The JC has previously published allegations of bullying and other inappropriate behaviour made against Rabbi David Mitchell by former members of West London Synagogue’s staff and congregation. We have also reported on claims that the synagogue’s leadership failed to deal properly with the complaints.
Rabbi Mitchell has denied that he ever acted inappropriately and has told us that “since these issues were first raised I have learned, with coaching and mentoring, to become a better manager of people and I am still learning.”
In the synagogue’s initial response to us, they said that “WLS takes any issues regarding any member of its staff very seriously. Senior Management at WLS are confident that all internal procedures were followed correctly in this matter and appropriate action was taken at the time. This matter is considered closed by WLS.”
Following our latest coverage in which more alleged victims have come forward, Rabbi Mitchell has agreed to “take a period of time away” and independent advisers have been brought in to review the synagogue’s handling of the complaints.
We await publication of their findings but, in the meantime, several of the whistleblowers have joined together to share this reaction to these latest developments.
The word “whistleblowing” is totally misleading. You think it’s just going to take a sharp, shrill noise and everyone will look up and listen. “This awful thing happened to me!” “And me!” “Me too!” But it’s not like that. Especially when it’s about a rabbi.
We are the whistleblowers who tried, for years, to get the leadership of West London Synagogue, the Movement of Reform Judaism and the Assembly of Rabbis to take notice and act on Rabbi David Mitchell’s bullying of staff and inappropriate boundaries around young people.
We experienced it first-hand, we tried to speak up at the time and, ultimately, we had to leave our jobs and our community.
The nature of a rabbi’s role means that they are privy to our most joyous moments and darkest hours. They know our financial position, our halachic status, our health woes.
We willingly entrust our children to their care to be educated, and want to believe that they are safe with them.
Our rabbis hold a special place in our communities, and often our hearts.
By promoting Rabbi David to co-senior rabbi, WLS sent out a clear message and this left us with two options: stay quiet, do nothing, and allow this man to take the highest position in a synagogue with a membership of thousands, or publicly make our voices heard, something we never wanted to do.
We all care deeply about the community and the people in it and it is for this very reason we chose the latter option.
We hoped that by doing so we would give others the confidence to speak out, which some bravely have. We also hoped that we could shake our wider community to act, to actually put in place the processes and procedures that are so urgently needed, so that concerned staff and members of any reform shul have somewhere to go.
We want to prevent anyone else having to go through the pain that we endured approaching our community’s representative bodies asking them to act and being told that they wanted to, but there was nothing they could do. Too many of us have already been harmed, and we couldn’t stand by and allow others to be affected.
So what now? An investigation is under way. Will a “fresh pair of eyes” be able to see what we’ve always known? This isn’t about one individual’s behaviour. It’s about all those around him who knew there was a problem and didn’t care, until it became too inconvenient.
Rabbi David was allowed to behave in the way he did, unchecked, for years by the communal leadership, making them just as culpable as he is.
Baroness Neuberger, about to take on a chair role at an NHS trust, has been totally silent. The president, the chair, the board that continued to say how “delighted” they were with Rabbi Mitchell’s promotion all need to be held to account.
However, this goes further than just an individual rabbi or an individual synagogue. The nature of a rabbi’s role means that they are not confined to their particular congregation. They are out in the community, attending conferences, teaching future rabbis, visiting students at university.
It is for this reason that simply relying on individual synagogues’ employment procedures isn’t enough. We need a cross-communal code of ethics, a covenant that all synagogues are required to sign up to and a whistleblowing procedure that concerned staff or members of any reform synagogue can go through if they feel their community isn’t dealing with an issue adequately.
This will protect everyone involved, both the accused and the accuser.
This whole process has been extremely damaging and painful and one we wouldn’t wish on anyone. We truly hope this ugly episode will be a turning point, however.
We welcome the pledges for rabbinic ethics processes and codes of conduct but these need to be put into action as a matter of urgency.
Because we know there are others out there who haven’t yet spoken up, who don’t know how to or who to go to. We hear you, we are with you.
