaker 2: was able to. That was my life and I was
Speaker 2: excited for that life.
Speaker 1: You'll hear more of my conversation with Darcy Elk after
Speaker 1: the short break stay with us and so into this
Speaker 1: very difficult situation with these very vulnerable kids. In walked Malkalafa.
Speaker 1: When was the first time that you met her, must.
Speaker 2: Have been in year nine, year ten. I have this
Speaker 2: really clear memory of the prior principle being forced to
Speaker 2: resign and hearing that Malkalaifer had taken over as the
Speaker 2: new principal of the school because the former principal had
Speaker 2: an education, a secular education, and she wasn't religious enough.
Speaker 2: That was my understanding as a young girl.
Speaker 1: Lifa came from Israel with her family. What was her
Speaker 1: family situation.
Speaker 2: She came with her husband and quite a few kids,
Speaker 2: and she had quite a few kids while she was
Speaker 2: in Australia.
Speaker 1: It sounds like she was a real figure.
Speaker 2: She was and it was completely mind blowing, I think
Speaker 2: to everyone in the community. He was this woman who
Speaker 2: wasn't just respected because her husband was a rabbi, this
Speaker 2: woman that was this utter powerhouse. Everybody respected her in
Speaker 2: the community. I had never seen anything like that growing up.
Speaker 2: You know, it was always the men that led everything.
Speaker 2: It was always the men that you know, we went
Speaker 2: to for advice, and suddenly there was this woman that
Speaker 2: people were so in awe of. It was something unlike
Speaker 2: anything I had ever seen.
Speaker 1: How did she get the respective men in the community.
Speaker 2: She was said to have had the roofs, which is
Speaker 2: like the overarching rabbi's ear, and he was someone that
Speaker 2: was very well respected in the community, and to get
Speaker 2: an audience with him was, you know, particularly hard. So
Speaker 2: the fact she had this open communication with him and
Speaker 2: could go to him for everything in some ways, that
Speaker 2: drew a lot of respect.
Speaker 1: So how did Maklaifer relate to the girls? Like? How
Speaker 1: did she interact with them? At school?
Speaker 2: I would say there was probably about maybe two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty kids across the boys and girls school. I
Speaker 2: remember her being incredibly, incredibly warm, vivacious. She was just
Speaker 2: this person that could do everything, and she was everywhere
Speaker 2: all the time. She had this really big, bubbly personality.
Speaker 2: She was just this very warm, engaging person that people felt,
Speaker 2: you know, they just wanted to be closer to her.
Speaker 1: It sounded like she was your first experience of adult
Speaker 1: kindness in your life.
Speaker 2: At first. At first, I really did believe he was
Speaker 2: this woman that, you know, everyone looked up to and
Speaker 2: she's being kind to me. She's pulling me into her
Speaker 2: inner circle, which is a place everyone wanted to be.
Speaker 1: When was the first time that she sort of picked
Speaker 1: you out of the pack, as it were.
Speaker 2: I remember I was in year ten, and by that
Speaker 2: time she had her favorite girl, She had the people
Speaker 2: that she called on the most that she took into
Speaker 2: her office to speak to privately, you know, with all
Speaker 2: the blinds down and the doors closed. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: if only I had like an adult that, you know,
Speaker 2: that would talk to me like that, that I could
Speaker 2: share with what was happening at home, that I could trust.
Speaker 2: It must have been around year ten she called me
Speaker 2: into office and she said, you know, I've spoken to
Speaker 2: your older sister, Nicole, and she's told me a little
Speaker 2: bit about what's going on at home, and I'm here
Speaker 2: to talk if you need someone to talk to. I mean,
Speaker 2: because I didn't speak to Nicole about these things. You know,
Speaker 2: this idea that she knew what was going on at home,
Speaker 2: something that was so hidden and so secretive, and that
Speaker 2: she had approached me and said to me I could
Speaker 2: talk to her about that. It was this instant trust,
Speaker 2: and you desire to be able to have that with someone.
