Former school principal Malka Leifer was spoken about in "glowing terms" and was considered a "replacement mother" for three sisters who came from a broken home, the County Court of Victoria has heard.
Warning: This story contains details of allegations of sexual abuse.
The sisters are now the complainants in a sex abuse case against Mrs Leifer, who has pleaded not guilty to 29 charges, including rape and sexual penetration of a child.
Joshua Erlich, the ex-husband of one of the sisters Dassi Erlich, told the court on Monday that his former wife was one of many former students from the Adass Israel school in Melbourne who looked up to Mrs Leifer in the early 2000s.
"She always spoke of her in glowing terms," Mr Erlich said.
He told the court: "They all adored her. They were all vying for her attention."
Mr Erlich said he and Ms Erlich married in late 2006.
In the time that followed, he became aware of the sisters' troubled relationship with their parents, and that Mrs Leifer was viewed as a trusted confidante to his wife.
Mr Erlich said his wife told him that Mrs Leifer would "rub her thigh in an affectionate way".
"They'd often lie in bed and talk to each other," he said.
Alleged victim's attitude changed after seeing counsellor, court told
Mr Erlich said in 2008, his ex-wife spoke to a counsellor named Chana Rabinowitz in Israel who was "alarmed" by some of her disclosures about Mrs Leifer.
Mr Erlich said he later overheard Ms Erlich having a phone conversation with one of her sisters.
"She was very confused why Chana Rabinowitz was making such a big deal about it," he said.
He said his ex-wife's attitude towards Mrs Leifer then changed in the years that followed.
Under cross-examination, Mr Erlich agreed that he overheard a conversation Ms Erlich had with her sister Nicole Meyer in 2011, where they were laughing and "working out ways to harass Mrs Leifer".
"She was speaking about it like it was a fun and exciting thing to do?" Mrs Leifer's lawyer Ian Hill asked Mr Erlich.
"Yes," he replied.
On Monday, the media and the public were allowed back into the trial for the first time in two weeks, after the sisters gave evidence before a closed court.
Prosecutor Justin Lewis previously told the court the sisters were from an ultra-Orthodox community, where they were sheltered from the outside world and knew nothing about sex while growing up.
Mr Lewis said the teenagers had a troubled home life and Mrs Leifer took each of them under her wing, but then exploited their trust and abused them over a number of years.
Court told second alleged victim was so ashamed she could not speak
Earlier on Monday, a psychiatrist said another of the sisters was so ashamed about the abuse Mrs Leifer had allegedly inflicted on her, that she was unable to physically speak.
Vicki Gordon said Elly Sapper told her she felt "embarrassed and ashamed" about things that happened when she was alone with Ms Leifer.
"She would SMS me from inside the room from her chair opposite me because she couldn't mouth the words. She couldn't use the words," Dr Gordon told the court.
Dr Gordon said her sessions with Ms Sapper occurred in early 2008, when the then-teenager described the alleged abuse she suffered in Mrs Leifer's home and in a school office.
"Would begin touching me in places all over my body. Never liked it. She could see this but would continue. She would never listen to me," Ms Sapper told Dr Gordon, according to handwritten notes the psychologist had taken.
"She would say to me I'd never be able to give a man pleasure. She told me I needed it because I never had warmth and affection at home. She said it was for me but I didn't want it."
During cross-examination, Dr Gordon said most of the notes she had taken from her weekly sessions with Ms Sapper had been "probably inadvertently destroyed".
Dr Gordon said she had known Mrs Leifer personally, due to the former principal asking her to work with students experiencing difficulties at the school.
A second psychiatrist, Lorraine Dennerstein, said a third sister, Nicole Meyer, had spoken to her in 2014 and 2017 about abuse Mrs Leifer allegedly inflicted on her while at the school.
Professor Dennerstein said Ms Meyer had described her home life as "shit", and when Mrs Leifer initially showed an interest in her it "felt like someone cared".
The trial continues.
