AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
November 26, 2014
Rachel Kleinman
Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant is a portly and genial man, whose wiry beard travels in several unexpected directions. A true Melburnian, he loves his coffee (short black) and is a staunch Carlton supporter.
For the past 25 years, his working life has revolved around the Jewish Care headquarters on St Kilda Road in Melbourne, where he has tended to the spiritual needs of palliative care patients comforted families and held religious services for residents and staff.
As president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, Kluwgant, 46, is currently Australia’s most senior rabbi. Like all rabbis, his training revolved around learning halachah (Jewish law). When rabbis are ordained, they are essentially qualified as legal scholars – to decide and interpret the law for their community.
For those that take up congregational roles (there are about 70 congregations in Victoria), this training leaves them woefully under-prepared for dealing with sensitive issues such as family violence, family tensions over offspring marrying outside the faith and, most recently, explosive revelations of institutional child sexual abuse within Australian Jewish communities.
“Most modern communities look to their rabbi for pastoral support – counselling, advice, religious inspiration – and a range of social supports,” says Kluwgant. Did his rabbinic studies prepare him for that? “Absolutely not.”
Kluwgant is among 27 Victorian rabbis who, over the past three years, have completed four days training organised by the community-led Jewish Taskforce Against Family Violence.
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