We have now reached the end of the road. By the standards of many. And if Yeshivah won't respond to the voices around them, to the Rabbinate, to the secular press, to their community and to plain issues of good governance, it's time for the authorities to step in.
I've been a strong believer that as this community has been deprived of a voice in many ways, without accountable leadership for decades; this election has been a momentous point in the life-cycle of Yeshivah. As such I have wanted to support it as cathartic and crucial. However, watching the processes play out, seeing the leadership take a somewhat 'close enough is good enough' attitude has accounted for many of my own concerns over the previous months.
Between the call of our Rabbinic leaders across Australia and New Zealand through to the words of the secular press, editorialised across the country in the Australian Jewish News this week, it has become unequivocal that Yeshivah Melbourne cannot go forward with this current process and election. A process and election designed to re-empower those identified within the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse, Report Case Study 22, as having been part of a previous leadership so responsible for the many specific and wider forms of abuse of victims, families and supporters of child sexual abuse.
The Report is finally available and has prompted an immediate statement by the Executives at the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria and the Rabbinical Council of New South Wales, calling on leaders who intimidated victims to vacate their positions. Leaders were claimed to have '...lost their moral right to serve as leaders in our communities...".
The statement called on those '...identified in the report as not fulfilling their legal obligations to protect children to stand down from their public positions,...'
The statement, while long overdue, is powerful in that it addresses both moral and legal frailties.
It is diminished somewhat by the choice not to take the obvious, more difficult but more principled step of naming those to whom it refers.
While a potent statement, as long as individuals remain nameless one could take a pretty educated bet that those to whom it refers will choose not to apply it to themselves. The long and the short of it is that Trustee, Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner and Rabbi Telsner must, in line with this key statement remove themselves from all leadership positions. Till they do so they continue to cast a pallor on their community and further pain to victims, their families and advocates.
The AJN has named both Rabbi Telsner and Rabbi Groner and spoken unambiguously about their failures in leadership as outlined in the Report. Of Rabbi Groner they say, he '...was a trustee of the Yeshivah Centre, which oversaw, was responsible for, and appointed the Committee of Management. It is therefore unthinkable that the new Yeshivah Centre which was only recently formed, will have Rabbi Groner on its board, as well as the board of the Yeshivah-Beth Rivkah Colleges and Chabad Institutions of Victoria.'
The victims of child sexual abuse in Yeshivah have waited decades for action and justice of some fashion. Victims of child sexual abuse and their families have suffered ostracism, intimidation, harassment. The community has often been blind to what has occurred. Sometimes through ignorance, sometimes eyes have turned away in fear, sometimes due to the mores of a culture we hope is long gone.
The community has waited for the better part of two years, since February 2015 between when the Royal Commission called Yeshivah Melbourne to task and the release of the Report of Case Study 22, issued just days ago, for the results of an investigation that by now reflected on what many were horrified to know.
The reality is that even now there are many who believe they still have an entitlement to abuse victims and those advocating for victims. There are many who believe they still have an entitlement to abuse those advocating for cultural change in leadership, so the old guard needs to be named, changed and gone.
Trustees Must Go
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| TRUSTEES 2008-2014 |
With the issue of the Report of the Royal Commission, it is untenable that any of the 'Old Guard', Committee members or Trustees remain anywhere in a position of authority for Yeshivah to move forward. For Yeshivah to have presumably expressed sincerity in the words of apology it has conveyed to victims (or regardless of sincerity) the 'Old Guard' must be gone.
It is indicative that this 'Old Guard', the Trustees, had the absolute authority in creation of the new constitutions for the whole community. Within these constitutions, Trustees such as Hersh Cooper, (long resident in Israel) Nechama Bendet, Rabbi Sholom Mendel Kluwgant and others have continued authority to appoint individuals to the Boards of the new Yeshivah organisations.
Any and all authority at the Yeshivah organisations for the Trustees to make appointments to the Boards must come to an end.
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DON WOLF RESIGNS 2016 SEVEN TRUSTEES STILL TO GO |
Constitutions must be immediately amended to remove this entitlement. These allocated seats on the Boards should become available through open election to members of the community organisations.
The current authority of the Trustees to make appointments, including the life tenure of Rabbi Groner on all Yeshivah boards, so taints the outcome that the current elections must be voided and any further electoral process delayed till a number of constitutional amendments can be generated.
Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner must resign from the positions allocated to him on all the Boards of the new Yeshivah entities. These positions were always highly problematic. Regardless of Rabbi Groner's actions, all the constitutions must immediately be amended and this position on the Board should become an additional seat available to be voted in by the community membership.
All Trustees, who have served from 2008 and particularly, who remain in place as of 15 December 2015, must depart the organisation. Whether from governance position or management leadership involvement, any long-term authority Trustees currently hold for future appointments and participation, as is currently the case must come to an end. Should this require constitutional or other documentation amendment this must be dealt with immediately.
As matters stand:
- Appointments by Trustees disdain the messages of the Royal Commission
- The appointment of Rabbi C.T. Groner to a seat on the school Board of Yeshivah-Beth Rivkah disdains the messages of the Royal Commission, disrespects cross-communal leadership and disregards governance issues highlighted by the Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (schools regulatory authority)
Yeshivah have had a more than generous period to get their house in order. In many ways they have done poorly and if they will not respond to this Report as community leadership now demands, it is time for the authorities to step in and decontaminate so much of what should have, what could have been managed in-house.
The 'Old Guard' must be gone in both a governance and operational sense. It is time to allow the Yeshivah community to draw a deep breath and move forward with it's life.
...marcia pinskier
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