London – A group of rabbis in London for the country’s top Sephardi rabbi to be fired over his comments welcoming growing acceptances of homosexuality.
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Rabbi Joseph Dweck, who serves as senior rabbi at London’s S&P Sephardi Community, came under fire after saying at a lecture last month that societal acceptance of homosexuality is a “fantastic development” because it opens the door to a more loving society.
In a letter Friday addressed to British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and “any would-be panel of appointed Dayanim [religious judges],” the London rabbis, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi, wrote that if he did not remove Dweck as head of the British Sephardi community, “Rabbi Mirvis should realise that he will be responsible for the splitting of Anglo-Orthodoxy and lose his credibility as a Chief Rabbi to a large consensus of Orthodox communities,” the London-base Jewish Chronicle reported.
“Such a decision to keep Joseph Dweck in a rabbinical position in the UK would be a detrimental act and Chief Rabbi Mirvis will be remembered for causing a terrible rift within the Orthodox community in the UK, which will be almost impossible to heal,” the letter also said.
Mirvis announced Thursday that he would take over responsibility for what is being called the Dweck Affair. A spokesman for Mirvis said Saturday that “at the request of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Chief Rabbi Mirvis, who considers this an urgent communal priority, will take responsibility for bringing this episode to a suitable conclusion,” according to the Chronicle. The announcement also said that Mirvis will “establish a dignified and appropriate format which will allow for concerns relating to a wide range of Rabbi Joseph Dweck’s teachings and halachic rulings to be considered and for a way forward to be set.”
Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, said in a statement published Thursday, “Whatever he decides will be acceptable to us in Israel,” referring to Mirvis.
Last month, Dweck canceled his annual summer job as scholar in residence at a major Sephardi summer institute in New Jersey to deal with the fallout from his comments.
The controversy has widened since the original remarks, with rabbis calling for scrutiny of dozens of Dweck’s halachic opinions, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
Dweck, who grew up in Los Angeles, received rabbinic ordination from Ovadia Yosef, the late Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel.
In a 90-minute lecture, given at the Ner Yisrael synagogue in Hendon, England, Dweck emphasized that homosexual acts are forbidden by Torah, but that the growing tolerance for feminism and homosexuality had residual benefits for society at large.
“[W]e have to see ultimately how it is we deal with it in terms of Torah and society,” he said. “If we do not hang our prejudices at the door when we deal with it, and don’t look at Torah as it is and what it is saying to us, and stop with the insane bigotry and prejudice we’ve got, we will be on the out and society will move forward because [God] doesn’t wait for anybody. He is taking His world into love.”
You can fire a peer? I am not sure it works that way. You can fire a rabbi, but he remains a peer.
It’s so easy to take snippets of his lecture out of their context and make them seem pro homosexuality. He was talking about the concept of non-condemnation for their proclivities. He was not advocating for acceptance of their acts. His statement on love had nothing to do with accepting their acts as those of love, rather it was a nuanced statement about the fact that people are becoming more tolerant of those different from them, which he recognizes as an increase of love between members of the human race.
He’s right. The act is assur, not the desire. No one controls whether he or she is born homosexual or heterosexual. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have no interest in these acts cannot fathom what it is like to know that one will never have a permitted outlet for one of basic life desires.
Lol hakavod to those who conquer their nature and live celibate lives. What an incredible nisayon!
Our opposition to homosexual activity should be based on Torah, not on hatred and prejudice.
He use to be a rabbi in Brooklyn
Hard to figure out what he was saying, but the truth is that our better understanding of the issues facing homosexuals and their desires and נסיונות is a step forward in the right direction of acceptance – not of the act, but of the sincere Jews attempting to overcome these issues.
Now discussing halacha is assur? Are we Jews or Inquisitors?
And what right do Ashkenazim have to control Sephardic Jewry?
As a Sephardic Jew, I find that extremely inappropriate.
He knows that people are talking against him as if he is going against the Torah. Why didn’t he come out already and state that he is not against the Torah, or to say he was missunderstood? By not clarifying himself openly in public, it seems that he is agreeing to the assumptions. He seems to be backing up homosexuality.
We tend to think that a person dressed as a religious person is religious. Unfortunately that is not true. There are many atheists out there who dress very frum. So, if you see someone frum backing up homosexuality, it doesn’t mean that he really holds by Torah values…it could be someone who’s neshama is very corrupt, like many cases we have seen, with pedophilia, voyeurism, embezzlement, bribery, etc.