Chief Rabbi is drawn in to find ‘suitable conclusion’ to row

CHIEF RABBI Ephraim Mirvis has assumed personal responsibility for trying to find a “suitable conclusion” to the controversy over Rabbi Joseph Dweck, the senior rabbi of the S&P Sephardi Community (SPSC), as it raged into a seventh week.

Rabbi Mirvis was responding to a request from Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef to take charge of attempts to reach a settlement, his office announced at the end of last week.

London’s Sephardi community has been mired in crisis after Rabbi Dweck gave a lecture on gay love in early May in which he said the feminist revolution and social acceptance of homosexuality had in part been a “fantastic development” for humanity.

But his critics subsequently cast their net wider to attack also his lenient views on Jewish observance such as the permissibility of riding a bicycle on Shabbat as well as his use of rabbinic sources.

A spokesman for Rabbi Mirvis said moves were under way to set up “a dignified and appropriate format” to address concerns about “a wide range of Rabbi Dweck’s teachings and halachic rulings”.

In his letter to Rabbi Mirvis, Rabbi Yosef suggested if the Chief Rabbi needed to, “he should appoint a Beth Din, or whatever else he feels appropriate — whatever he decides will be acceptable”.

In accepting the challenge, Rabbi Mirvis has stepped even further into a tangled web of international religious politics.

Rabbi Yosef, who is Rabbi Dweck’s uncle by marriage, had earlier condemned his nephew’s “empty and heretical” words in response to concerns raised by a number of rabbis from New York’s influential Syrian Jewish community. Rabbi Dweck is himself from an American-Syrian family.

While Rabbi Yosef has no formal jurisdiction over the SPSC, London’s Sephardi community would find it difficult to retain a spiritual leader who did not enjoy the confidence of the Israeli Chief Rabbi.

Initially, Rabbi Yosef turned to Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, head of the Federation Beth Din — whom he knows personally — to convene a group of rabbis to decide what to do about Rabbi Dweck.

But it is understood Dayan Lichtenstein was unable to secure

Chief Rabbi Mirvis broad enough support to do so himself and Rabbi Yosef has now turned to Rabbi Mirvis.

Rabbi Mirvis is known to be firmly against the idea of holding a formal Beth Din hearing to deal with the issue. The JC understands that Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu, the former head of the London Beth Din, might be called on to play a role.

Meanwhile, an anonymous group billing itself the “Council for the Preservation of Anglo-Jewish Orthodoxy” urged Rabbi Dweck to resign and warned the Chief Rabbi he would alienate many in the Orthodox community if the Sephardi leader retained his position.

But when a man claiming to represent the council was asked by the JC to identify its members, he declined to do so.