Speaker 1: With what you know? Now, was she abusing other girls already?
Speaker 1: Like from soon after she arrived.
Speaker 2: She was, And all those times that I witnessed her
Speaker 2: in halfice with her lines closed and you know, her
Speaker 2: doors closed, I came to know why that was happening.
Speaker 1: Now, Darcy, I don't want to ask you to recount
Speaker 1: the specifics of these but something I want you to
Speaker 1: help me understand is the context in which she led
Speaker 1: you to believe that what she was doing was okay.
Speaker 2: She very much had this sense of intimacy when she
Speaker 2: was talking to me. You know, I'm here for you. You know,
Speaker 2: this is how I show that I'm close to you.
Speaker 2: When she was touching me, this is what a mother does.
Speaker 2: And knowing that my mother was different to other mothers
Speaker 2: and was abusive, I really believe them and maybe this
Speaker 2: is what loving mothers do to their daughters. That was
Speaker 2: my complete innocence and naivity around absolutely anything that she
Speaker 2: was doing to me.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just jumping in to tell you. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to ask Darcy to recount the specifics of the
Speaker 1: abuse she suffered at the hands of Malclafer because she's
Speaker 1: had to recount it so many times, to so many people.
Speaker 1: And at the start, I told you about the memoir
Speaker 1: she's written. It's her book called In Bad Faith, and
Speaker 1: we're using some clips of the audio version of her book,
Speaker 1: of course, with her permission, which Darcie narrates. This is
Speaker 1: her recounting the beginning of the abuse when she was
Speaker 1: just fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: I had never been a speaker. Silence had always been
Speaker 2: my friend. My parents' abuse expected silence. Obedience is silent,
Speaker 2: Silence is safe. Missus Lifer moved her arm to my knees.
Speaker 2: Her touch was reassuring, and I didn't want it to stop.
Speaker 2: Her hand traveled up my thigh, and even with my
Speaker 2: gaze lowered, I could feel her watching me. Now she
Speaker 2: realized what she's doing. Overwhelmed, I kept silent. She continued
Speaker 2: to move her hand up my thigh. This is weird,
Speaker 2: but she's Missus Lifer. It must be okay. I didn't
Speaker 2: know it then, but this was a start of a pattern,
Speaker 2: one that would escalate. I went to lessons with missus
Speaker 2: Lfer for several weeks. I never found my words. The
Speaker 2: longer I was silent, the more Missus Lifer touched my body.
Speaker 2: She told me. I was closed, and she needed to
Speaker 2: help open me up, help me to trust her.
Speaker 1: And this from when she was a little older. As
Speaker 1: the abuse progressed.
Speaker 2: From far above, I saw myself a picture of passivity,
Speaker 2: eyes that were empty and saw no color, a frozen
Speaker 2: sack of skin and bones. I escaped to a place
Speaker 2: she could not reach. I watched her and worseless fingers
Speaker 2: undress me, the crawl of her touch over my skin.
Speaker 2: She kissed and caressed me, Her mouth tasted me, her
Speaker 2: body was excited, and she wanted a reaction from mine.
Speaker 2: That I was not there in that room. I did
Speaker 2: not exist. She had killed me, a silent death no
Speaker 2: one would ever know about, no one would ever believe me.
Speaker 1: When you're growing up in this community, I'm going to
Speaker 1: guess that you don't have a lot of access to
Speaker 1: sex education or information about your own body. What did
Speaker 1: you understand about your body and sex?
Speaker 2: Absolutely nothing. What I knew about my body was that
Speaker 2: it was to be hidden, to be covered, to ensure
Speaker 2: that I do not draw the attraction of men, that
Speaker 2: I do not show my shape of my body in
Speaker 2: any way. So always wearing loose clothes and nothing that
Speaker 2: was too revealing, a woman's body is not something that
Speaker 2: we think about, we discussed, we talk about. I didn't
Speaker 2: know the names even of different parts of my body.
Speaker 2: I didn't know I had certain parts of my body.
