Moshe Gutnick

Gutnick is the head of the NSW Kashrut Authority, the most widely known kosher authority in New South Wales.[3]

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies alleged that the organisation "lacks transparency in relation to operations and finances", the community was not represented, and the meat suppliers were determined by factors outside of Jewish law, thus raising the prices of the meat to 30% more than in Melbourne.[4] A report written on the state of kashrut in NSW was describe as a "damning indictment" of Gutnick's practices and bemoaned the lack of communal governance and transparency.[5]

This breakdown in communications lead to a competing agency in the kashrut space opening up in Sydney.

A number of incidents played out in public.

One such incident was when a caterer ordered kosher meat from Melbourne, under the supervision of his brother, Mordechai, because the particular cut of meat was unavailable in Sydney, thus threatening their monopoly over kosher meat. Gutnick confronted the owner and confiscated the offending meat.[6]

Another instance was when the kosher abattoir was closed due to cruelty to animals, and Sydney was forced to obtain their meat from Melbourne.[7]

In 2018, Gutnick threatened to remove his certification from Our Big Kitchen if they allowed caterers, the Shuk, to use their kitchens for a function. The Shuk had recently moved to the KA's rival authority, Community Kashrut for some of their certification. Gutnick declared food prepared under the rival authority to be not kosher.[8]

Gutnick has also been public in his condemnation of the Australian Jewish News, for their willingness to accept advertising from non-kosher caterers, even though the majority of their readership are secular. He felt that as part of the Jewish community and out of respect for the strictly Orthodox they should refuse such adverts.[9]

Gutnick was called in early 2015 to testify before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It was there that he said, "I believe the cover-ups and bullying and intimidation that has gone on ... represents the antithesis of the teachings of Chabad and Judaism and orthodoxy."[10] He acknowledged that the Orthodox Chabad community in Australia was guilty of covering up sex crimes committed in the community and pressuring victims and their families not to report the crimes to the police. Gutnick said that people reporting abuse were ostracized mosers (“informers”). He said “a culture of cover-up, often couched in religious terms, pervaded our thinking and our actions.” He claimed that rabbis in these situations had misused their power, and that anyone who insists a child sexual abuse victim should go first to a rabbi rather than the police is not doing so out of religious reasons but trying to “hush it up, to cover it up, to prevent the victim from finding redress. There is no doubt at all: Mesirah [‘informing’] has no application whatsoever to instances of child sexual abuse. To use mesirah in this way is an abomination.” Gutnick also lamented that there was no formal training for rabbis on how to handle reported abuse. Manny Waks, an advocate for victims, said, “Today, Rabbi Moshe Gutnick restored my faith in ultra-Orthodox Judaism. For the first time ever the reform that is so critical seems much closer. Thank you Rabbi Gutnick. Hopefully the rest of the Orthodox Rabbinate will now follow suit. What an incredible day for justice.”[11]

Gutnick was the rabbi at the Mizrachi synagogue in North Bondi from 1987 to 2009. After seeing their numbers fall, the synagogue tried a number of ways to change the situation. This included an ill-fated attempt to merge with the Great Synagogue.[12] The synagogue then decided to make Gutnick redundant since his wages were becoming a financial burden on the synagogue and they could no longer pay them. Gutnick argued that the board had no right to make this decision and that communal rabbis should have life tenure. The only way to remove a rabbi is via a Beth Din. He successfully obtained an injunction from the NSW Supreme Court preventing his dismissal pending the ruling of a Beth Din.[13]

The case was taken to the London Beth Din, and Gutnick emerged with a ruling in his favour, and a payout including costs of close to $1 million.[14][15]

Gutnick serves as a senior member of the Sydney Beth Din.[16] One of the roles of the Beth Din is Jewish divorces and solving gett refusal. Gutnick has been aggressive in his condemnation of the practice of gett refusal, and is a strong supporter of Halachic prenuptial agreements.[17][18]

The Beth Din is also responsible for conversions, and it was revealed that the Sydney Beth Din are one of the few in the world that is approved to perform conversions by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.[19]

While on the Beth Din he has courted controversy including the alleged lack of transparency and refusal to reform the structure of the institution. To date the Beth Din has no formal constitution, with no plans to create one, leading to the accusation of an opaque operating system, and no clear structure for the appointment of judges. Gutnick is also a director of the Beth Din along with fellow dayan, Yehoram Ulman.[5]

Gutnick and the Sydney Beth Din have also run foul of the secular law in Australia. In one case they were found to have intimidated a member of the public into approaching them instead of the secular courts, and were found in contempt of court.[20] In another, the Beth Din were accused of not complying with the law and handling the case unfairly when they excommunicated a member of the Sydney Jewish community.[21]

In yet another case, Gutnick was involved in the ruling against Yacov Barber in his dispute with his synagogue.[22] Gutnick sat on this case, despite being a colleague of Barber, who sat on the Melbourne Beth Din, and the details of the case being very similar to his own dispute with the Mizrachi synagogue.[12]

In March 2019 the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBOD) intended to investigate the Beth Din which Gutnick is a part owner and senior member. The resolution which was passed unopposed was to look into all aspects of the Beth Din in the wake of the contempt of court rulings against the Beth Din in 2018. The Beth Din responded that JBOD had a "This attempt by the BOD to assert authority over the SBD creates an insurmountable conflict of interest for the BOD, a body with a history of effectively undermining the theological basis of Orthodoxy and halachah". They rejected the concept that JBOD "has any right to be involved in, to interfere with or comment on the affairs of an Orthodox rabbinical body".[23]

Gutnick is a former president of the Rabbinical Council of NSW. He is a former head of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA). After ORA was closed down after several of its members were forced to resign because they were implicated in abuse by the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse and reformed as the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand, Gutnick was elected in 2018 to lead the new body.[24]

Gutnick has been an outspoken opponent of same sex marriage, and has signed letters to parliament, and written articles affirming this position.[25][26] He also defended rabbinic opposition to the Safe Schools program, aimed at reducing bullying, including bullying based on gender identity, saying that he did not want to "'celebrate' an orientation that is against Torah teaching."[27]

Gutnick has also defended Halal certification against its detractors, saying that if that were to be said about kosher it would be considered anti-Semitic, and it was an attack on religious rights.[28]

• Rabbi