If Chabad’s yeshiva in Bondi, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, doesn’t raise more than $20 million fast, it could be forced to close.
Chabad’s Bondi Australia Yeshiva Faces Bankruptcy, Closure
Sharya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
If Chabad’s yeshiva in Bondi, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, doesn’t raise more than $20 million fast, it could be forced to close, the Australian Jewish News reported.
The yeshiva’s head, Rabbi Pinchos Feldman, reportedly recently approached a major donor to the Jewish community in hopes that he would provide all or most of the money. Feldman also reportedly told the unnamed donor that he and Chabad have combined debts in excess of $30 million.
In the past few weeks, several rabbis who worked for Chabad have left Sydney, and teachers left Chabad’s Yeshiva College there to work at other schools.
The responsibility for meeting the operating budget of Chabad’s Yeshiva College – including paying the salaries of teachers – has been left to parents by Feldman, who no longer meets the payroll or pays the bills. Some parents are reportedly planning on moving their children to a non-Chabad school, Kesser Torah College.
When asked by the AJN, a Chabad spokesperson declined to comment on claims that two people are owed at least $700,000 each by Chabad.
One of those two people spoke to the AJN last week. He confirmed that the Feldmans owe him money but would not confirm the amount. The man recently moved away from Sydney.
Chabad’s situation deteriorated in the last week because major donors who bailed out Chabad several months ago refused to do it again.
“I can only help one school at a time and Rabbi Feldman is not first on the list. I like to help when I can but not now,” Harry Triguboff reportedly told The AJN.
The AJN also reports that the only major communal donor it spoke with who “expressed any interest in helping” Chabad is mining magnate Rabbi Joseph Gutnick, and inlaw of Feldman’s who previously lent Feldman a large sum of money and then had to go to court to recover it. Eventually, two Chabad properties were given to Gutnick to cover the debt.
Gutnick, who is worth several hundred million dollars, told the AJN he is “sympathetic and would like to help,” but when pressed would not confirm that he would actually do so.
There are reportedly more than $13 million in mortgages on Chabad’s Yeshiva Centre properties.
Yeshiva College is also reportedly in what appear to be settlement discussions with the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, which recently completed an investigation into the use of government money allocated to the school.
A past president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA), Rabbi Dovid Freilich, told the AJN that rabbis should leave organizational finances to competent lay leaders.
“Rabbis need to concentrate on the spiritual side of the community and every community works a lot better when the finances are left to the lay leadership. When the two mix, it could end in disaster,” Freilich said.