Speaker 2: My whole body was shrouded in secrecy.
Speaker 1: Had you ever had anyone be physically affectionate with you before,
Speaker 1: touch you in a way that wasn't literally painful, like
Speaker 1: just hugs and touching and holding your hand or stroking
Speaker 1: your hair, all the things that kids grow up with
Speaker 1: in the non sexual context. Had you ever experienced those
Speaker 1: things before?
Speaker 2: No, And that wasn't even a way that let's say
Speaker 2: I interact with my friends like, we didn't hug each other.
Speaker 2: We didn't you know, this idea of just even touching
Speaker 2: each other in affectionate ways just didn't exist. So when
Speaker 2: lifea came and she started, you know, putting her arm
Speaker 2: around girls or pulling them in for a hug, people
Speaker 2: just saw that, oh, that's her different ways, that's not
Speaker 2: how it is. But well, you know, she's just a
Speaker 2: bit different. She's not Australia.
Speaker 1: There was a big gap between when you were fifteen
Speaker 1: and the abuse started to take place. It went on
Speaker 1: for about four years until you got married and left
Speaker 1: the country. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It continued while I was engaged, you know, under
Speaker 2: this guise, I'm teaching you what it is like to
Speaker 2: be married.
Speaker 1: At what point, if there was a point, did you
Speaker 1: realize something was wrong, that this was not right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been asked, you know, did I recognize
Speaker 2: that it was sexual abuse? When I eventually learned about sex,
Speaker 2: you know, a few weeks before my marriage, when I
Speaker 2: was actually taught why what's called a color tea, a
Speaker 2: bridal teacher about what sex was. But even in those lessons,
Speaker 2: I was taught sex is to procreate, that is what
Speaker 2: sex is. Is to have children, That's it. I wasn't
Speaker 2: at all taught this idea of what sex was. It
Speaker 2: was like, this is how you have a child. That
Speaker 2: was how I was taught. So even then, in my
Speaker 2: mind it wasn't this was sexual abuse. But I had
Speaker 2: always had an idea that what was happening was wrong.
Speaker 2: But I had so much worthlessness, I had such low
Speaker 2: self esteem. I believed it must be me, it must
Speaker 2: be me that was wrong. I mean, how could someone
Speaker 2: like missus Lifer be wrong?
Speaker 1: And you had no context, you had nothing to compare
Speaker 1: that experience too, and no one to talk to about it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no one. And even if I would have had,
Speaker 2: let's say, someone I could talk to about, not that
Speaker 2: there was any safe adults in my life that I
Speaker 2: felt I could have that conversation with. I didn't even
Speaker 2: have the words. There was no words to have that conversation.
Speaker 2: There was no way, you know, because I remember broach
Speaker 2: kind of another teacher to have that conversation and say,
Speaker 2: you know, can I talk to you about something? I
Speaker 2: didn't know how to create those words that I needed
Speaker 2: to use to tell her about what was happening. Again,
Speaker 2: like my whole body was shrouded in secrecy. It was
Speaker 2: impossible to actually voice what was going on or how
Speaker 2: that was wrong or why I felt that was wrong.
Speaker 1: That idea of modesty that you spoke about, that you
Speaker 1: see in a lot of extreme religions, and this idea
Speaker 1: of a woman having to be covered, is that grounded
Speaker 1: in this idea that women's bodies are inherently tempting and
Speaker 1: that their bodies are inherently sinful and men need to
Speaker 1: be protected from them.
Speaker 2: Oh very much, so very much so. But that wasn't
Speaker 2: what I was taught as a young person. As a
Speaker 2: young person, I was told the daughter of God, and
Speaker 2: my modesty is something precious and it's something that's just
Speaker 2: for myself. And then as I got older, it was
Speaker 2: exactly that. It was. We don't want to distract them
Speaker 2: men from learning Torah, and by you having any shape
Speaker 2: to your body or being revealing at all, you will
Speaker 2: be distracting to men. And of course I had no
Speaker 2: idea of sex. It was just this idea that my
Speaker 2: existence in some way was distracting to men.
