A bitter family feud is headed to trial with mining magnate

Sydney Morning Herald, February 22, 2003

"Joe Gutnick fighting his sister over a $13.5million disputed loan. Mr Gutnick's sister, Pnina Feldman, the founder of the diamond exploration company Diamond Rose, and her husband, Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, had sought to have the matter heard in a Jewish religious court. But after four years of trying to recover the loan from the Yeshiva College, the Bondi school run by Rabbi and Mrs Feldman, a date was set yesterday for the case to be heard in the NSW Supreme Court. The dispute stemmed from a $5million loan Mr Gutnick gave the school in 1994 at a time when it owed the Commonwealth Bank $24 million and was at risk of closure, both parties to the case said. He claims he is owed $13.5million - the original loan plus interest. In exchange for the loan, Mr Gutnick was made the mortgagee of a number of Yeshiva's properties in Bondi. Last year, he tried to sell the properties to recoup his money but the Feldmans sought an injunction to block the sale. At the time, Mr Gutnick was believed to have been offered $8.5million for the blocks in Flood Street, Bondi. Both parties said they regretted the case had come before the courts. Mrs Feldman said she remained hopeful of resolving it before a Jewish court of arbitration, out of the public eye. She has already put the case to the Beth Din, or Jewish court of arbitration, in Israel, but the matter was not resolved. 'As religious Jews, that's where it should be; and as family, that's where we wanted it to be, not in the public eye,' Mrs Feldman said. "I'm ill from it. He's just doing this out of a vindictive vendetta. I'm the older sister. My husband and I have done nothing in our lives other than help him. "For two rabbis to be fighting in the court I think is an absolute total disgrace for the Jewish people as a whole and for the individual family, and it's just torn our family completely apart.'"

BRW's Rich 200: Pnina Feldman

Business Review Weekly, May 26, 1997

"Pnina Feldman. 51. Married, 11 children. Joe Gutnick's sister Pnina Feldman, is one of the extraordinary events of 1997. Investors were tantalised by tales in the prospectus of her search for the 12 gemstones from the breastplate worn by the high priest in the Jerusalem temple more than 3000 years ago. Feldman, a member of the Lubavitch Jewish community, launched Diamond Rose on April 19, the birthday of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, who is reported to have told Gutnick that the stones were in Australia. Diamond Rose includes 17 gemstone, precious and base-metal exploration tenements in north-western Australia. Feldman handed over the rights in exchange for 57% of the explorer. On listing, the 20 cents shares soared to a high of $1.75, and Feldman's paper worth briefly hit $124 million. Feldman was principal of Sydney's Yeshiva Centre girls' high school for 10 years."

Three years ago this Australian rabbi was a laughing stock. Now he controls companies worth $2.4 billion and is calling Israeli elections. "Diamond Joe" Gutnick and the Rebbe's prophecy

By Matthew Schifrin, Forbes, December 2, 1996

"On his second visit to the U.S. after becoming prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu visited a small cemetery in Queens, N.Y., not far from Kennedy airport. There he paid respects at the grave of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbe (grand rabbi) of Judaism's ultraorthodox Lubavitcher sect. Netanyahu was paying a political debt. Escorting the prime minister was another Hasidic rabbi, Joseph Gutnick, a Schneerson disciple. But Gutnick is more than a rabbi. Little-known outside of Australia and Israel, the bearded, black-coated Gutnick, 44, has amassed a $400 million fortune in Australian mining. But for Gutnick, Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud Party would probably have lost the Israeli elections. The story begins in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1990, when Rebbe Schneerson became concerned about Israel's left-leaning politics. He summoned the wealthiest among his 200,000 followers - Joseph Gutnick - and made him his special emissary for the 'integrity of the land of Israel.' Lubavitchers and most other Orthodox Jews felt Israel's Labor government was giving too much to the Palestinians for too little in return. Gutnick reportedly spent millions campaigning against the Labor Party and for Netanyahu, who takes a harder line with the Palestinians. With money and propaganda from Gutnick, 5,000 Lubavitcher volunteers went door-to-door in Israel campaigning - especially among Russian immigrants ... After marrying the daughter of a wealthy Australian textilemaker, Max New, in 1974, Gutnick studied to become a rabbi at Lubavitcher headquarters in Brooklyn and returned to run a girls' seminary in Melbourne. But his father-in-law's business beckoned, and soon Gutnick found himself more interested in trading stocks than in making garments. He bought mostly mining shares and eventually accumulated enough large stakes to sit on more than a dozen boards, including that of gold mining company Great Central Mines. In the 1970s and 1980s Gutnick rode the boom in Australian mining stocks. By the mid-1980s he had built an initial $200,000 or so into over $100 million, but he then lost two-thirds of it when the Australian stock market collapsed in October 1987. 'I learned that cash flow assets are much more important than paper assets,' says Gutnick, whose Australian accent is right out of Crocodile Dundee. What he means is that paper assets can lose their value in a short time but income-producing properties keep money coming in day after day. To that end he invested in gold production at Great Central Mines. Unlike most religious Jews who believe in keeping a low profile, Gutnick understood the value of publicity. He began saying that Rebbe Schneerson had encouraged him to forge on after the crash by blessing him and assuring he would make major discoveries in gold and diamonds ... At home in Australia, Gutnick cuts a prominent figure. He has a city home and a beach home in Melbourne. A Bentley transports his wife and ten children around Melbourne. His name is frequently in the headlines, his face and voice on TV. He is courted by Australian politicians, including the prime minister."

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