Beyond Leifer: Dassi Erlich tells her story

No longer restricted by the battle to bring her abuser to justice, DASSI ERLICH has published the full story of her brutish home and the ultra-Orthodox community that failed her. She talks to MICHAEL VISONTAY.

Dassi Erlich has been through so much trauma that it’s a relief to see her looking so well. As we sit down together in a cafe in Elsternwick in the heart of Melbourne’s Jewish community, she radiates a calm confidence and even smiles occasionally.

It’s only been six months since Malka Leifer was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing Dassi and her sister Elly Sapper. The verdict ruled a line under an awful chapter of her life, but she says it will take a long time for her to come to terms with everything that has happened.

We are meeting to talk about her much-anticipated memoir, In Bad Faith, published this week. Dassi’s tenacious campaign to bring Leifer to justice made her a national and even international figure, but only as a tenacious advocate, focussed on one goal.

The memoir presents a fuller portrait of her as a daughter, sister, wife and mother, the victim of an abusive family, an unscrupulous principal and an uncaring ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. In Bad Faith tells a story about her family life that is just as heart-rending as the one that has made international headlines and puts Leifer’s abuse of the sisters into a wider context.

Just as it took courage to expose Leifer, it has taken courage for Dassi, now 36, to reveal the story of her family, which has shadowed her all her adult life.

She hopes that by writing her book, she might help others who have faced similar problems. “When I read other people’s stories, it helps me feel less alone. You know what someone else has gone through and you understand the way they managed to get through that and the choices they've made. I'm hope that I'm able to do the same. But as well, stories are the way that we change and grow as a society. And I felt this was a very important story to share.”