Melbourne, Australia – Community leaders have called on the Melbourne Chevra Kadisha to be more accountable to the community it serves.
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Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV), said that while the Chevra Kadisha has taken some steps to open up to the community, things are not perfect.
“The lack of facilities at Lyndhurst is extremely unfortunate,” Rabbi Kluwgant said.
However, he said the Chevra Kadisha has agreed that when a shtiebel is built at Lyndhurst, it will consult with the RCV on its design.
Rabbi Kluwgant’s comments follow accusations in the Jewish community that the Chevra Kadisha is a closed organisation and that it has let lapse a planning application for facilities at the 18-month-old cemetery.
Myer Herszberg, president of the Melbourne Chevra Kadisha, confirmed that an application for rezoning had been made to the City of Greater Dandenong a number of years ago, but the application was not for express permission to build a shtiebel.
“The actual building of the shtiebel is not approved,” Herszberg said. “We have to get permission to put a shtiebel in and they are very sensitive because they want it to blend in and it’s farmland, so we’re going through that.”
However, Jewish Community Council of Victoria president John Searle, who has been trying to contact Herszberg without luck, did not accept the excuse.
“I am still receiving complaints and I regard the stonewalling we’re receiving from the Chevra Kadisha as still unacceptable,” Searle said.
“It is time the Chevra Kadisha realised that it needs to be accountable to the community.”
A Department of Human Services (DHS) spokesperson said the operation of cemeteries is left to the individual trust.
The legislation, which governs cemeteries and burials, does not require the installation of facilities, such as shelter or public toilets for mourners.
There was also concern about an advertisement for a new Chevra Kadisha trustee, which appeared in the back of The Age’s Saturday’s business pages.
By law, the DHS must advertise vacancies on cemetery trusts such as the Melbourne Chevra Kadisha.
But there was widespread condemnation that the advertisement was tucked away in a mainstream paper on Shabbat, rather than advertised more prominently within the Jewish community.
Both Herszberg and a DHS spokesperson confirmed it was the government department, not the Chevra Kadisha, which selected where the ad would be placed.
I think we should send Misaskim, Chesed Shel Emes, and Zaka there then we will have real politics
The Chevra Kadisha is far moire heimish (frum) then the Rabbinical establishment. Rabbi Kluwgant was critisizing the Chevra Kaddisha for putting a mechitza at the new chapel they built some years ago at the older cemetry in Springvale. The people who run the chevra kaddisha are volunteers and extremely devoted to the Chevra Kadisha and work long hours L’shem Shomayim. They consult a Rav who is a lakewood talmud and from the old school. The more modern Rabbis don’t like this. This seems to be3 the only problem. As Rome wasn’t built in one day so too the new cemetry which is unbelievable is not complete although they have all facilities, but they are temporary! So those who have a bee in their bonnet will always complain when something is done better than they could.
i wish the chevra kadishas from har hazesim open their books they have millions and the govt has to protect the kevorim my parents are buried there. those chayas leave the tin coffins on the cemetery like a junk yard…………soooooooooooooooo sad
Chabadnik is 100% correct. The Melb Chevra Kadisha is far, far more frum that the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) who besides having a few Chabad rabbis, is made up of MO and VERY MO rabbis. Being a complete amhaaretz does not disqualify anyone who calls themselves rabbi to joining.
When Myer Herszberg and his committee put in a halachik mechitza in the room where hespedim are held – after consulting serious rabbonim here and overseas – some anti-religious people – aided and abetted by the local [so-called] “Jewish” rag (which VIN quotes from all the time) attacked them. It was this same Kluwgant who joined the attacks. Uchedai bizayon vakatzef.
I (and the entire Melb Jewish community) is still amazed how Kluwgant – who is actually only a shochet in real life – and not a rabbi (unless you count davening a Shabbat tefila sometimes in the local Jewish old age home as a rabbinical ‘post’) has been made president of the RCV. It shows the low standard of most members there.
Very few of Melbourne’s rabanim who are genuine talmidei chachamim and poskim belong to this ‘do-nothing’ group. Eg, Rabbis Wurzburger, Donnebaum, Beck, Berlin, Turkeltaub, Opman, Katz, Heimlich, Kohn. (and for those who don’t know – despite these people being labelled RW and even ultra-orthodox, it is estimated that 95% of shaalosin Melbourne come to this group. The other 55 would be to Rabbis Telsner and Levin. The rest of the RCV are lucky to ever have a shalleh and if there is one it is likely to be the next date for Yizkor.
So please VIN, if you want to call yourself the voice of O Jewry – don’t quote garbage from the AJN and publicity-hunting rabbis
And the few there who CAN learn – eg Rabbi Telsner, Levin, Kievman – are never heard from. It’s always Kluwgant, Heibrun Link