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Judge banned Toben from
Courage to Care opening
ADELAIDE, July 21 - Plans by Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben to attend a Courage To Care meeting between Shoah survivors and students at Horsham in north-western Victoria were Thwarted by a Federal Court order last week.
Justice Anthony Besanko late last week banned Toben from attending the event and removed a variation that had relaxed his bail conditions on compassionate grounds.
"I don't consider it appropriate that that liberty be exercised for the purpose of attending the exhibition," Justice Besanko ruled, barring Toben from attending the Horsham event and any similar meetings.
The Holocaust denier had earlier issued a media release indicating he planned to attend the Courage To Care event this week to meet with Harry Better, a Holocaust survivor, after media coverage of Mr Better's visit to Horsham for a
Courage To Care preparatory meeting six weeks ago.
Toben is on bail as he waits for his appeal to be heard by the Federal Court on August 13 after being convicted of contempt of court and sentenced to three months' jail.
Justice Besanko ruled on May 13 that Toben's continual publication of Holocaust denial material on his Adelaide Institute website violated a 2002 Federal Court order.
Former Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jeremy Jones, who brought the contempt action against Toben, asked the court to tighten his bail conditions.
Robin Margo SC, who represents Jones, said his client would not have agreed to a relaxation of bail if he had known Toben intended to use it to attend activities by Holocaust survivors.
But Dr Tony Weldon, who chairs Courage To Care
Victoria, said he would not have been particularly concerned if Toben had appeared at the Horsham event, at which Mr Better and another survivor, Peter Gaspar, related to local school
students how they were hidden from the Nazis by non-Jewish friends.
Dr Weldon said the exhibition was open to the public and Toben was a member of the public. "From my point of view, it didn't disturb me if he wanted to sit and listen to a few speeches," he said.
Police had been alerted to the possibility that Toben might be attending, in case any confrontation developed.
Toben reportedly attended a Courage To Care exhibition in Canberra previously.
More than 1500 Wimmera-region secondary students
will hear the experiences of nine survivors during the two-week Horsham event, which was opened by former Victoria Police commissioner Christine Nixon this week. The local National Party member of Parliament Hugh Delahunty officially opened the exhibitionwhich runs for two weeks.
Carly Jenkins, a music student at Horsham College, sang "Yerushalayim Shel Zachar (Jerusalem of Gold" at the opening, and Courage To Care conferred its Local Hero award on taxi
driver Ken Ballinger who rescued a bushfire victim last summer.
One interesting sidelight was when one of the attending students spoke to one of the Holocaust survivors" My grandfather was an SS officer, and I hate him for it" and want to apologise to you" he said.
Incidentally Horsham a rural town in north-western Victoria was the epicentre of The League of Rights, a right-wing anti-Semitic and anti-Asian political movement a decade ago,
Courage To Care organises around four of these events in metropolitan and regional areas each year.
Jewish students prominent of Premier's award list
MELBOURNE, July 22 - The highest achieving Victorian Curriculum of Education (VCE) students of 2008 were recognised with Premiers awards in a ceremony at the New Melbourne Convention Centre this week.
Among the top achievers were more than 10 Jewish students from Melbourne's Jewish and non-Jewish schools. They received their awards from Victorian Premier John Brumby at the ceremony on Tuesday, July 21.
The Jewish schools were once again successful with Mount Scopus Memorial College leading the charge with five students Gabrielle Debinski (English), Nadav Harel (religion and society), Daniel Nash (religion and society), Jake Newstadt
(religion and society) and David Spicer (accounting).
Two Bialik College students received Premiers awards for religion and society Lara Fisher and Steven Goldberg.
Two students from Beth Rivkah Ladies College received awards for text and tradition Rickel Broh and Tali Grossman.
The King David School's Sam Osborn received an award for media studies and Leibler Yavneh College's Liana Kalkopf for legal studies.
Jonathan Heilbron, a classical double bass music student at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), received the award for his achievement in the VCE subject, music styles, which he completed at the VCA Secondary School, where he attended from year 10.
"It was the conclusion of several years of hard work," he said. "It felt good."
