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Where No Ultra-Orthodox Jew Has Gone Before
Efraim Zuroff
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Until now the primary impact that the ultraOrthodox Australian mining magnate Joseph Gutnick has had on Israel and the Jewish world has been political. The "Netanyahu Is Good for the Jews" campaign he financed will be remembered for employing one of the most controversial slogans of the 1996 Israeli elections and has even been credited by some analysts with turning the tide in Bibi's favor. The numerous large ads railing against Israel making any territorial concessions that Gutnick published in the Israeli press, primarily during the early 90s, in his capacity as the special emissary appointed by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe for the integrity of the Land of Israel, have also attracted considerable attention, as has his generous financial support for the Jewish community of Hebron.
Yet based on this newly published biography by journalist David Bernstein, Gutnick's ultimate legacy to the Jewish world might lie in an entirely different realm. For the 48-year-old Melbourne multi-millionaire has already sought and gained entr�e into places where no other Orthodox, let alone ultra-Orthodox, Jew has ever even sought to tread, and who can say what other precedents he will set in the future?
Gutnick's most unusual undertaking to date, and one of the focal points of Bernstein's biography, has been in the field of sports. In 1996 he became the first ultra-Orthodox Jew ever to become the president (akin to the major shareholder) of a professional athletic franchise, in this case the Australian Football League's Melbourne Demons, who play a game that combines elements of soccer, American football and basketball, and is immensely popular in Australia.
The fact that Gutnick's investment of three million Australian dollars saved his favorite team from an impending merger forced upon it by a financial crisis, and that his support helped the club return to its glory days, only dramatized the story. And Gutnick's hands-on involvement has added a unique dimension to his public persona.
For instead of merely investing in the immensely popular sport, Gutnick has assumed center stage in running his team, and as a consequence has become a sports icon and probably the best-known Jew in Australia. So much so in fact that the finer points of Jewish tradition have suddenly become common fare in the Australian sports media, as has the sight of Gutnick's bearded visage topped by a yarmulke with the Demons' colors (red and dark blue) and with his tzitzit clearly visible. And when Gutnick faced the dilemma of whether to hire a Jewish player for his team, which continues - despite his ownership - to play on Saturdays, Australian sports fans were introduced to the nuances of Shabbat observance.
To explain this phenomenon by attributing it to Gutnick's affiliation with the outreach-oriented Lubavitch movement is insufficient, and Bernstein, to his credit, does attempt to search for additional reasons to help us understand what makes Yossel (his nickname) tick. Undoubtedly, part of the answer is his upbringing by a father who, despite being a Ukrainian-born Lubavitcher rabbi from a family of Lubavitcher rabbis, was fairly open to secular society. He even volunteered to serve as a combat soldier in the Australian army in World War II, following his arrival in the country in 1940 after several years in Palestine, London and at the Telz Yeshivah in Lithuania.
The relative absence of anti-Semitism Down Under and the openness of Australian society to all immigrants, including Jews, are also factors that at least partially explain how an ultra-Orthodox Jew buys a leading sports franchise and turns it into a popular household name in the process. But beyond all this, there is Gutnick's personality, a rare combination of business acumen, driving ambition and incredible perseverance, all of which have served him in good stead on his path to financial success.
In this regard as well, Gutnick's story is far from typical. For while there have been several ultra-Orthodox Jews who have amassed large fortunes, until Gutnick's success no one had ever done so in the mining industry, let alone consistently basing digging strategy on veiled references from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, whose predictions that Gutnick would find gold and diamonds have served as the primary inspiration for the investment of millions of dollars in mining exploration.
ALL OF THIS MAKES GUTNICK'S story of unique interest, and Bernstein focuses most of his attention on the financial and sports aspect of the mining magnate's life, which have attracted the most attention in his native country. Throughout the book, he also stresses Gutnick's ultra-Orthodox way of life and his passionate affiliation to the Chabad movement and its late rebbe, but it is in this respect that he misses the real significance of the man's achievements. For in effect, Gutnick, perhaps even unwittingly, has created a new model of Jewish life, one that can best be categorized as "modern ultra-Orthodoxy."
Gutnick's brand of Judaism sanctions full and active participation in most aspects of the business world without any sense of remorse or guilt, and even condones a role in sports, something unthinkable until he came along. Unlike most of the ultra-Orthodox Jews worldwide who share his religious philosophy, Gutnick openly takes pride in the State of Israel's achievements, and is also known to have contributed significant sums to non-Jewish charities, a rare phenomenon in ultra-Orthodox circles.
Since the publication of "Diamonds & Demons," Gutnick has suffered several serious financial setbacks, which, according to press reports, have resulted in the loss of more than 90 percent of the estimated worth of his empire at the height of his success ($1.5 billion). The most note-worthy is the failure of Australian Centaur Mining Exploration, one of his main mining companies, which owns gold and nickel mines in Western Australia. The company has gone into receivership, having amassed debts of over $320 million, and is likely to be dismantled within the next few months unless Gutnick can raise approximately $400 million to make its operations profitable again.
Gutnick attributed his recent problems to a decision made in 1997 by the Australian Central Bank to sell large quantities of gold on the open market, which led to a sharp drop in the price of the precious metal worldwide. He has also admitted, however, that he set his mining expectations too high and consequently was forced to agree to joint projects with larger companies, which were less successful than he had anticipated.
According to biographer Bernstein, who spoke with me from Melbourne, Gutnick's personal fortune remains quite formidable and due to the structuring of his companies he is not in danger of insolvency. Gutnick's other companies, especially in biotechnology, are continuing to do well and he is currently diversifying his mining interests, which now include diamond exploration in northern Canada. Most important, Bernstein maintains that Gutnick's status in the Australian Jewish community, and among the ultra-Orthodox, remains as strong as ever. He may not be able to donate as much as he has in the past, but there is no sign of his reneging on any of his philanthropic obligations. Perhaps most telling, work continues on the life-size model of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe's Brooklyn home, being built on the grounds of the Gutnick-owned Kimberly Hotel in Melbourne.
All of which relates to the ultimate question, of whether Gutnick's new variant of behavior has a future in the Jewish world. Can Gutnick, for example, ever be a role model for ultra-Orthodox children? Will such kids be allowed to dream of business success and financial wealth, which are usually looked down upon in their society, let alone of an active involvement in the sports world? The fact that to date, there has been no open criticism of Gutnick's foray into professional sports, nor of his financial endeavors, is perhaps the strongest indication that his successes might be the harbinger of important changes in the ultra-Orthodox world, or at least in some of its sectors.
Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is author, most recently, of "The Response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States to the Holocaust: The Activities of the Vaad Ha-Hatzala Rescue Committee, 1939-1945" (Ktav/Yeshiva University).
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