Yeshivah Centre, Sydney

Last updated

Yeshivah College Bondi Ltd
Yeshivah-Centre-Sydney-Bondi.jpg
Religion
Affiliation Hasidic Judaism
Rite Chabad-Lubavitch
Ecclesiastical or organisational status
Governing bodyChabad
StatusActive
Location
Location36 Flood Street, Bondi, Waverley Council, Sydney, New South Wales
CountryAustralia
Geographic coordinates 33°53′31″S151°15′34″E / 33.891830°S 151.259384°E / -33.891830; 151.259384
Architecture
Type Synagogue
Founder Abraham Rabinovitch
Completed1956;68 years ago (1956)
Website
{

The Yeshiva College, also known as the Harry O. Triguboff Centre, is a Hasidic Jewish synagogue, learning centre, and library of the Chabad-Lubavitch nusach, located at 36 Flood Street, in the Sydney suburb of Bondi, New South Wales, Australia. The Centre runs various adult and child-based educational programs.

Contents

History

The centre was established in 1956 by Abraham Rabinovitch and others. The leaders from 1956 to 1968 were Rabbi G. Hertz and Rabbi C. E. Barzel. In 1968 the Yeshiva's board of trustees appointed Rabbi Pinchus Feldman to lead its synagogue and to assist with expanding its small ultra-orthodox Jewish day school.

Our Big Kitchen, a charity established by Yeshiva Sydney in 2005, operates from the Yeshiva. [1] [2] [3]

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

In February 2015 the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard Rabbi Yossi Feldman testify, where he stated that he "was not aware it was illegal to touch a child's genitals". Feldman told the Commission that he did not find it necessary for victims to report sexual abuse to the police if offences took place decades prior. [4] [5] He proposed that the law be lenient on sexual predators who had not committed any sexual abuse for two decades if they had repented. His comments outraged the Australian Jewish community, and victims of sexual harassment called for him to stand down. [6] Rabbi Yossi Feldman stood down from his administrative positions at the Yeshiva Centre.

Due to their negligent handling of sex abuse in the Centre, survivor advocate, Manny Waks, placed the centre on his wall of shame. [7]

The Royal Commission issued a case study on Yeshiva educational facilities in Sydney and Melbourne. The Commission reported that: [8] :71

Despite his role as a director of Yeshiva College and the Dean of Yeshiva Gedolah Rabbinical College, Rabbi Yosef Feldman was either ignorant of or ill-informed about:

  • conduct amounting to child sexual abuse
  • the criminal nature of child sexual abuse
  • the obligations in New South Wales to report complaints of child sexual abuse to external authorities, including the NSW Ombudsman.
    Report of Case Study No. 22: The response of Yeshiva Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse made against people associated with those institutions. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Yeshiva Gedolah Rabbinical College of Sydney

The Yeshiva Gedolah Rabbinical College, like other Chabad Yeshivot Gedolot, provides education and training to young men seeking ordination as rabbis. Established in 1986 by the Yeshiva Centre, it forms part of the Tomchei Temimim Yeshiva network. Rabbi Boruch Lesches served as its Rosh Yeshiva and Mashpia for almost twenty years. He has since left Sydney, and is currently serving as the rabbi of the Chabad-Lubavitch shul in Monsey, New York, which also contains a Yeshiva that is part of the Tomchei Temimim network.

The Yeshiva Gedolah was administered by Rabbi Yossi Feldman, a son of the Chabad Emissary for New South Wales, Head Rabbi and spiritual leader for Chabad-Lubavitch, New South Wales, Pinchus Feldman, until February 2015 when, following Rabbi Yossi Feldman's evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies labelled his views repugnant and declared him to be "unfit to hold any position of authority or leadership in the Jewish community". [9]

Yeshiva College

Yeshiva College was a Jewish day school, established by the Yeshiva Centre in 1956. From 1968 to 2003 it was headed by Rabbi Pinchus Feldman. After financial difficulty, in late 2003 the Feldman family ceded control over the school to philanthropist Meir Moss for A$8,000,000. The school later rebranded as Kesser Torah College. In 2007 the Yeshiva opened a new school called Cheder Chabad Lubavitch, later renamed Yeshiva College Bondi Ltd.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshivah College, Australia</span> Chabad school in Victoria, Australia

Yeshivah College, officially Yeshivas Oholei Yosef Yitzchok Lubavitch, is an independent Orthodox Jewish comprehensive single-sex primary and secondary Jewish day school for boys, located in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda East, in Victoria, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rabbinical College of America</span> Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic yeshiva in Morristown, New Jersey

The Rabbinical College of America is a Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic yeshiva in Morristown, New Jersey. The Yeshiva is under the direction of Rabbi Moshe Herson. The growth of the Yeshiva college has had a significant cultural effect on the community and has influenced many Jewish families to move into the area to be near the Yeshiva and the surrounding synagogues. It is supported by Jewish philanthropists such as David T. Chase and Ronald Lauder of Estée Lauder Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomchei Tmimim</span> Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva network

Tomchei Tmimim is the central Yeshiva of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Founded in 1897 in the town of Lubavitch by Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, it is now an international network of institutions of advanced Torah study, the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinchus Feldman</span> Australian rabbi

Rabbi Pinchus FeldmanOAM is the first Chabad shaliach ("emissary") of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement in New South Wales, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaim Gutnick</span>