Speaker 1: When you got married, you mentioned the color teacher. Tell
Speaker 1: me about that. What happens, because obviously if there's no
Speaker 1: sex education, it sounds like this is how women or
Speaker 1: girls are prepared for sex when they get married. Tell
Speaker 1: me what that involves.
Speaker 2: I remember one of my friends got married maybe six
Speaker 2: months before me, and she had gone through the process
Speaker 2: of going to a color you know, a bridal teacher,
Speaker 2: and I remember asking her and being so curious, you
Speaker 2: know what did you learn? Of course, she couldn't tell
Speaker 2: me because you know, until I was ready, I wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed to know, so we weren't allowed to have these discussions.
Speaker 2: We both knew that. I remember going to the color
Speaker 2: teacher and there's a huge amount of rules around sex.
Speaker 2: There's a huge amount of rules about how a woman
Speaker 2: needs to prepare herself, about how she's unclean during the
Speaker 2: time that she has her period, and then the seven
Speaker 2: days afterwards, and how she has to check herself for
Speaker 2: seven days and get you know, these clean cloths that
Speaker 2: she checks herself with twice a day. When she's had
Speaker 2: seven days clean, she goes for a ritual bath. And
Speaker 2: there's a huge amount of rules about what you're allowed
Speaker 2: to do when you're unclean with your husband, which is
Speaker 2: pretty much nothing. He's like any other man on the street.
Speaker 2: You're not allowed touch him, you're not asleep with him,
Speaker 2: you're not be in the same bed. You're not even
Speaker 2: allowed to pass something to each other because your fingers
Speaker 2: might accidentally.
Speaker 1: Touch and make him unclean exactly.
Speaker 2: And then there's this idea of when you have gone
Speaker 2: to the micfather ritual bath, you know you're supposed to
Speaker 2: be with your husband, that's a very holy night. There's
Speaker 2: ideas of when you should have sex. You know, Friday
Speaker 2: night is holy, so have sex on Friday night, and
Speaker 2: ideally should have a one other night a week. That's
Speaker 2: what I was told, so I was told Tuesday nights
Speaker 2: and Friday nights are a good idea of when to
Speaker 2: have sex, and you say a prayer before you have
Speaker 2: sex that any child that's conceived through this apur is
Speaker 2: conceived in a holy way and not through lust. And
Speaker 2: so you know, my husband and I would both stay
Speaker 2: this prayer before anytime we were intimate. And so I
Speaker 2: had to learn all those rules as a young just
Speaker 2: about to be a married bride about what I was
Speaker 2: supposed to do, because it was my responsibility to uphold
Speaker 2: those and make sure that I didn't have, you know,
Speaker 2: a child through any other means, because that child then,
Speaker 2: you know, would be sinful.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: I was so nervous. I remember going for that ritual
Speaker 2: bath and just being so relieved to see this laminated
Speaker 2: booklet telling me exactly what I needed to do, because
Speaker 2: having all of that in my memory and thinking I'm
Speaker 2: going to be bathing naked and there'll be something in
Speaker 2: between me and this holy water and I won't be
Speaker 2: clean on my wedding night was utterly terrifying.
Speaker 1: To me, because it's about making sure there's nothing between
Speaker 1: your teeth, nothing underneath your nails, that there's not like
Speaker 1: a speck of lint in your belly button. It has
Speaker 1: to be nothing. Everything has to be removed, moved first
Speaker 1: on your wedding night. Without one to intrude on too
Speaker 1: many details, what was that experience like for you and
Speaker 1: your husband?
Speaker 2: We were both extremely nervous. Again, this was not someone
Speaker 2: I had ever touched. You know, this was the first
Speaker 2: time that we were unsupervised in a room together. I mean,
Speaker 2: we had been earlier that day for the first time.
Speaker 2: But suddenly we're in this house, which happened to be
Speaker 2: Malkealifa's house, and she was overseas at the time, and
Speaker 2: I'm in the same room that she had abused me.
