Letter supporting Beth Alexander

 https://www.facebook.com/beth.alexander.35110/posts/10104231838114660

o.deutsch@ikg-wien.at

office@ikg-wien.at

Mr. Deutsch,

I am the grandson and great grandson of Oskar and Hannah Grunsfeld and Tzvi and Karoline Grunsfeld. My grandparents and great grandparents lived in Vienna for a few years when they were expelled by the Nazis from Lakenbach in 1933. As such, it is with great regret that I have watched the regression of this once outstanding Jewish community.

I am also one of more than 6000 members of a Facebook group, comprised of friends and supporters of Beth Alexander, who have mobilized from every corner of the world, from every walk of life, united and determined to help Ms. Alexander end this most outrageous injustice for once and for all.

As such, I read your “response” letter addressed to Rabbi Mirvis with deep disappointment. You began your letter with the words “K’vod HaRav”, but your letter contained the opposite of Kavod HaRav. While I found nearly every sentence of your “response letter” to be inaccurate and/or offensive, I wish to focus on the two “arguments” that I personally found the most offensive.

First, you trotted out the mantra that the Viennese Jewish Community (IKG) does not have the power to overrule the court decisions which awarded sole custody to Mr. Schlesinger. Of course, all people possessing even a single a brain cell understand this basic legal premise. Rather, the Chief Rabbi, and thousands of Jews around the world, have implored you to employ every effort to persuade/influence, or if needed, pressure, Mr. Schlesinger to, for the first time in his life, act in the interest of his sons, and stop depriving his sons access to their mother. Mr. Schlesinger could allow Ms. Alexander to take her rightful place as the mother of her children in the blink of an eye.  You are fully aware of this. Any person with an ounce of intelligence is fully aware of this. Thus, for you to fob off the Chief Rabbi with the irrelevancy about not having the ability to overturn a Court Decision is an outrage.

Second, you throw your hands up and play the victim, arguing that the IKG has already taken every possible measure it can to assist Ms. Alexander. Of course, this is not true. To give just the most obvious example, the IKG Rabbinic and lay leadership should issue an immediate statement that until Mr. Schlesinger allows Ms. Alexander full and complete access to her children:

• No shul shall admit Mr. Schlesinger.
• No IKG member should step into Mr. Schlesinger’s home or allow him into their home.
• No member of the IKG should conduct any form of business transaction with Mr. Schlesinger.
• No member of the IKG should speak to Mr. Schlesinger.
• Mr. Schlesinger shall be excluded from all benefits available to members of the IKG.

You say you understand Ms. Alexander’s pain but have you actually considered for even one moment,  how you would feel, if God forbid you or a loved one were suddenly cut off from your children for TEN YEARS.

Mr. Deutsch, the entire world Jewish community is aghast at the conduct of the IKG. It is not too late to act to rectify this most egregious injustice, for which the IKG shares significant
responsibility, via its actions and omissions.

The Jewish World implores you as the President of the IKG, to take the appropriate and immediate actions to end this outrage.

Respectfully, Gerry Grunsfeld, Esq.