Howzat,
I wasn’t actually suspecting you of posting on Shabbos, but it did look strange enough to bring it up. Thanks for clarifying.
I don’t think it’s productive to this discussion to raise issues of particular communities that virtually no one here is familiar with, aside from us two, and what CS and possibly others have heard from friends. I am not a woman, and I never studied in Bais Rivkah in Melbourne, so I am the wrong person to give a definitive answer on their uniform policy, I’d like for CS to ask her Australian friends who would have learned there for the real story.
Regarding you not being interested in what Chassidus Chabad has to offer after you see the standards of Lubavitch in Australia, I can’t blame you, it’s a hard sell when the salesman doesn’t act the part. Interestingly, Melbourne is probably one of the only large Chabad communities where there is no formal organized attempt to teach Chassidus to other frum people, as in Monsey, Boro Park, Lakewood, Eretz Yisrael, London, Canada, and some other places I’ve probably missed. I think the reason is because they would have very little success. However, there are some very Chassidishe Yidden in the Melbourne community who are role models of the effect that Chassidus can have on a person, people who are exceptionally refined and – dare I say – holy Yidden. There are several huge Talmidei Chachomim among Chabad in Australia, and world renowned Poskim. I’ll drop a few names in no particular order:
R. Yehoram Ulman, Sydney Bais Din
R. Moshe Gutnick, SBD.
R. Mordechai Gutnick, Melbourne Bais Din
R. Faitel Levin, Melbourne, one of the greatest Halachic authorities of our time, and Bli Guzma, the greatest Talmid Chochom in the continent of Australia.
R. Binyomin Cohen, Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva Gedolah, and a tremendous Talmid Chochom.
R. Ahrel Serebryanski, Head Shliach of Australia, and an actual Heilige Yid.
And many more names of younger up and coming Rabbonim. If you look around, you shall find. If I lived in Australia, I’d be able to tell you more. And of course, there are the Chassidim who helped establish Frumkeit in Australia, and Chabad in particular, R. Moshe Feiglin, a Chassid of the Rebbe Rashab who arrived in Australia in 1912, and has the distinction of meriting that all his descendents are Shomrei Torah, something no one else who arrived at that time can claim, to the best of my knowledge. R. Zalman Serebryanski, who arrived in the 40s, and is responsible for much of Frum life in Melbourne today. R. YD Groner who came in the 50s and accomplished tremendous things, and not just in the Chabad community.
So while currently Lubavitch in Melbourne may not be a shining light of Chassidishkait, bear in mind that a vast majority of it’s adherents are Baalei Tshuva, and that if not for the work of those elder Chassidim from the 40s and 50s, there would be far fewer frum people in Melbourne today, not just in the Chabad community.