London Beth Din
Av Beth Din - the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks
Rosh Beth Din - Dayan Ch Ehrentreu
Dayan M Gelley
Dayan I Binstock
Dayan I Berger (Consultant)
The London Beth Din in its capacity as Court of the Chief Rabbi is
historically the supreme Halakhic Authority for several commonwealth
countries and additionally is consulted by Batei Din throughout Europe.
The range of questions with which the Beth Din deals is vast and covers
all areas of Jewish Law. Some of the specialist areas covered by the
Beth Din are noted below.
In addition, the Beth Din is responsible for:
In Jewish Law, a couple remain married notwithstanding the grant of a
civil divorce and neither party may remarry until such time as a get is
given by the husband to the wife. This procedure requires the consent of
both husband and wife. full details of the get procedure are given the
London Beth Din Gittin Yearbook which can be obtained from the address
set out below.
The Beth Din is responsible for the vast majority of orthodox
conversions carried out in the United Kingdom. The conversion process
which requires total commitment to living a full Jewish life, is closely
supervised by the Dayanim. Day to day coordination of the conversion
process is undertaken by Rabbi R. Simon.
The Beth Din oversees the process whereby a non Jewish child, adopted by
a Jewish couple may achieve Jewish status. Without certification of
Jewish status by a Beth Din , the child will not be admitted to an
orthodox Jewish School and will not be allowed to marry in a orthodox
Synagogue.
The Beth Din retains a Research Unit which employs the service of a
professional genealogist in order to assist in enquiries as to whether a
person is Jewish. However the Dayanim are ultimately responsible for the
issue of a certificate certifying Jewish status.
In Jewish Law, Jewish parties are forbidden to take their civil disputes
to a secular court and are required to have those disputes adjudicated
by a Beth Din. The LBD sits as an arbitral tribunal in respect of civil
disputes and the parties to any such dispute are required to sign an
Arbitration Agreement prior to a Hearing taking place. The effect of
this is that the award given by the Beth Din has the full force of an
Arbitration Award and may be enforced (with prior permission of the Beth
Din) by the civil courts. At a hearing before the Dayanim, the parties
do not require legal representation although they are allowed to have
legal or other representation. Details as how to commence a Din Torah
before the Beth Din are set out in the Litigation Year Book which is
available on request at the correspondence address for the LBD.
WHERE YOU CAN REACH US
All correspondence should be addressed to
Mr D Frei
Registrar
London Beth Din
735 High Road, London N12 0US.
our telephone number is 020 8343 6270
and our fax number is 020 8343 6257 |