Alexandra Merkrebs, who graduated from Methodist Ladies College, received a Premiers Award for her perfect score in business studies. She has since gone on to study marketing and management at Monash University in Clayton.
"I was pretty shocked and surprised when I found
out I had received the award," she said after the ceremony
Former Mount Scopus student Nash, who received the award for religion and society, said: "It is great recognition of my hard work during year 12 and on top of getting into the course I wanted, is another accolade. I am very proud of my achievement."
Former Bialik student Fisher, currently studying fashion and business at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, said: "It was really nice to be recognised especially now that VCE is over."
Former Beth Rivkah Ladies College student Broh, who received the award for text and tradition, said she enjoyed the subject matter and veteran teacher Sima Paltiel's teaching.
"The whole school system and staff have encouraged us for many years and built us up."
Paltiel's students have received 11 Premiers awards during more than 30 years at Beth Rivkah Ladies College
Three decades wait for new siddur
MELBOURNE, July 22- The first new Progressive siddur in a generation will come into use in 2010. Mishkan T'filah (Tabernacle of Prayer), written for Australasia, will be available early next year, Union for Progressive Judaism (UPJ) president David Robinson announced.
The new siddur, which will be adopted by most UPJ congregations, reflects Progressive Judaism's commitment to women's equality, he said.
"The World Union edition of Mishkan T'filah is both inclusive and accessible to all, as it features full line-by-line transliterations and translations from Hebrew," Robinson said.
After extensive preparation by an editorial committee of UPJ rabbis, Mishkan T'filah will replace Sha'arei T'filah (Gates of Prayer), which was published in 1975 for North American Reform congregations, and has been used by Australian
Progressive congregations for almost 35 years.
The new siddur will be used by congregations in
Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and South Africa.
Melbourne-based Rabbi Gersh Zylberman, a member
of the editorial committee, described Mishkan T'filah as a watershed.
There are "differences of emphasis" between the North American and World Union editions, he said launching the new siddur
The World Union edition will follow more traditional liturgies, including a more detailed Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) and Rosh Chodesh (prayers for the beginning of the month).
Mishkan T'filah is written for the Southern Hemisphere, where festivals are in the opposite season. "We've grown accustomed to rearranging things in our minds, but for newcomers to the
prayer book and the Jewish calendar, it can be confusing, so we've made it clear we're referring to a season in Israel."
Rabbi Zylberman said year-round prayers for rain acknowledge the current drought. The text also observes "gender neutrality" for God and "gender sensitivity" for humans.
Visiting rabbi killed
in traffic accident
MELBOURNE, July 23 - The American tourist killed after he was clipped by a motorcycle at Ripponlea last night was a respected rabbi visiting from New York.
Jewish news websites are reporting that Rabbi Yitzchok Rotenberg, 71, died suddenly when he struck his head on the road after being hit by a motorbike as he crossed Hotham Street, near the Glen Eira Road intersection.
The rabbi, described on the VosIzNeias website as a respected mainstay of theNew Square Chasidic community in New York, had just left a nearby synagogue when the accident occurred about 7.10pm.
Another website, Yeshiva World News, said paramedics and other members of the synagogue treated the man at the scene.
He was taken to The Alfred hospital in a critical condition. The VIN News site said doctors spent three hours operating on him, but were unable to save his life.
Rabbi Rotenberg and his wife and been visiting his son in Melbourne.
"VIN News has also learned that the Adass Israel Chevra Kadisha of Melbourne worked tirelessly to successfully prevent an autopsy,'' the site says.
"Tragically, Rabbi Rotenberg lost a married daughter to illness last year; Rabbi Rotenberg became a community hero of sorts upon assuming care responsibilities for his grandchildren in
the aftermath of their mother's death.''
The death takes Victoria's road toll to 178, four more than at the same time last year.
Police are interviewing the motorcycle rider. A report will be prepared for the coroner.
Religious concern about
anti-discrimination laws
MELBOURNE, July 24- Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls said this week he understood the need to exempt religion from proposed changes to Victoria's discrimination laws.
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Hulls was responding to concerns that a review of the Equal Opportunity Act might remove concessions for religious organisations. Religion-based organisations are currently able
to discriminate in favour of hiring people who share the same religious background.
