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Failed Messiah
After Massive Chabad Child Sex Abuse Scandal, Can Chabad Really Change For The Better? Many Members Of The Australian Orthodox Community Don’t Think It Can
Can Chabad leadership really change its ways? That is the question that troubles many people now. “They need to be more consultative with other rabbis, lay leaders and women,” Rabbi Kennard, principal at Burwood’s Mt Scopus Memorial College, told Fairfax Media this week. He said the controversial rabbinical council gave Chabad-affiliated rabbis disproportionate influence. But an unnamed Chabad community member whined that it “wasn’t fair” the entire Chabad community was being blamed for the mistakes of a few – even though much of that Chabad community participated in the harassment and shunning of abuse victims and advocates and did nothing whatsoever to support the victims or punish their rabbis who enabled the child sex abuse.
The Age reports:
…one Orthodox Melbourne rabbi said he and his colleagues were “tainted by failure”. Rabbi Ian Goodhardt, of Blake Street’s modern Orthodox synagogue in Caulfield, told congregation members some rabbis “were growing increasingly disillusioned with the conduct of their colleagues” and the lack of credible rabbinic leadership.
Tensions among rabbis are clearly mounting, following a two-week hearing that examined how yeshivah centres in Melbourne and Sydney, which belong to the worldwide ultra-Orthodox Chabad stream of Judaism, handled horrific cases of abuse in their midst.
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