The Canberra Times reports March 19, 2026: The battle is over for a prominent victim advocate after his abuser was sentenced for sexually exploiting him at a Jewish holy festival close to four decades ago.
Manny Waks was aged between 10 and 12 when Zev “Velvel” Serebryanski assaulted him at the Yeshiva Centre in Melbourne’s southeast sometime between 1986 and 1988.
Serebryanski, who was in his early 20s at the time, had developed a sexual interest in the then-child and cornered him upstairs one night during the religious Shavuot festival.
The man sat down on a bench next to the pre-teen and groped at his groin before pulling him into a bathroom and sexually assaulting him.
In sentencing the now-62-year-old to a suspended jail term, Victorian County Court Judge John Kelly described Serebryanski’s actions as transgressive and predatory.
“It is an attack on innocence, an attack on childhood,” he said on Friday.
“You said you were only following your victim’s lead … that is a transparently absurd proposition.”
