By Les Rosenblatt 
There’s no ‘Rabbinic Spring’ yet, (Australian Jewish News Editorial Feb 20, 2015) regardless of the AJN having sighted the odd dove or swallow skimming the murky oceans of Chabad rabbinical denial exposed at the Royal Commission.
At best, to my mind, it may be an autumn. Not until the comprehensive transformation of the institutional structures, policies and practices of Chabad-dominated Orthodox schools and communal organisations has been effected in both root and branch, can we begin to speak realistically of ‘a time for healing’. There are some early signs of movement in this direction beginning to take place, but there is a long way to go.
The notice that the AJN had suspended its own staff member who correctly exposed Rabbi Klugwant’s recriminative hostility to the family support being provided to Manny Waks and then quickly re-instated him/her as soon as Fairfax started to question the suspension was not a good start to any sort of springtime.
Neither is a ‘Rabbinic Spring’ presaged by the evasiveness of the AJN editorial which sidesteps ‘the tremendous and commendable calls for reform and accountability’ by not itself directly calling for them.
If the Jewish News really want a ‘time of healing’ amongst its readers, perhaps it should start its own process of ‘reform and accountability’.
 
The letter was sent to the Australian Jewish News but was not published.

By Les Rosenblatt 
There’s no ‘Rabbinic Spring’ yet, (Australian Jewish News Editorial Feb 20, 2015) regardless of the AJN having sighted the odd dove or swallow skimming the murky oceans of Chabad rabbinical denial exposed at the Royal Commission.
At best, to my mind, it may be an autumn. Not until the comprehensive transformation of the institutional structures, policies and practices of Chabad-dominated Orthodox schools and communal organisations has been effected in both root and branch, can we begin to speak realistically of ‘a time for healing’. There are some early signs of movement in this direction beginning to take place, but there is a long way to go.
The notice that the AJN had suspended its own staff member who correctly exposed Rabbi Klugwant’s recriminative hostility to the family support being provided to Manny Waks and then quickly re-instated him/her as soon as Fairfax started to question the suspension was not a good start to any sort of springtime.
Neither is a ‘Rabbinic Spring’ presaged by the evasiveness of the AJN editorial which sidesteps ‘the tremendous and commendable calls for reform and accountability’ by not itself directly calling for them.
If the Jewish News really want a ‘time of healing’ amongst its readers, perhaps it should start its own process of ‘reform and accountability’.
 
The letter was sent to the Australian Jewish News but was not published.