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Israeli Students in Australia
on exchange visit
MELBOURNE— Fifteen Israeli students from the Arava region have arrived in Australia for a three-week visit as part of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership 2000 initiative.
The initiative is part of the global “living bridge” project aimed at connecting Israeli communities with Diaspora communities.
The Partnership 2000 initiative was adopted by Australia’s United Israel Appeal (UIA) 13 years ago and connects the local community with that of the Central Arava region in Israel.
UIA’s Arava Australia Partnership national coordinator Ilana Maizels said: “Such partnerships are designed to allow for the development of personal relationships between Diaspora Jews and Israeli people, to be an educational tool in informing Jews about Israeli life, people and places, and to assist in sharing expertise regarding community-building and community development.”
The students, in year 10 at the Arava’s Shittim School, will visit Sydney and Melbourne, hosted by UIA as well as Masada College in Sydney and Bialik College and the Jewish National Fund in Melbourne.
While the students will be billeted by year 10 Bialik College students, they will also have the opportunity to interact with Jewish students from other schools.
Students representing each of Melbourne’s Jewish schools participated on Monday in an interactive discussion, titled Being a Jew in the Diaspora, with the visiting Israeli students at Bialik College.
Being a reciprocal initiative, Bialik College students will visit the Arava in early January next year as part of the school’s AMIT Program.
New Registrar at Beth Din
MELBOURNE - The Melbourne Beth Din (MBD) has appointed Ari Morris as its registrar, replacing the outgoing registrar Rabbi Edward Belfer. The appointment was made by the MBD board, with the approval of the executive committee of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria.
Morris plans to work with the board of the MBD to expand the role of the beth din and modernise its facilities, as well as ensure its efficiency to provide the best possible service to the Victorian Jewish community.
The president of the Melbourne Beth Din, Romy Leibler, said: “We are delighted with Ari’s appointment. We have a number of exciting proposals for the growth of the MBD planned for the year ahead, and we look forward to working with Ari to advance the MBD’s objectives.”
Morris is also the current executive director of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria.
Third time lucky - perhaps
MELBOURNE - David Southwick edged closer to a seat in Victoria’s Parliament after he won Liberal Party pre-selection for the seat of Caulfield last Thursday.
If elected in next year’s state election, Southwick would replace long-standing Caulfield MLA Helen Shardey, who announced her retirement after 13 years in the seat.
“I am honoured to be chosen by the Liberal Party to be the candidate for Caulfield,” Southwick said after gaining preselection unopposed.
“Born in Caulfield and living most of my life in the area, I will work to make a difference through actively representing the interests of our community.”
It is Southwick’s third tilt at winning a seat for the Liberal Party.
In 2004, he faced Michael Danby in the then safe federal seat of Melbourne Ports. While he didn’t win, he did gain a two per cent swing making the seat more marginal.
In 2006, he narrowly missed out on winning a seat in Victoria’s upper house.
Southwick said this week he was pleased to be trying again.
“I look forward to contesting the next election as the Liberal candidate for Caulfield, and as part of [Opposition Leader] Ted Baillieu’s team,” he said.
“I am not taking the election for granted. Helen Shardey has been a great representative for Caulfield and I will have to put in a lot of hard work to ensure that Caulfield stays Liberal.”
He also called for a change of government, saying Premier John Brumby was “tired and arrogant”.
“At every level, Labor has failed Victoria,” he said. “However, we cannot underestimate the potent political spin still wielded by the Victorian Labor Party machine and their mates in Canberra.
“The work required for us between now and Saturday November 27, 2010 is immense.”
Southwick was endorsed for pre-selection by businessman Graham Smorgon, who stated that he had high expectations for Southwick.
“I have known David for a decade and I cannot think of a better person to represent and fight for our community in state parliament,” he said.
“His work in community and social service organisations, particularly those focused on the less fortunate, are the mark of a real community champion.”
While he has becoming well known for his political exploits, Southwick is perhaps best known within the Jewish community as the disco king, having provided entertainment for thousands of Jewish children at bar and bat mitzvahs.
These days he is a successful businessman. He established and sold the $6 million skin-care company The Body Collection and is currently the director of Ice Events, an event management company. He also sits on a number of boards for community organisations.
Historically the seat of Caulfield has been held by the Liberal Party for many decades, and contains one of the largest Jewish population of any Victorian seat.
Pilger Peace Prize awards concerns Jewish Community
SYDNEY - The Australian Jewish community has expressed concern over the award of the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize to Australian journalist, author and filmmaker John Pilger.
