AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News
THE future of Rabbi Pinchus Feldman as a member of the Rabbinical Council of New South Wales (RCNSW) hangs in the balance after a formal complaint was lodged against him this week by child sexual abuse victims’ advocate Manny Waks.
The complaint, which was made to RCNSW president Rabbi Eli Cohen, has seen four out of five RCNSW executive members – Rabbi Cohen, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, Rabbi Eli Feldman and Rabbi Chaim Ingram – step aside in relation to the matter, with the rabbis citing a conflict of interest. As a result, executive member Rabbi Paul Lewin will appoint a committee to address the complaint “in due course”.
In an email to Rabbi Cohen, Waks said that Rabbi Pinchus Feldman “did not fulfil his moral, religious and legal responsibility to protect children, and was a party to conduct that denigrated victims”.
The complaint comes after the Rabbinic Council of Australia and New Zealand (RCANZ), Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) and RCNSW publicly stated that those who did not fulfil their legal responsibility to protect children should “stand down from their public positions”, and that “those who denigrated or undermined the victims have lost their moral right to serve”.
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