Shneur Chaim (HaKohen) Gutnick, was a prominent Orthodox Jewish Chabad rabbi in Australia. According to the Lubavitcher Rebbe he was the Chief Rabbi of Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshivah Centre, Melbourne</span>

The Yeshivah Centre is an Orthodox Jewish umbrella organisation in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, that serves the needs of the Melbourne Jewish community. It is run by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, until recently, under the direct administration of Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner. Rabbi Zvi Telsner has been brought as the new Dayan of the Centre and Lubavitch community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leib Groner</span> American rabbi

Yehuda Leib "Leibel" Groner was an American Hasidic Jewish teacher, scholar, and author. He is best known for having served as the personal secretary to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, for 40 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshivah Gedolah Zal</span> Chabad school

Yeshivah Gedolah "Zal", Yeshivah Gedolah, The Rabbinical College of Australia and New Zealand, or colloquially, Y.G., is a government accredited yeshiva, an academy for young Orthodox Jews to devote themselves to full-time rabbinical studies. It is located in St Kilda East, Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, and is the only yeshiva of its kind on the continent. It is under the auspices of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. It offers the government recognised Diploma of Talmudic Studies.

The Rabbinical College of Pretoria is a Chabad Yeshiva in Pretoria, South Africa.

The Lubavitch Yeshiva Gedolah of Johannesburg is a Chabad Yeshiva based in Glenhazel, Johannesburg. It was established by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1983, and is headed by Rabbi Noam Wagner, with Rabbi Y. Kesselman as Mashpia. It focuses on the first two years post high school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rabbinical College of Canada</span>

Rabbinical College of Canada, is a Chabad rabbinical institution of higher education. It is located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Mesirah is the action in which one Jew reports the conduct of another Jew to a non-rabbinic authority in a manner and under the circumstances forbidden by rabbinic law. This may not necessarily apply to reporting legitimate crimes to responsible authority, but it does apply to turning over a Jew to an abusive authority, or otherwise to a legitimate one who would punish the criminal in ways seen as excessive by the Jewish community. In any case, "excessive" punishment by non-Jews may be permissible if a precept of the Torah has been violated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chabad affiliated organizations</span> Organizations affiliated with the Chabad movement within Hasidic Judaism

Chabad affiliated organizations and institutions number in the thousands. Chabad is a Hasidic movement, a branch of Orthodox Judaism. The organizations and institutions associated with the movement provide social, educational and religious services to Jews around the globe.

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.

Menachem Leib "Manny" Waks is an Australian activist. He was previously part of the Orthodox Jewish community in Australia and later became known for his activism against child sexual abuse in the Jewish community worldwide. He founded Tzedek, an organisation to fight child sexual abuse in Jewish communities. Waks assisted the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in investigating Melbourne Yeshivah centre of the Orthodox Chabad movement of Judaism on their handling of child sexual abuse cases. After publicising child sexual abuse in the Jewish community in Australia, Waks moved to France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeshiva Gedolah Frankfurt</span>

The Yeshivah Gedolah of Chabad Lubavitch in Frankfurt am Main is a Yeshiva operated by Chabad of Germany; see Tomchei Tmimim. The Director or Rosh Yeshivah is Rabbi Yossi Havlin; it was founded and continues to be run by Rabbi S. Zalman Gurevitch, Chabad Emissary to Frankfurt.

Yossi Feldman is an Australian rabbi. He has been a Rabbi in the Yeshiva Centre and Chabad NSW for the past 32 years. He was the President of the RCNSW for 3 years from 2009-2012 and Rabbi of Southern Sydney Synagogue from 1993-2015

Yosef Yitzchak "Yossi" Jacobson, also known as YY Jacobson, is an American Chabad rabbi and speaker from Monsey, New York.

Marcus Solomon is an Australian jurist and rabbi who currently serves as a justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia. He is the first Orthodox rabbi to serve as a Supreme Court justice in Australia.

The Rabbinical College of South Africa is a Chabad Yeshiva based in Sydenham, Johannesburg.

References

  1. "Kitchen Scraps". The Sydney Morning Herald . 20 February 2007. Archived from the original on 31 August 2010. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
  2. "Food for the soul at Bondi's Big Kitchen". The Sydney Morning Herald . 24 March 2006. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
  3. "Australian Prime Minister Rudd Salutes Chabad and Pledges Support for Jewish Schools". Chabad Lubavitch World HQ News. 21 February 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  4. Browne, Rachel (23 November 2017). "Sydney Rabbi Pinchus Feldman tells royal commission he is 'not familiar' with child protection policies". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  5. Alexander, Harriet (14 July 2017). "Sydney rabbi sues Australian Jewish News over alleged defamation on child abuse comments". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  6. "Australia Chabad Rabbi Quits After 'Repugnant' Sex Abuse Testimony to Commission". The Jewish Daily Forward. 12 February 2015.
  7. "Wall of Shame". Manny Waks. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  8. Coate J, Jennifer; Fitzgerald, Robert; Murray, Andrew (October 2016). Report of Case Study No. 22: The response of Yeshiva Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse made against people associated with those institutions (PDF). Commonwealth of Australia. ISBN   978-1-925289-88-6 . Retrieved 2 April 2019.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  9. Farnsworth, Sarah (29 November 2016). "Child abuse royal commission: Rabbi inaction failed abuse victims within Yeshiva community". ABC News . Australia. Retrieved 2 April 2019.

Further reading