An Australian Chabad rabbi signs a contact with the board of a synagogue. When the contract expires, the board asks the rabbi to leave. He refuses and tries to take the synagogue to beit din, claiming halakha grants him his position for life. The board won't go to beit din, a long fight ensues, the secular courts find for the synagogue and eventually the synagogue agrees to appear before the London, England beit din.
This story has received wide coverage over the past months, but I did not cover it because something about the story seemed amiss. Now I know what that something is.
Australian authorities have moved against a non-existent Jewish school, the Spirit of David academy, an afternoon Hebrew school. It received tens of thousands of state dollars fraudulently. The signatures on the report cards of the non-attending students? The Chabad rabbi, Yosef Engel. The Australian Jewish News reports:
FAKE report cards allegedly signed by Rabbi Yossi Engel are at the centre of a major probe into claims an Adelaide school received government money for phantom Hebrew lessons.
The reports, some of which have been sighted by the AJN, were lodged on behalf of the Spirit of David Adelaide Hebrew School, which had its registration suspended by South Australian education authorities last month.
Angry parents this week said they were shocked to learn their children – who attend regular Jewish and non-Jewish schools – had been used as dummy enrolments for after-hours Hebrew tuition they didn’t know existed.
“I never gave permission for my kids to attend classes I’d never even heard of this school,” said Di Wittert, whose three sons were on Spirit of David’s books without her knowledge.
Wittert only discovered the fakes when one of her sons moved to Massada College from a state primary school this year, a transfer that turned up academic records containing the false report card.
“The sad thing is our children have been robbed of the chance to have legitimate Hebrew classes. We didn’t even know this option was available to us,” she said.…
The AJN notes that no one involved in the case, including Rabbi Engel's attorney, have claimed those signatures are forged.
Earlier this week, the JTA reported that Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn had suddenly distanced itself from Rabbi Engel:
One Lubavitch insider, who spoke to JTA on condition of anonymity, said the saga was "tremendously embarrassing" for Chabad.
On the Web site of the worldwide Chasidic movement, the listing of Chabad centers in Australia includes a reference to "Chabad of South Australia." But the link has been removed – Chabad officials in the United States decided to sever themselves from Rabbi Engels' imbroglio, according to the Lubavitch source.
"It was felt that what he was doing was bringing discredit to the Chabad organization," he said.
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=3728
Probe into 'fake' Hebrew classes in Adelaide
jason frenkel and PETER KOHNFAKE report cards allegedly signed by Rabbi Yossi Engel are at the centre of a major probe into claims an Adelaide school received government money for phantom Hebrew lessons.
The reports, some of which have been sighted by the AJN, were lodged on behalf of the Spirit of David Adelaide Hebrew School, which had its registration suspended by South Australian education authorities last month.
Angry parents this week said they were shocked to learn their children – who attend regular Jewish and non-Jewish schools – had been used as dummy enrolments for after-hours Hebrew tuition they didn’t know existed.
“I never gave permission for my kids to attend classes I’d never even heard of this school,” said Di Wittert, whose three sons were on Spirit of David’s books without her knowledge.
Wittert only discovered the fakes when one of her sons moved to Massada College from a state primary school this year, a transfer that turned up academic records containing the false report card.
“The sad thing is our children have been robbed of the chance to have legitimate Hebrew classes. We didn’t even know this option was available to us,” she said.
A government investigation, which interviewed Wittert and other parents over their claims, wound up its probe in late May.
The federal education department confirmed the school’s registration had been suspended by state authorities in June, and said Spirit of David was not in receipt of Commonwealth funding.
A number of false reports containing fictitious remarks and attendance records were lodged with South Australia’s Ethnic Schools Board (ESB) over the 2001-04 academic years.
On its website, the ESB says one of its roles is “managing and administering government funds to ethnic school authorities and ensuring educational and financial accountability”.
The AJN has not been able to establish whether Spirit of David received government money from the ESB, or funds from private donors in the Adelaide Jewish community, or both.
Two school reports sighted by the AJN, dated 2001 and 2003, both allegedly carry Rabbi Engel’s signature as principal.
One of these reports, for a boy in Grade 1 at Massada College, also has Rabbi Engel’s signature as teacher, while the second, for a girl whose parents did not want her details revealed, was allegedly co-signed by Chana Engel as teacher.When asked if they had received a brief on the Spirit of David school, SA Police would not comment.
The school shares its address with Adelaide’s more-widely known Massada College, but it is understood the two are not linked. And while Rabbi Engel is listed as the ESB’s contact for Spirit of David, little else is known about the school, where the phone rang out this week.
Rabbi Engel referred the AJN to his lawyer, Ron Bellman, when asked about his signature on the report cards.
Bellman did not answer questions about the signature, and tried to dissuade the AJN from publicising the school probe, claiming it was subject to a din Torah to be adjudicated by the London Beth Din.
In response to earlier questions about the school’s deregistration last month, Bellman said it had occurred because it wasn’t affiliated with an incorporated body as required, and “Rabbi Engel didn’t know about that”.
No-one contacted by the AJN, including Rabbi Engel and his lawyer, suggested the signatures on the report cards had been forged.
The SA education department said the ESB was not under its jurisdiction, and the ESB would not talk to the AJN.
“It’s all been passed on to the courts, I can’t comment,” ESB executive officer Ekaterina Briffa said before hanging up the phone.