Pilger, a supporter of Palestinian causes and a critic of Israel, received the award for his “commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form/
President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) Robert Goot said that bestowing the honour on Pilger “reflects adversely on the institute awarding the prize”.
“Awarding a peace prize to John Pilger is bizarre and disgraceful,” Goot said. “Pilger does not promote peace, but is a polemicist, a distorter of facts and history, and he promotes an extreme Palestinian narrative at the expense of Israel’s narrative and objective analysis.”
Chief executive officer of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Vic Alhadeff echoed these sentiments.
“Presenting the Sydney Peace Prize to Mr Pilger makes a farce of the award. Some of his work over the years has been noteworthy for its extreme lack of either balance or context, which has done nothing to promote the cause of peace. The choice of winner is very unfortunate as there are so many worthy recipients out there.”
In addition to his many writings on the topic, in 1974 Pilger produced the documentary Palestine Is Still The Issue “about a nation of people – the Palestinians – forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation by Israel." In 2002, he released a follow-up documentary of the same name, revisiting the region where “nothing has changed”.
More recently, he called the Likud Party “fascists” and accused Israel Defence Forces soldiers of large-scale domestic violence when they returned from “their war on Palestinian women and children” to “make war on their own."
Pilger has also produced documentaries about Cambodia, East Timor and the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
The only international peace prize awarded in Australia, organisers of the Sydney Peace Prize claim it recognises organisations or individuals who have made significant contributions to global peace.
Past winners have included Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, secretary-general of Amnesty International Irene Kahn and, to the disdain of the Jewish community, Dr Hanan Ashrawi for “her commitment to peace in the Middle East”.
Pilger will receive the award at a function at The University of Sydney in November. The following day he will deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture at the Sydney Opera House.
Toben is finally jailed
ADELAIDE - Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben was taken into custody Thursday, August 13, and will serve three months in jail for flagrantly denying there was a Holocaust.
After the hearing, three Federal Police officers handcuffed Toben outside the court and took him to a waiting car.
At the end of the almost eight-hour proceeding, much of it
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taken up by Toben’s rhetoric, a full bench of the Federal Court of Australia dismissed his appeal against a contempt finding over offensive material on his Adelaide Institute website.
Toben, of Adelaide, has spent time in jail for Holocaust denial in the UK, Germany and Austria, but has not been jailed in Australia before.
He is likely to serve his sentence at Adelaide’s Yatala high-to-medium security prison.
At the end of yesterday’s Federal Court appeal hearing in Adelaide, the full court, Justices Jeffrey Spender, Peter Graham and John Gilmour, found there had been no error in Justice Bruce Lander’s April 16 ruling that Toben was guilty of 24 charges of contempt, nor that his three-month jail sentence was excessive.
Plaintiff Jeremy Jones, a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, launched the contempt action in 2006 after Toben persisted with Holocaust denial articles on his website, in violation of a landmark 2002 Federal Court ruling that they be removed and not replaced.
After the judgement, Toben asked to speak, but was told by judges he would not be permitted. He made an exclamation about “blind obedience" as he was led away.
Losing his appeal means Toben has likely reached the end of a 13-year campaign of defiantly publishing false and insulting claims about the Holocaust.
He has asserted, among other points, that it was unlikely there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, some Jews “exaggerated” the Holocaust “for improper motives”, and Jews offended by his claims possessed “limited intelligence."
“It’s the end of a 13-year saga,” Jones’ senior counsel Robin Margo said after the court ruling. Jones’ solicitor Steven Lewis of Slater & Gordon, and junior counsels Reg Graycar and Shane Prince were also in court for the ruling.
In 1996, Toben took out a newspaper advertisement promoting his Adelaide Institute website, which triggered a complaint by Jones to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). The HREOC ruled in favour of Jones, but could not enforce its finding, which led to the court action.
Top marks in Bible quiz
MELBOURNE
- Victoria's Jewish students showed off their knowledge in the state finals of the 2009 Youth Bible Quiz held on Sunday August 9.
Organised by the Zionist Federation of Australia, with the assistance of the Zionist Council of Victoria, the winner of the quiz was 14-year-old Beth Rivkah Ladies College student Sara Kaltmann.
Sara, who will now represent Victoria in November’s national finals along with runner-up and fellow Beth Rivkah student Aliza Teller, followed in the footsteps of her sister, who won the contest in 2007, and her brother, who was last year’s runner-up.
