The standard you walk past is the standard you accept @jccvic. https://t.co/iHvpVx1nbc #NoToHomophobia @YACVic http://t.co/EMg1hY4tUS
— Aleph Melbourne (@alephmelbourne) June 12, 2015
Tag: Orthodox Rabbis
Australian orthodox rabbis interfering in civil marriage (again)!
A little over three years ago, in April 2012, orthodox rabbis in Sydney and Melbourne submitted letters to a Senate enquiry, opposing marriage equality.
As reported in yesterday’s The Australian (June 9 2015), rabbis are among 38 signatories to a letter (PDF) addressed to the Prime Minister opposing marriage equality. The three Orthodox rabbis, one from Melbourne and two from Sydney, are:
Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick
President Rabbinical Council of Victoria
Senior Dayan – Melbourne Beth Din (Jewish Ecclesiastical Court)
Rabbi Moshe D Gutnick
Senior Dayan – Sydney Beth Din
Rabbi Yehoram Ulman
President Rabbinical Council of NSW
Senior Dayan – Sydney Beth Din
Aleph Melbourne notes that any proposed changes to the Marriage Act to broaden the definition of marriage from “one man and one woman” to wording similar to “two people” will safeguard ministers of religion and not require them to perform marriages between two people of the same-sex.
As it stands, ministers of religion are authorised to refuse to marry any two people, a protection that would carry through with proposed marriage equality amendments.
Exactly why these rabbis are opposing changes to the Marriage Act is incomprehensible in terms of their religious obligations, as any such changes will have no impact on their professional responsibilities. Therefore is would seem that these rabbis are commenting on matters of civil law beyond their purview, which begs the question: why?
AJN Letters: Defending Orthodox rabbinical opposition to same-sex marriage
15 November 2013
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.
Orthodox rabbis are being victimised
THE fuss over gay marriage has now crept into the Jewish community and is causing pain and misery to all involved. Among the victims in all this controversy are our Orthodox rabbinical authorities’ rabbis who are being touted as the villains of the drama.
Those that are reading this letter might be aghast that I am of that opinion. Well, let’s look at it this way – our rabbis did not write the Torah, they are only interpreting it the best way they can or know, and they represent most of the Jewish community.
But they are being pilloried from pillar to post. They cannot accept a union between a man and another man, it’s simply not allowed as homosexual relations in the Bible are forbidden. Sexual relations between a woman and another woman are not frowned upon but still a marriage between two females does not meet the normal criteria of a normal nuclear family, meaning a man and a woman.
If homosexual within the Jewish community want their relationships legitimised, they should not demand it from the Orthodox Jewish authorities and the rabbis should not be forced to justify their position time and time again, as they are not the authors, only the custodians of the Torah and they have every right to stand by the moral codes that they have lived by and studied all their lives.
We cannot change thousands of years of Jewish tradition just to suit modernity.
No one is saying we need to discriminate against gays or lesbians, but we also need to take into account that the onus of the debate should not be brought down upon our Orthodox rabbis who have a historical duty as teachers of our tradition to uphold the laws set down by God on Mount Sinai, and we accept nothing less of them.
They are becoming the innocent victims in all this controversy as all they are doing is defending our heritage.
SUSAN WEINER
Vaucluse, NSW
AJN Letters: Response to Susan Weiner on same-sex marriage
22 November 2013
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.
No threat from same sex marriage
IN defending Orthodoxy, Susan Weiner overlooks the fact that in Australia “homosexuals” are not asking Orthodox Judaism to change one iota. We are simply asking the federal government to remove gender-based discrimination from the Marriage Act and, until such time, for states and territories to provide similar legal mechanisms. This is purely a matter of civil law and it will have no legal impact on any aspect of Jewish religious life or observance.
While Ms Weiner is justified in her concern for the welfare of Orthodox rabbis in genuine circumstances of attack, in this case her energies would be better aligned with those denied the very civil rights she has the luxury to access should she desire.
It is important to understand that all proposed legislation for “same-sex marriage” comes with adequate protections for religious ministers and will in no way impinge on hers or anyone else’s civil or religious freedoms.
In our society, people are entitled to disapprove of another person’s choice of life partner, but it is poor form to get in the way of star-struck lovers when it comes to marriage, whether they both be Romeos, Juliets or one of each. Live and let live, love and let love, Ms Weiner.
MICHAEL BARNETT
Ashwood, Vic
AJN Letters: Responses to Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz – March 30 2012
30 Mar 2012
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.
Method not message is wrong on bullying
I FOUND the parallel that letter writer Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz (AJN 23/03) made between opposing the specific homophobia anti-bullying program being promoted by Safe Schools Victoria to “tacitly encouraging the vilification of others” (i.e. homosexuals) to be obscene in the extreme.
Even the biggest critics of this antibullying program were abundantly clear about their opposition to homophobic bullying.