This law has implications in a range of Jewish contexts, for example, limiting Jewish school admissions to Jewish students, or appointing non-Jewish staff to work at Jewish organisations.
"Currently our Act has a number of exceptions and
exemptions, many of which are justified," Hulls said.
"I understand arguments being put forward to retain a whole range of exceptions, including religious exceptions.
More than 1150 submissions were received by the Victorian Government in July. That committee will commence a series of public hearings in August to consider changes to the Act, which legislates when and by who discrimination is permitted or prohibited.
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), together with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV), were among the groups submitting a paper to the review.
The ADC-JCCV submission supported a review of the
Act to "better address substantive equality".
It specified legislating in favour of minority religions so that people, including Jewish people, could more easily observe religious holidays, dietary restrictions and clothing requirements.
It also endorsed a change to discrimination laws that would prohibit "discrimination in all areas, rather than singling out attributes for special mention".
This amendment would resolve an ongoing background debate around whether Judaism was a religion, a race, or an ethnicity for purposes of identifying discrimination.
A Victorian Government spokesperson said the review was instigated to assess whether the Act was compatible with Victoria's Charter of Human Rights.
Rabbi Morgan's first 25 years
MELBOURNE, July 24- After a quarter-century in his profession, a rabbi can look beyond the everyday horizons and see a bird's-eye view of what's been and what might yet evolve.
Rabbi Fred Morgan's 25 years in the rabbinate, which is being celebrated this month, has transformed him from an analytical student of faiths to a hands-on congregation builder.
Asked what other profession he might have followed, Temple Beth Israel's (TBI) senior rabbi wonders how he might have fared as an academic theologian, but voices misgivings.
"I was an academic of a particular sort," he says, referring to his teaching of comparative religion in the UK, "but I don't think I could have kept it up, as a researcher. I wanted to be engaged with people."
It was an urge that led him to Leo Baeck College, Britain's Liberal rabbinical seminary, where he recalls the grilling that prospective students underwent before beginning their studies. Asked why he wanted to become a rabbi, he replied: "To repay the blessing that Judaism has given me."
The blessing for this 61-year-old American was being raised in an upstate New York home, and taking part in the activities of the US National Federation of Temple Youth. It was a family and community youth that encouraged Jewish customs and traditions, he says.
But it was an environment he later distanced himself from to discover Hinduism and Buddhism at Columbia University. He graduated with a degree in oriental studies, which he later continued in India.
Judaism's monotheistic essence and the lure of engaging with a congregation eventually drew him back to his roots, in a faith inspired by his parents, but "not [his] parents' Judaism." He
nominates iconic British rabbis, Hugo Gryn, Dr Louis Jacobs and Leo Baeck College principal Jonathan Magonet among those who inspired him.
As a newly minted rabbi, he led North West Surrey Synagogue near London, where he was struck by the compassion of the congregants. "They seemed to have a knack for understanding how to take care of others in the congregation."
It was a model of synagogue development Rabbi Morgan later brought to Australia, his fourth continent, when he became senior rabbi of TBI in 1997; a template he set out in his induction drashah, and one he believes has been met in
part. The outcome, he says, is that TBI's doors are seldom shut nowadays.
But a whole lot more needs to be done, he states. "There should be more activities, perhaps spaces where people can just sit and have a coffee and talk, perhaps about what's in this week's community gossip."
Rabbi Morgan sees communal engagement -- his own and his congregants' -- as an experience that begins with the particular, not the general, whether that specific attraction is to one of
TBI's chavurah groups or the Social Justice Group.
"That's especially true of a large congregation like Temple Beth Israel. Look at all the shtiebels that are forming in Australia now."
He believes it is a sign that people want a closeness from their Judaism, not an edifice.
Beyond TBI, he hopes his work in the Union for Progressive Judaism has helped develop Jewish life in the smaller states. And he says his contribution to the Moetzah, the Progressive Beth Din, has been to help it make groundbreaking policy decisions on issues of Jewish status, including the controversial move last year to allow Progressive rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies.
What about the reaction to the commitment ceremonies? "Well, there wasn't that much of a reaction," he says, describing Australian Jewish life today as "lacking the ideological force" he encountered when he, his wife Sue and their three children arrived more than a decade ago.