Speaker 2: That I'm supposed to be with my husband for the
Speaker 2: first time, and in my mind, I've completely separated that
Speaker 2: from you know, what was going on between me and
Speaker 2: my husband. It was like I had completely I had
Speaker 2: this disassociative barrier between what had gone on with Malkalifa
Speaker 2: and now I was married. I was a different person.
Speaker 2: That's how it worked, That's how my survival system worked.
Speaker 2: So I'm asery. I'm not thinking about that at all.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking, you know, I'm about to be with
Speaker 2: my husband and he's helping me, you know, take off
Speaker 2: my wig that I was wearing, and my dress that
Speaker 2: had seventy buttons, you know, all the way down my back,
Speaker 2: and a hundred bobby pins to keep my week in
Speaker 2: place while I was dancing. So he helped me with
Speaker 2: all of that, and then I can feel his nerves
Speaker 2: and I'm nervous, and I just remember this intense amount
Speaker 2: of pain and him telling me, oh, well, the rabbit
Speaker 2: just said I should get it over quickly. That was
Speaker 2: my experience of my wedding night, and me thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: God definitely has to give me children now because I
Speaker 2: survived that pain, and then feeling so relieved that it
Speaker 2: was over, that we had done what I was supposed
Speaker 2: to do. And then the rest of the night was
Speaker 2: such a you know, it was the first time we
Speaker 2: could really have a proper conversation unsupervised. So we just
Speaker 2: sat there talking for the rest of the night until
Speaker 2: four or five am, just getting to know each other.
Speaker 2: Who was this person I had shared a bed with.
Speaker 2: And of course because I had led, I was impure
Speaker 2: then and I was unclean, and so we had to
Speaker 2: quickly separate and I couldn't be together, you know, I
Speaker 2: couldn't touch him for the next two weeks until I
Speaker 2: was clean again. Was he a nice guy during our marriage?
Speaker 2: He was, you know, he was a supportive person who
Speaker 2: didn't understand me, didn't understand the traumles bringing into our
Speaker 2: marriage and how that affected me, but did his best
Speaker 2: to support me in the way that he knew how to.
Speaker 1: More of my conversation with Darsie about how much her
Speaker 1: life changed when she left Australia and had access to
Speaker 1: the Internet for the first time and what made her
Speaker 1: realize it was finally time to tell someone about Marco Lafer.
Speaker 1: So you and your husband moved to Israel after living
Speaker 1: your whole life in this insular at us community in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: That must have been so jarry.
Speaker 2: So I hadn't been on a plane before because I
Speaker 2: had gone to New York with my mother when I
Speaker 2: was eleven to help look after my younger cousins. We
Speaker 2: very much kept to ourselves, Shu and I. We had this,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of little pocket of where we just
Speaker 2: ignored everyone else on the plane. I remember him kind
Speaker 2: of standing over his prayer book and in the middle
Speaker 2: of the plane and pray, and just this idea that
Speaker 2: we just ignored everyone outside. And really, when I went
Speaker 2: into Israel and lived in a community, I lived in
Speaker 2: a very similar religious community to a dust so in
Speaker 2: some ways I didn't really have that exposure to the
Speaker 2: secular world. I saw it, and I saw it as
Speaker 2: very very separate to me, So it wasn't something that
Speaker 2: really rocked my world at all at the time.
Speaker 1: So did you have a computer in the house?
Speaker 2: So I needed to find an English speaking job, which
Speaker 2: were usually American jobs where they had kind of sent
Speaker 2: jobs where they could pay people cheap. In Israel, we
Speaker 2: bought a computer and we got internet, and I remember
Speaker 2: being very excited. This was something I had no access to.
Speaker 2: Somehow I can look for a job, and of course
Speaker 2: I could look at other things. And I remember opening
Speaker 2: the computer and thinking I could look up anything in
Speaker 2: the world and not even knowing where to start, Like
Speaker 2: how do I even do that? And what do I do?
