Rabbi Chaim Herzog
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — A controversial Chabad rabbi in
Melbourne has been stripped of his official endorsement following a
long-running turf war that involved police and threatened legal action.
Rabbi Chaim Herzog, who has run the Chabad House of
Melbourne CBD in the city’s downtown since 1998, was officially removed from
his position last week by Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner, the head shaliach of Chabad
Houses in Australia.
“The endorsement of Rabbi Chaim Herzog as a shaliach of
Chabad has been withdrawn,” Groner wrote in a statement on Oct. 18.
“As such, he is no longer able to conduct activities in the
name of Chabad, including but not limited to Chabad of CBD (Melbourne).”
But Herzog issued a counter-statement, alleging his loss of
the rabbi’s endorsement was part of a “smear campaign” and that Groner did not
have the authority to remove him.
Herzog claimed it required the agreement of the three chief
Chabad rabbis appointed by Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn to run Melbourne
following the 2008 death of Groner’s father, who was Chabad’s chief rabbi here.
“Chabad of Melbourne CBD and its duly appointed shaliach,
Rabbi Chaim Herzog, call upon Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner to immediately cease and
desist from these slanderous actions of rabbinical overreaching,” Herzog said
in his statement.
The withdrawn endorsement by Groner follows a long-running
turf war between Herzog’s Chabad of Melbourne and another organization in the
city center, Jews of the CBD, which stands for central business district, or
downtown.
It is run by David Werdiger, a grandson of one of the
pioneers of Chabad in Australia, who has been at loggerheads with Herzog since
2008, with Werdiger claiming he had been harassed by Herzog for hosting a
weekly study session and other events perceived to be in competition with
Herzog’s organization.
Jews of the CBD “does not and has never purported to be a
Chabad organization, and does not need and has never sought formal endorsement
from Chabad rabbis,” Werdiger said.
“Our policy and practice is to collaborate with other
organizations, and we do not lay claim to any regional exclusivity,” he said.
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