New Sephardi Office of Senior Rabbi to launch 'in coming weeks'

The new Office of Senior Rabbi (SRO) for the S & P Sephardi Community is expected to be launched “in the coming weeks”, members have been told.

Senior Rabbi Joseph Dweck was “one of our strongest assets,” the S & P board stated in the first of promised regular updates for members. “Therefore, his educational and ambassadorial efforts require a more formal infrastructure in order to lead and represent the S & P over the coming years.”

While the memo does not reveal the cost of the initiative, a document seen by the JC has put it at around £100,000 a year over the next five years.

However, the assured members the community would incur “no increased cost to the Kahal [community] to establish the SRO, over and above our existing commitments”.

Any additional cost would be underwritten for five years by a donor, Jonathan Kandel. Mr Kandel is a tax lawyer with an international law firm, Kirkland & Ellis.

“This initial seed fund will first ensure the long term future of the SRO and its programming under the leadership of Rabbi Dweck, and then provide the wider community with funding from a wider spectrum of donors than it has traditionally had access to,” the board said.

This week’s update followed a public meeting last week which the S & P had called to brief members on future plans but which failed to dispel dissatisfaction.

In an email at the end of last week after the meeting, the organisation's president Professor Stuart Morganstein acknowledged, “We are aware that many people were disappointed by this meeting and felt that the contributions from the board were not well thought out and did not achieve our objective of being transparent and encouraging dialogue.”

In this week's update, the board said that an interim strategic report compiled by former JFS headteacher Rachel Fink, who is acting as a consultant for the community, did “not reflect the settled position of the author or the board”.

Among other things the report had noted that the “current SKA team does not reflect the traditional Sephardi halachic approach to kashrut decision making”.

In contrast, the board stressed, “There is absolutely no question in the minds of the rabbanim of the community, the Sephardi Beth Din, or the S & P board that the SKA’s approach is firmly rooted in Sephardic halacha.”

The update said a decision on the future of the S & P’s Wembley Synagogue would be taken later this year and a chief executive for the organisation would be appointed shortly.

It also said that “swift and meaningful” action was needed to reduce the S & P’s deficits.

As an example of the kind of projects that would fall under the wing of the SRO, it highlighted the Habura, an online Torah programme started last year which now had 300 students from across the world whose average age was 25.