Speaker 2: And what do I look up? The endless choices were
Speaker 2: so overwhelming.
Speaker 1: What did you look up? What were some of the
Speaker 1: things you looked up?
Speaker 2: I actually don't remember. I remember finding my way to
Speaker 2: some free website to watch some shows, and of course,
Speaker 2: like I remember watching The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody,
Speaker 2: which was like, you know, but that was something even
Speaker 2: as an adult, that was something that was so interesting
Speaker 2: to me because I had no exposure to TV and
Speaker 2: you know, growing up or anything like that. This idea
Speaker 2: of these two young boys, I think living in a hotel.
Speaker 2: It taught me so much. It taught me so much
Speaker 2: about the world outside, and that was what really captivated
Speaker 2: my interest.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting that you started by watching kids shows
Speaker 1: because you wrote that on your wedding night you had
Speaker 1: the same knowledge of sex as maybe a five year
Speaker 1: old might in terms of the basics of it all,
Speaker 1: and when the abuse was happening, you knew nothing about sex.
Speaker 1: It's almost like your introduction to the outside world needed
Speaker 1: to be through the eyes of a child as well,
Speaker 1: because you were learning it all and.
Speaker 2: It was you know, I don't even remember trying to
Speaker 2: watch any other show that was like an adult show.
Speaker 2: It was like too foreign to me, it was too
Speaker 2: out there. I didn't understand half of what you know,
Speaker 2: people were saying, so seeing it through the eyes of
Speaker 2: a child was something that was much easier to understand.
Speaker 1: Who is the first person that you told about what
Speaker 1: malcol Laifer had done to you.
Speaker 2: It was a therapist in Israel, and I'd been having
Speaker 2: quite a bit of difficulties in my marriage, and I
Speaker 2: went to a therapist and said, you know, these are
Speaker 2: the thoughts i'm having. These are the websites I'm being
Speaker 2: pulled into because I had, you know, suddenly had access
Speaker 2: to the Internet in Israel, and I was drawn to
Speaker 2: these sites to understand what I was thinking and why
Speaker 2: I was thinking that. And I felt a tremendous amount
Speaker 2: of guilt about the fact that I was looking these
Speaker 2: things up online because I was supposed to be searching
Speaker 2: for a job. I wasn't supposed to be on these
Speaker 2: sexual websites. So I had so much guilt, and I
Speaker 2: believe that God was punishing me by making me infertile,
Speaker 2: and that's why I couldn't have a baby, because I
Speaker 2: was drawn to these websites. So I went to the
Speaker 2: therapist with this and said, look, these are the things
Speaker 2: i'm looking up, these are the things I'm drawn to,
Speaker 2: and I don't understand why. And we had maybe t
Speaker 2: and also sessions where we discussed this, and I remember
Speaker 2: bringing her some pictures of me and my husband and
Speaker 2: her saying, look, you want to make your marriage work.
Speaker 2: And I'm me thinking she doesn't understand me at all.
Speaker 2: It's not that I don't want to make my marriage work.
Speaker 2: I feel terribly guilty about this. And at some point
Speaker 2: she asked me, were you abused? And by that time
Speaker 2: I had a bit more of an understanding, not much,
Speaker 2: but a bit more of an understanding that what had
Speaker 2: happened was wrong with mal Koalaifer. And I said to her, yes,
Speaker 2: by someone at school. And she said to me, how
Speaker 2: did a man have access to you at school? Because
Speaker 2: a man didn't have access to us at school. If
Speaker 2: a rabbi came to speak to us, they sat behind
Speaker 2: a wall so we couldn't see him and he couldn't
Speaker 2: see us.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: She knew that the gender separation was so so severe
Speaker 2: that for a man to have access to me it
Speaker 2: was almost impossible without somebody knowing about it. And I
Speaker 2: said to her, it wasn't a man. I remember running
Speaker 2: out of her house where she had her offers and saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm never coming back. And I didn't go
Speaker 2: back for a while until she rang and rang and
Speaker 2: rang me again. And I went to her house full
Speaker 2: of apprehension, and I said to her I can't tell
Speaker 2: you who it is. And you know, she was asking
Speaker 2: me the questions of all the different teachers in the
Speaker 2: school because she was aware of how the school worked
Speaker 2: and she had lived in Australia so she knew the school.
