The Johannesburg Beth Din is the Beth Din (Court of Jewish Law) of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa. It serves Jews throughout South Africa and other countries on the continent.
The focus of the Beth Din is on areas of family law, divorce and conversion, as well as adjudication of financial disputes. Other areas supervised by the Beth Din are: Circumcision, Stam, Mikvaot and Eruvin.
In 2004, the High Court of South Africa upheld a cherem (excommunication edict) against a Johannesburg businessman because he refused to pay his former wife alimony as ordered by The Johannesburg Beth Din. [1] The case, because of its potential implications with regard to the interaction of religious and state law, elicited global interest.
Current members of the Beth Din are: [2] [3]
Former members of the Beth Din include:
Herem is the highest ecclesiastical censure in the Jewish community. It is the total exclusion of a person from the Jewish community. It is a form of shunning and is similar to vitandus "excommunication" in the Catholic Church. Cognate terms in other Semitic languages include the Arabic terms ḥarām "forbidden, taboo, off-limits, or immoral" and haram "set apart, sanctuary", and the Ge'ez word ʿirm "accursed".
A beth din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system. Today, it is invested with legal powers in a number of religious matters both in Israel and in Jewish communities in the diaspora, where its judgments hold varying degrees of authority in matters specifically related to Jewish religious life.
Yehezkel Abramsky, also affectionately referred to as Reb Chatzkel Abramsky, was a prominent and influential Lithuanian Jewish Orthodox rabbi and scholar, born and raised in the Russian Empire, who later headed the London Beth Din rabbinical court for 17 years, before retiring to Jerusalem in 1951.
Berea is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the South African province of Gauteng. It is east and adjacent to the Johannesburg CBD. It is located in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.
The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (UOR), often called by its Hebrew name, Agudath Harabonim or (in Ashkenazi Hebrew) Agudas Harabonim ("union of rabbis"), was established in 1901 in the United States and is the oldest organization of Orthodox rabbis in the United States. It had been for many years the principal group for such rabbis, though in recent years it has lost much of its former membership and influence.
The Yeshiva College of South Africa, commonly known as Yeshiva College - and formerly known as Yeshivat Bnei Akiva - is South Africa’s largest religious Jewish Day School. The school is headed by Mr Rob Long since 2018; the Rosh Yeshiva is Rabbi Nechemya Taylor as of 2021.
Rabbi Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman was a renowned Orthodox Jewish Talmudic scholar, posek and rabbi and served as a dayan of the London Beth Din.
Har HaMenuchot is the largest cemetery in Jerusalem. The hilltop burial ground lies at the western edge of the city adjacent to the neighborhood of Givat Shaul, with commanding views of Mevaseret Zion to the north, Motza to the west, and Har Nof to the south. Opened in 1951 on 300 dunams of land, it has continually expanded into new sections on the northern and western slopes of the hill. As of 2008, the cemetery encompasses 580 dunams in which over 150,000 people are buried.
Gateshead Talmudical College, popularly known as Gateshead Yeshiva, is located in the Bensham area of Gateshead in North East England. It is the largest yeshiva in Europe and considered to be one of the most prestigious advanced yeshivas in the Orthodox world. The student body currently numbers approx. 350. Although students are mainly British, there are European, American, Canadians as well as some from South America, Australia and South Africa.
The London Beth Din (LBD) is the Ashkenazi Beth Din of the United Synagogue, the largest Ashkenazi synagogal body in London, England. In its capacity as Court of the Chief Rabbi, it is historically the supreme halakhic Authority for Ashkenazim in several Commonwealth countries and additionally is consulted by Basei Din throughout Europe. The current head of the London Beth Din is Dayan Menachem Gelley, who joined the court in 1993 and was appointed to his current position in 2014, succeeding Chanoch Ehrentreu.
Ohr Somayach in South Africa is an affiliate of Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem, a network of Haredi yeshivas and Synagogues. Like its parent institution, it focuses on educating baal teshuvas. It has branches in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Yeshivat Har Etzion, commonly known in English as "Gush" and in Hebrew as "Yeshivat HaGush", is a hesder yeshiva located in Alon Shvut, in Gush Etzion. It is considered one of the leading institutions of advanced Torah study in the world and with a student body of roughly 480, it is one of the largest hesder yeshivot in the West Bank.
Chanoch Ehrentreu was a German-born British Orthodox rabbi. He served for many years as the head of the London Beth Din in Great Britain, serving the United Synagogue Community and those independent Orthodox Congregations that accept the authority of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. He retired from the post in December 2006.
Etz Chaim Yeshiva was a "Lithuanian" Orthodox yeshiva, now advanced kollel, in Golders Green, London, England. It operated as a yeshiva from the early 1900s through the 1990s, when it repositioned to function as the latter. It has several prominent alumni including Commonwealth Chief Rabbis Immanuel Jakobovits and Jonathan Sacks.
In Jewish law, a posek is a legal scholar who determines the application of halakha, the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah, in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities are inconclusive, or in those situations where no clear halakhic precedent exists.
Joseph Dweck is an American rabbi and hazzan, who serves as Senior Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community of the United Kingdom.
Moshe D. Gutnick is an Australian Orthodox rabbi, and a member of the ultra Orthodox Chabad Hasidic movement. Rabbi Gutnick is a senior member of the Beth Din in Sydney, Australia. Gutnick is currently President of the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand. Gutnick is the head of the NSW Kashrut Authority. He formerly served as the rabbi of the Bondi Mizrachi Synagogue in Sydney.
The Union of Orthodox Synagogues (UOS) is the coordinating body of Orthodox Synagogues in South Africa.
Yehoram Ulman is a rabbi in Sydney, Australia. He was born in Leningrad, USSR in 1964. He holds a number of senior positions in the Orthodox Jewish community.