THESE ARE ALEX FEIN AND BRACHA RAFAEL

Editorial

גלות אויסטראליס

Galus Australis – The Southern Exile

Galus Australis is a forum for discussion and debate about Australian Jewish life. We’re interested in identity, culture, politics, religion, sociology, food and humour (to name a few). Sometimes even sport.

Galus Australis does not subscribe to any particular ideological viewpoint, and is committed to the value of robust and challenging debate. We endeavour to publish a range of viewpoints and welcome well-written, considered (and controversial!) submissions from across the religious and political spectrum.

Each writer is responsible for the opinions expressed in their own posts, and the views expressed do not represent any Galus Australis editorial position.

The editorial committee of Galus Australis consists of:

Alex Fein (Editor-in-chief)

Bracha Rafael (Editor)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: alex fein <alex.fein@gmail.com>
Date: 16 February 2015 at 14:46
Subject: An open letter to our Rabbis
To:

An open letter to our Rabbis:

Dear Rabbis Kennard, Goodhardt, Genende, Caplan, Freilich, Baroda, and Waks.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Royal Comission into child sexual abuse has confronted our community with an appalling reality. Many of our rabbis are simply not fit to lead us.

They seek to represent us to government. For example, the Organisation of Australasian Rabbis (ORA) has submitted to government opposing marriage equality and has attempted to get Rabbi Rabi's hechsher banned, without any prior community consultation.

They meet with the Prime Minister and send out media releases in which they claim - falsely - to represent Orthodox Jewry

They elect leaders such as Yossi Felfdman and MS Kluwgant.

This is not just a Chabad problem. This is a problem for all Orthodox Australian Jews.

Currently, the Melbourne Beit Din is composed solely of judges who come from the same religious persuasion as Rabbis Feldman and Kluqwgant.

Chabad comprises a tiny part of our community, yet we allow our religious lives to be dominated by the sect and by its rabbis - too many of whom equate homosexuality with paedophilia. 

While most Australian Jews know that homosexuality is not a disease to be cured, too many of our Rabbis do not.

After the revelations at the Royal commission, many of us within Orthodox Jewry can no longer stay silent on these matters.

Rabbi Kluwgant may have stepped down as President of ORA; however, that organisation is still a body that saw fit to elect him as its leader, and it is composed of rabbis who do not reflect the spiritual makeup of the majority of Jews in this country.

I am writing to you to request you form a rabbinic body that better represents Orthodoxy as it is practiced by the majority of observant Australian Jews.

We need better representation and we need an Orthodox Beit Din that is not populated by men of a minority sect who have demonstrated time and again that they are not in step with the sensibility of Australian Jewry.

I ask you all - men of good faith - to begin building institutions that will serve our community better than the existing, crumbling edifices.

If there's any way in which I can assist, please call on me any time.

Yours sincerely,

Alexandra Fein.