Last year’s Australian winner Noa Bloch, who travelled to Israel to compete internationally, addressed quiz participants.
Jewish community icon
damaged in accident
MELBOURNE- Glick’s Bakery in Bentleigh will be closed until at least late next week after a car smashed into a neighbouring shop and exploded in the early hours of Friday morning.
Glick’s general manager Nathan Glick said he received a call from his baker at 2am informing him of the accident, which left the facade of the iconic bakery destroyed, and significant smoke damage within.
“The amount of damage here looks like an airplane came through the window,” Glick said.
The driver of the vehicle died at the scene at about 1.50am after his car crashed through five shopfronts in Centre Road before hitting a power line and exploding.
The driver was first spotted by speeding by Victoria Police 10 kilometres from the accident scene and was reported to be driving at 150 kilometres per hour, 90km above the speed limit. The police did not give chase because of the dangerous speed.
Other Glick’s stores as well as at Coles supermarket in Bentleigh are carrying more stock over the next few days to cater for the clientele from Bentleigh.
Health authorities have examined the shop, an estimated $5000 of stock at the premises had to be destroyed and measures will be taken to rebuild the facade with Glick’s planning to reopen ahead of next Shabbat.
In addition to Glick’s a jeweller and two cafes suffered structural damage.
Friday morning is the busiest time of the week for Glick’s ahead of Shabbat, with the Bentleigh store catering for the fastest-growing Jewish area in Melbourne.
Downer asks Arab
states to do more
CANBERRA - Former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer has called Arab states to eradicate what he called their “culture of complaint” in order to improve prospects for peace in the Middle East.
Speaking at a dinner in his honour sponsored by the Auburn Road Centre (ARC), one of the newer Melbourne synagogues, Downer said the Arab world was driven by “process and posturing” as opposed to problem solving.He cited former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a prime example of this.
“He had the opportunity to become a global statesman, but he was unable to make global statesman-like gestures but instead he wanted to be popular on the Arab street.”
According to Downer, who served as foreign minister for 12 years, Arab leaders need to take more responsibilty for the peace process and to offer concrete steps in that direction.
“Too many of them are still concerned with symbols, posing and posturing,” he said.
Downer called on US President Barack Obama to ask Arab states to take a greater responsibility to progress the peace process.
“He must tell them that they are responsible for 50 per cent of the solution. US foreign policy needs to place much more pressure on the Arabs, but they’ve been afraid to do that for many years.”
“The problem is that nobody has been successful in instituting successful policy for many years, which is why the problems in the Middle East are nowhere close to being solved,” he said.
The function, held at the Leonda Reception Centre in Melbourne also saw the the announcement of the Alexander Downer Fellowship, which will help send people to Israeli universities to study anti-terrorism policy.
Since leaving parliament, he has been working as the United Nations envoy to Cyprus and as a part-time lobbyist with the firm Bespoke Approach.
The ARC was formed last year as a new modern Orthodox shul in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, including many families who were formerly members of Kew Hebrew Congregation.
Nazi comparison rife in
Australia says ADC
MELBOURNE - A Landmark European report on anti-Semitism has important implications for Australian Jewry, according to the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC).
The report, “Understanding and Addressing the ‘Nazi Card’”, examines the increasing tendency by anti-Semites to compare Israel and its Jewish supporters to Nazis.
The report was released by the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism, a British-based independent think tank.
The authors said their report “attempts to shift the focus of analysis of contemporary anti-Semitism onto new ground -– away from labelling and defining the problem, to an understanding of the consequences of particular discourse.
“By unravelling and dissecting various manifestations of the phenomenon, the report reveals how the playing of the Nazi card scratches deep wounds by invoking painful collective memory of the Holocaust. It also offers some recommendations as to how the problem might be addressed.”
The ADC is pushing for the report’s recommendations to be adopted in Australia.
ADC research director Deborah Stone said that during Australian protests over the war in Gaza in January and in media coverage, “there were a great many examples of the use of Nazi symbolism and Holocaust comparison. These occurred on billboards and websites, in cartoons and in opinion columns.
“It was quite a common discourse in the Australian media at the time and in the protest movement and there seemed to be no sense that anything was inappropriate,” she said.
Stone added that the ADC had taken action and the mainstream media “has, by and large, been responsive on this issue."
“But the same cannot be said for the protest movement or for websites, bloggers and the kind of media that makes up an increasing proportion of what people are exposed to.”
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The Jews Down Under