The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has referred to the sudden departure of Dayan Yonason Abraham from the London Beth Din last week as a “shameful episode” and a “painful ordeal”.
The dayan left the Beth Din and his synagogue Toras Chaim in Hendon last week. The JC understands that this was after the religious authorities became aware of what they considered an inappropriate association with a married woman.
Without referring to the reason for his exit, the Chief Rabbi wrote to rabbis today to say: “To have discovered that one of our dayanim had, in his own words, ‘fallen short of the standards expected’ of him, has shaken us to the core.
“When one of us fails in this manner, we are all greatly diminished. A Beth Din must be unimpeachable in its embodiment of Torah values - anything less is entirely unacceptable.”
