The Melbourne Beth Din (MBD) is an Orthodox / Chassidic Jewish court in the city of Melbourne, Australia. Located in Caulfield North, Victoria, it rules mostly on divorces and conversions although it does rule on other matters as well. History The MBD has existed in various iterations. The first Beth Din was set up with the assistance of Moses Rintel, who later served as the head of the Beth Din. This was the first Beth Din in the British Empire outside of London. There were a series of Melbourne rabbis who served on the Beth Din, including: Harry Freedman, a widely respected scholar and senior translator at Soncino Press Sir Israel Brodie, later Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth Joseph Abrahams Elias Blaubaum Jacob Danglow Isaac Jacob Super, head of the Melbourne United Shechitah Board Yonason Abraham, who later served on the London Beth Din From the 1960s the Beth Din had a series of long standing heads, beginning with Isaac Rapaport and Sholem Gutnick. Under Gutnick's leadership, the Beth Din was accused of nepotism, lack of transparency and financial irregularities in what was described as a "one-man operation". Gutnick would appoint judges without consulting other rabbis in the community, despite the protests of the communal rabbinate. Following Gutnick's tenure, the Beth Din was closed down and restructured under the joint control of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) and the Council of Orthodox Synagogue of Victoria (COSV), and Mordechai Gutnick was appointed senior judge. In 2017, the MBD conducted a wide-ranging review of its procedures that included rabbis currently sitting on the Beth Din, other communal rabbis, and lay people. Conversions One of the roles of the MBD is to oversee Orthodox conversions to Judaism. This process is often mired in controversy, with London at times overruling the decisions of the Australian Beth Din, and the topic causing tension between Joseph Abrahams and his community, forcing the rabbi to briefly resign his post. This difficulty in conversion in the early days of the settlement of Australia led to many Jews marrying non-Jews and assimilating into Australian culture. Today many of the conversions performed are done for marriage or due to Jewish ancestry. Today, the process of converting internationally is mired in controversy and politics especially in Israel. In this environment, the MBD is one of the few internationally recognised conversion programs. However, the program regularly takes several years, and requires