Mirvis told Dweck affair could split UK Orthodoxy
Controversial comments by leading Sephardi rabbi supporting homosexuality spark call for resignation
The United Kingdom’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has been warned by a number of British rabbis that if he fails to remove a controversial rabbi from his position, “he will be responsible for the splitting of Anglo-Orthodoxy.”
Mirvis received a letter from “several Sephardi as well as Ashkenazi rabbanim of London” on Friday morning, urging him to fire Rabbi Joseph Dweck following controversial comments he made regarding homosexuality, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
The letter stated that “If Joseph Dweck is maintained in office as a rabbi, whether it is fully or even partially, in spite of all the letters received from highly respected Orthodox rabbinical authorities in Gateshead [home of the prestigious Gateshead Yeshiva] and in Israel and worldwide, Chief Rabbi Mirvis should realize that he will be responsible for the splitting of Anglo-Orthodoxy and lose his credibility as a chief rabbi to a large consensus of Orthodox communities.”
Dweck, leading rabbi of the S&P (Spanish and Portuguese) Sephardi Community in London, found himself at the center of a communal tumult after delivering a lecture in May in which he argued that Judaism allows for two men to love each other despite its prohibition in the Torah.
The senior rabbi latter sought to clarify his statements, saying that although some of his phrasing may have been “exaggerated,” he stands by his belief that a change in social attitudes had brought benefits by helping “society be more open to the expression of love between men,” according to the Jewish Chronicle.
Dweck’s lecture was swiftly denounced by leading Sephardi rabbis in Britain and abroad. Rabbi Aaron Bassous, head of a Sephardi synagogue in Golders Green, called his comments “dangerous.”
Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who is Dweck’s uncle by marriage, also said that such views were “heretical” to Jewish law.
After weeks of attempting to mitigate the situation behind closed doors, a Mirvis representative said that the UK chief rabbi would be assuming full “responsibility for bringing this episode to a suitable conclusion.”
“As such, in the coming days, he will establish a dignified and appropriate format which will allow for concerns relating to a wide range of Rabbi Joseph Dweck’s teachings and halachic rulings to be considered and for a way forward to be set,” the representative added.
That decision came after Yosef ceded responsibility on the issue to Mirvis in a letter published on Thursday, writing “If he [Mirvis] finds it necessary, he may appoint a beth din [religious court], or any other suitable format, which will enable him to bring the matter to a final resolution.”
Mirvis has described the Dweck affair as “an urgent communal priority.”