It is the methodology of the specific program in question that has justifiably drawn criticism from some rabbis and concerned members of the community. Entering into a discussion about samesex marriage with kindergarten children, as this program would have us do, is plainly and simply inappropriate.
Moreover, Mr Meyerowit-Katz believes that those rabbis who are opposed to the implementation of this program are adhering to a “medieval idea of morality” and that should they persist in this mentality, they will “only continue to stand there scratching their heads as shul attendance continues to plummet”.
With the deepest of respect, falling shul attendance has nil to do with rabbinic attitudes to current issues and everything to do with the increasing secularisation of our community whereby communal prayer is no longer appealing.
YONASAN KABLINSKI
Caulfield North, Vic
A morality tale for boosting attendance
WE should all be grateful to Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz (AJN 23/03).
He bemoans what he perceives to be the persecution of homosexuals, and then proceeds to offer us the panacea for declining synagogue attendances.
“In advocating that Jews adhere to a medieval idea of morality” he writes, “certain members of the Orthodox rabbinate are tragically out of step with the modern world. Should this mentality persist, they will only continue to stand there scratching their heads as shul attendances continue to plummet”.
So, to be clear, his message is that promoting and practising immorality is the way to get those “bums on seats” in our congregations?
By the way, I think he is also historically inaccurate in implying that homosexuality is a new phenomenon of this modern world that those rabbis are so “out of step” with. It was rampant in many civilisations such as ancient Greece and Sodom. So it is just as “medieval” a concept as morality. Go figure!
ROBERT WEIL
Caulfield North, Vic
Submission to Senate on Marriage Equality by Rabbinical Council of NSW
[Senate link] [PDF]
RABBINICAL COUNCIL OF NSW INC
All correspondence to
The Hon. Secretary
President:
Rabbi Yoram Ulman
Vice-President:
Rabbi Eli Feldman
Honorary Secretary:
Rabbi Chaim Ingram
Honorary Treasurer:
Rabbi Paul Lewin
31 March 2012
STATEMENT FROM THE RABBINICAL COUNCIL OF NSW ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE
To the Honorable Members of the Senate Legal and constitutional Affairs Committee:-
The Rabbinical Council of NSW represents all Orthodox and mainstream synagogues in NSW
The Rabbinical Council of NSW Inc (RCNSW) states and affirms as follows:-
1) The definition of marriage as stipulated in the Marriage Legislation Amendment Act 2004, namely that “marriage means the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others” is consistent with the traditional definition of marriage expressed in sacred Jewish texts and accepted through the ages by the other major world faiths.
2) At Mount Sinai, the giving of the Torah included reiteration of a set of key universal laws and values binding and adopted by civilised societies throughout the world since time immemorial.
3) Central to the key universal values expressed in the Torah are norms relating to human sexuality which endorse the stable sexual union of a man and a woman in a socially recognised relationship of mutual commitment whilst rejecting other sexual unions notably adultery, incest, bestiality and homosexuality.
4) It has been proven and demonstrated globally throughout history that the institution of marriage is central to the formation of a healthy society and to the concept of family. By virtue of their physical make-up, human beings are able to achieve self –actualisation through participation in the higher union of man and woman within marriage resulting in the production of offspring who are raised in a stable and moral home and who possess an innate and close connection with the mother and father who conceived and gave birth to the child.
5) The Torah mandates that all human beings, created as they are in the image of G-D, are to be cherished and loved by their fellows. The lifestyle choices made by individuals do not affect the precept that they be treated with respect and love. Nevertheless it is our firm conviction that all humankind remains bound by the aforementioned universal moral code handed down by G-D at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.
6) The RCNSW views with profound concern efforts to redefine marriage and thus legally sanction same-sex marriage. It urges most earnestly that the integrity of marriage in its traditional and time-hallowed form will be preserved.
For further information please call RCNSW Honorary Secretary Rabbi Chaim Ingram.
AJN Letters: Homophobic bullying – March 23 2012
23 Mar 2012
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.
Our duty to combat homophobic bullying
AS a member of a people who have fallen victim to a historical “norm” of persecution and ostracism, I find the argument against the program tackling homophobic bullying in schools extremely troubling.
It seems perverse to suggest that it should be the aspiration of our society to converge to the human condition, a condition that has seen the violent oppression of both homosexuals and Jews for millennia.
Now that Jews have finally been afforded a time and place where we are free from such persecution, why would some in our community be tacitly encouraging the vilification of others, some of whom fall within our community, based on their identity?
In advocating that Jews adhere to a medieval idea of morality, certain members of the Orthodox rabbinate are tragically out of step with the modern world.
Should this mentality persist, they will only continue to stand there scratching their heads as shul attendance continues to plummet.
DANIEL MEYEROWITZ-KATZ
Dover Heights, NSW