It is not known if – or when – the allegations were ever raised with police.
One source told the AJN bewildered parents blew the whistle on the rort when they demanded answers about their children’s false Spirit of David reports.
But it was also claimed the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation tipped off education authorities when it discovered Spirit of David had used the shul and its legal status to help qualify for ESB registration.
The AHC and Rabbi Engel are already engaged in a costly and protracted legal standoff over a related dispute concerning his tenure at the shul.
When the congregation notified Rabbi Engel last year that it wouldn’t be renewing his term, he tried to win court approval to have a contractual dispute with the shul arbitrated by the Sydney Beth Din, which has jurisdiction over South Australian religious matters.
But that case and a subsequent review by the full bench of the South Australian Supreme Court found the religious court had no role to hear the contract row, as it didn’t relate to questions of Jewish law. [Here in PDF for download.]
In spite of those two legal decisions, the London Beth Din has been called in to arbitrate the contract dispute, and Bellman has indicated to this newspaper his client expects the school fiasco will be privately arbitrated by the same religious court.
The London Beth Din has made no comment on any of the matters supposedly awaiting its counsel, despite repeated attempts by the AJN to contact the court over the past few weeks.
http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/2413_aussie_shul_dispute.htm
Aussie shul dispute
by: Dan Goldberg, JTAA US-born rabbi who was sacked last year is at the centre of a bitter legal battle with the board of an Orthodox synagogue in Australia.
Rabbi Yossi Engel, 40, lost his appeal on June 26 in the Supreme Court of South Australia to overturn a verdict by a district court judge who had ruled in favor of the board of Adelaide Hebrew Congregation.
Now the Brooklyn-born Chabad rabbi and the dwindling Adelaide Jewish community are set to take their dispute to a religious court halfway around the world, in London.
The six-month legal fight – which prompted the congregation's president to resign and sparked a scuffle involving the rabbi that required police attention – has rocked the community of less than 1,000 Jews, costing it in excess of $90,000 and leaving it without a religious leader. It also has proven to be a black mark for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement to which Engel belongs.
One Lubavitch insider, who spoke to JTA on condition of anonymity, said the saga was "tremendously embarrassing" for Chabad.
On the Web site of the worldwide Chasidic movement, the listing of Chabad centers in Australia includes a reference to "Chabad of South Australia." But the link has been removed – Chabad officials in the United States decided to sever themselves from Rabbi Engels' imbroglio, according to the Lubavitch source.
"It was felt that what he was doing was bringing discredit to the Chabad organization," he said.
Since the board of the Adelaide synagogue cannot appoint a new rabbi until the case is resolved, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria has organized for rabbis to travel from Melbourne to help support the congregation.
The synagogue has the only Orthodox congregation in Adelaide, which with 1.1 million is the most populous city in the state of South Australia.
The rabbinical council's president, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, said the Adelaide community is suffering while the case remains unresolved.
"It is pretty much paralyzed," he said, "but they will live to see another day. No question about it."
Engel originally had demanded the contractual dispute be resolved by a din Torah, or rabbinic arbitration, under the aegis of the beth din, or rabbinical court, in Sydney, which has jurisdiction over Adelaide. But the synagogue board refused because it maintained Engel's contract was a civil agreement, not a religious one.
As a result, the Sydney Beth Din issued a ktav siruv, or order of contempt, against the board, effectively severing the congregation's ties to the Orthodox world.
The contempt order was lifted in May when the parties agreed to have the case heard by the London Beth Din.
In their recent decision, the Supreme Court judges agreed that Rabbi Engel's contract had expired on Dec. 31. But Engel hopes the London Beth Din will reinstate him, or at least clear his name.
South Australian Chief Justice John Doyle said in his verdict that the rabbis in London could not order Engel back to his pulpit.
"An order requiring the congregation to reinstate Rabbi Engel as its rabbi is not an order that could be enforced," Doyle said.
In any event, the registrar of the London rabbinical court, David Frei, told JTA the logistics of judging a case across the globe had yet to be worked out.
One possibility being debated is for a dayan, or judge, to fly to Australia to hear submissions from both parties.
Allen Bolaffi, the congregation's treasurer, told JTA that the Supreme Court ruling vindicated the board's position.
"For us it's business as usual, and we are getting back to doing what we've always done," Bolaffi said.
But he said Engel believed he worked for a higher authority.
"He claimed lifetime tenure, that he worked for God," Bolaffi said.
The board apparently resolved not to reappoint Engel because of a major personality clash. In addition, the board reportedly was unhappy with Engel's kosher supervision in South Australia, among other performance-related grievances.
Engel told JTA that he could not comment. His lawyer, Ron Bellman, said his client's contract had been breached because he was dismissed without a performance review.
"There's been a real smear campaign to discredit Rabbi Engel and lower him in the estimation of right-minded people," Bellman said.
Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, the registrar of the Sydney Beth Din, said the dispute was "hugely regrettable."
"It's a tragedy because profound acrimony got in the way of normally decent people being able to resolve a very difficult employment issue," Lawrence said.
Last year David Ninio, the former president of the board, resigned over the dispute, and in March police were called to a synagogue scuffle between Engel and two board members.
Adelaide, known as the City of Churches, also has a Progressive shul and a Jewish school, Massada College, which last year managed to stave off closure at the 11th hour because of declining enrollments and spiraling debts.