But an endemic "insecurity" lingers, he says, and manifests itself in some corners whenever the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or interfaith outreach are raised, triggering deep angst in a
community with so many Shoah survivors.
Given his past, a yen for interfaith work comes naturally to Rabbi Morgan, and as part of his 25th anniversary, he delivered an address last month to the Council of Christians and Jews, an organisation he has strong ties to.
He outlined liturgical scholar Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman's three stages in the Jewish-Christian relationship - disputation (two millennia of Jewish persecution), diplomacy (a polite
coexistence since the Shoah and Nostra Aetate) and dialogue.
"We're now reaching that third phase, seeing dialogue slowly taking hold. But you can't have true dialogue unless you allow yourself to be vulnerable and that's not something that Australian Jewry is quite ready for."
Australians shine at squash
RAMAT GAN, Israel -- It was a watershed day for Australian squash at the Maccabiah Games with the Masters squad
winning four individual gold medals. Irwin Gordon, Dan Mossenson, David Alperstein and Anthony Shear all won the finals in their respective age groups to complete Australia's
most successful squash campaign since the 1993 games.
Alperstein, who doubles up as section manager, says the large haul made up for a disappointing teams event.
"We really didn't do well in the teams, but to make up for it in the individuals competition like this is just fantastic," he said. "The guys all pulled together and there was a terrific
comararderie within the entire team which was just great to be a part of."
Alperstein has now won three Maccabiah gold medals, but his first as an individual.
Irwin Gordon got the medal machine rolling with a tight 3-2 win over a feisty American opponent. Their game became heated when the Yank demanded a new referee in the fourth game after a disputed call.
But Gordon was able to get through the tense period and close out the match in the deciding game.
West Australian Dan Mossenson was next up, demolishing another American 11-2, 11-0, 11-1 in ruthless fashion for the Aussie's second gold in front of his three children, who are all
Maccabiah competitors, his wife and father.
Alperstein made it three from three with a comfortable win over an Israeli.
While the youngest of the quartet, 35-year-old Anthony Shear from Perth, finished off the golden day with another 3-0 win.
Later in the day, Joel Iglicki added to the Masters squash medal tally with a bronze in the over 55's division.
Ozzies shine at Maccabiah Games
RAMAT GAN, Israel, July 22 - Australian Masters swimmer
Jeff Sher has won three gold medals and one silver medal to be one of Australia's star individual performers at the Maccabiah Games.
Sher opened his account with gold in the 200-metre freestyle on Monday (July 20), before adding gold in the 50-metre freestyle and 400-metre freestyle in the 50-54 age bracket on
Tuesday (July 21). His times were so competitive in the 200-metre freestyle that he would have won the races in the 40-44 and 45-49 age groups.
"I was pretty proud of that swim," Sher said. "It would put me in the third or fourth position in the world for my age."
His 50-metre blitz was the second fastest time across all the age groups on the day - another world Top 10 time - while the 400-metre freestyle was not even a race he was originally
going to contest until his coach prompted him to do it.
With Australia unable to field a 50-54 years relay team, he joined forces with Brian May, Warren Kotsis and George Lazarus to claim a silver in the under-50 age group relay.
With the 100-metre freestyle and 4×50 medley relay to come, Sher is on his way to collecting a swag of medals - not a bad feat for someone who only started swimming seriously two years ago.
Sher is a veteran of four Maccabiah Games as a water polo player in 1981, 1985, 1989 and 1993, and has once again been touched by the Maccabiah buzz upon his return as a masters athlete.
"Coming back with the masters has been a great experience it's been really good being part of this masters team."
With these fast times under his belt, Sher is thinking of competing at the World Masters Games in Sweden next year.
In other masters news, Clive Aaron claimed gold in the 50-54 100-metre breaststroke.
Margot Mann won silver in the 60-64 50-metre freestyle; Warren Kotsis won bronze in the 40-44 400-metre freestyle; Brian May won silver in the 45-49 200-metre individual medley and 100-metre breaststroke; and Trevor Wainstein won silver in the 55-59 100-metre breaststroke.
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The Jews Down Under 