Rabbinical leadership in dispute
The ownership of RCANZ, the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand, has changed its ownership with child sexual abuse advocate Manny Waks becoming its president following the deregistration of the name.
The logo of the deregistered RCANZ
RCANZ was deregistered on 4th January 2020 and according to ASIC’s records, the name was registered on March 28th with Phillip Weinberg recorded as the Secretary.
On April 1st, Manny Waks blogged that he had been appointed the president of RCANZ.
In a statement signed by Manny Waks as president of RCANZ he wrote: “We put in place a constitution with a disciplinary process for members (which we will use), a grievance procedure, criteria for membership and a process for the election of committee members.”
A spokesperson for the group of rabbis who sat on the executive of the previous RCANZ told J-Wire: “We obviously agree to disagree on this matter. We feel it’s important that the terms of our constitution are determined by the Rabbinate together with our legal advisors and not by other parties even if they are well-intentioned.
Our application to become incorporated as an association which began in December last year is due to be finalised in the coming days. The name we were intending to use has been taken by another party so we will now need to use a similar name instead and we will continue to serve our respective congregations as best as possible during these difficult times.”
Waks said in his April 1 statement that he was looking for rabbis to populate the born-again RCANZ.
J-Wire understands RCANZ was deregistered as a company with a view to reregister it as an incorporated association which better reflects the nature of a rabbinic group.
There is an organisation of rabbis in search of a new name and a reregistered name in search of rabbis.
