Fight In Prague Flares – Former Chief Rabbi Returns, Chabad Pushed (Partially) Out

Prague's former chief rabbi, Karol Sidon, has been reappointed by the Prague Jewish Community. Rabbi Sidon, a former dissident and native Czech, was forced out a year and a half ago by a secular head of the PJC with allegedly close ties to the former communist secret police. The secular former communist clashed with the Orthodox former dissident rabbi, and so the former communist fired the former dissident and brought in the local New York born and raised Chabad rabbi to take over the Maharal shul and lead the community. According to the Prague Post:

The fracas began last spring when [Tomas] Jelinek, a onetime economic adviser to former Czech president Vaclav Havel, won election with the backing of a group of mostly secular Jews. His platform called for construction of a modern senior-care facility, greater financial transparency and an easing of the strictly Orthodox religious policies of Prague's chief rabbi, Karol Sidon.

Jelinek was taken to an Israeli rabbinical judge by Rabbi Sidon. Rabbi Sidon lost, in part because Jelinek claimed to represent the board of the PJC. Fast forward almost one year. The JTA reports:

“He was unfairly and illegally dismissed by the past chairman,” Tomas Jelinek, “and we want to right this wrong,” said Jakub Roth, the community’s new vice president.…

“Mr. Jelinek claimed to have the consent of the board, which he did not,” Roth said. “There’s a rule in halachah that any ruling based on a lie is null and void. So it’s not that we don’t accept the ruling of a rabbinical court, but that there never was any legally binding ruling in place.”…

[The Chabad rabbi's wife] did not have her contract renewed this summer as the community’s mikvah attendant. She was replaced by a less-experienced attendant, who some of the women say is openly hostile to Barash.

Some 50 women visit the mikvah regularly, and nearly half joined a petition asking that Dina Barash be reinstated, saying they were more comfortable with her than with the new attendant.

Dina Barash can still take women to the mikvah, but she no longer has keys and must contact the other attendant before making an appointment.

“The mikvah should not be politicized,” said Diana Ben Perets, one of the women who signed the petition. “This is a very personal thing — who you go to the mikvah with, who you pray with and take your clothes off in front of.”

Roth said the women still could choose which attendant to take to the mikvah. He compared the argument over the mikvah to “two people fighting over a printer in the office.”

But he did say the issue was “part of the local Chabad’s striving to take over the community’s religious life. We have seen an ugly foray of Chabad in their attempt to take over the Old-New Shul, and now it’s the mikvah."

Comments

The JTA reporters name sounds like she may have a Lubavitch background. Does she ?

It's interesting that while Lubavitch in Vilna have charged that the Haredi Rav there is not acceptable because he was hired by non-observant leadership, in Prague, if the reports are accurate, they themselves sided with the non-observant leadership in opposition to the native, strongly Orthodox Rabbi Sidon. Is that not glaringly inconsistent ?

[Bracha Poil]

For Pesach (2008) I booked in December an appartment and meals at www.kosherprague.cz
I was let down by the agent, ther was no taxi at the airport as promised and when we contacted the office we were told to take a taxi to the appartment, where someone would meet us, but there was no one, so we have to book a hotel, get our koshermeals ourselves.
Can you stop this office. They also removed our complain from www.jewish tripadvisor.com Or let me know how to stop this. yours Bracha Poil

[Bracha Poil]

For Pesach (2008) I booked in December an appartment and meals at www.kosherprague.cz
I was let down by the agent, there was no taxi at the airport as promised and when we contacted the office we were told to take a taxi to the appartment, where someone would meet us, but there was no one, so we have to book a hotel, get our koshermeals ourselves.
Can you stop this office. They also removed our complain from www.jewish tripadvisor.com Or let me know how to stop this. yours Bracha Poil

[chaim abramowitz]

sidon is not atall strict or frum, this is just hearsay, read other more recent articles and you will see the kind of person he is.