Speaker 2: And when I couldn't tell her, she said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to tell missus Lafer, and I
Speaker 2: remember that utter horror and fear. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you can't do that, and she was insisting, no, if
Speaker 2: there's someone in the school and you can't tell me
Speaker 2: who it is, I have to tell her, until I
Speaker 2: eventually said to her it was missus Lafer and that
Speaker 2: look of just utter shock and disbelief because she too
Speaker 2: respected Lifa, she too respected and looked up to her,
Speaker 2: and she had worked with her, and me trying to
Speaker 2: convince her you know, yes, it did happen, and this
Speaker 2: is how it happened. And I didn't share many details
Speaker 2: with her at the time. It was just more to
Speaker 2: convince her. I don't really remember what I said then,
Speaker 2: but I remember telling her, you know, I think I'll
Speaker 2: witnessed something with my sister Nicole. I'm not sure we've
Speaker 2: never spoken about it, but call up Nicole and you know,
Speaker 2: speak to her and you'll see that what I'm saying
Speaker 2: is true. And then until Nicole called me, I think
Speaker 2: it was later that night, I didn't know if because
Speaker 2: I'd never spoke about it with Nicole, I didn't actually
Speaker 2: know if what Nicole was going to say it was
Speaker 2: going to confirm what I said or deny what I said.
Speaker 2: I had no idea, And that conversation with Nicole was more,
Speaker 2: you know, what have you done? What's going to happen now?
Speaker 2: I mean, we're both terrified.
Speaker 1: Well, it's hard to overstate the bravery that it took
Speaker 1: Dussie to confide in someone about what her abuser had done,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider how much control and influence the
Speaker 1: ADAS community still had over Darcy at this time. And
Speaker 1: I would love to be able to tell you that
Speaker 1: as soon as Dussie spoke out, life was brought to justice,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately that is not what happened. She tipped the
Speaker 1: first domino, and it took so much courage to do that,
Speaker 1: but there were many more to fall before she would
Speaker 1: get what she did, recognition and healing and justice. In
Speaker 1: Part two of my conversation with Darcy, we discuss what happened. Next,
Speaker 1: we hear what finally convinced her to break away from
Speaker 1: the community which had protected her abuser instead of her.
Speaker 1: And you'll hear what Darcy thinks about life for now
Speaker 1: and what's next for her in her life now that
Speaker 1: life is in prison. And you'll also hear the moment
Speaker 1: where I broke down, which is not something that happens
Speaker 1: to me often, and it's not for the reason that
Speaker 1: you would think. To hear the rest of our conversation,
Speaker 1: you have to be a Mumma mea subscriber, and I
Speaker 1: would so love it if you were, because when you do,
Speaker 1: not only do you get exclusive No Filter episodes and
Speaker 1: part twos of our conversations here, but you also get
Speaker 1: to hear Mamma Mia out loud, you get the Move
Speaker 1: Fitness app and all our other podcasts. This episode of
Speaker 1: No Filter was produced by Naima Brown with sound production
Speaker 1: by Leah Porgies. Special thanks to Hershared Australia for use
Speaker 1: of the audio clips of Dussi's book In Bad Faith,
Speaker 1: and we'll put a link to that in our show notes.
Speaker 1: I know that we talked about some really difficult things
Speaker 1: in this episode, so we put some links for you
Speaker 1: that Darcy provided us and other more general links in
Speaker 1: the show notes, So please reach out. If you're in
Speaker 1: a hard to reach community and you're listening to this
Speaker 1: and you want to know what to do because you're
Speaker 1: in a situation like Darcy described, we'll have links for
Speaker 1: you there and also just to Lifeline and other support organizations.