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Jewish politician's home attacked with neo-Nazi graffiti
SYDNEY - Police are investigating an alleged hate crime targeting NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, after his Bondi home was found graffitied with neo-Nazi symbols over the weekend.
Roozendaal's spokesman said an unknown group with suspected links to neo-Nazis painted "88" on the Treasurer's front gate, footpath and on the outside of a neighbour's house on Saturday.
The symbol is known as shorthand for Heil Hitler among far-right groups.
The vandalism appears to be an isolated incident,a police spokesperson said
The attack comes one month after Roozendaal struck a deal with the Labor Party's national secretary that no ALP preferences would go to the anti-immigration group, Australia First, in the next federal election in 2011.
The Treasurer compared the Australia First Party to One Nation, led by controversial figure Pauline Hanson, which got a foothold in Queensland due to Coalition preferences.
"This must not occur again," Roozendaal, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said at the time.
Roozendaal's spokesman said the attack would not deter the Treasurer from his cause.
"He will not be intimidated and will continue to speak out against groups preaching hatred and division," he said.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff also spoke out against the attack.
"All anti-Semitic incidents are to be vigorously condemned. When such an attack invokes the imagery of Hitler, it is even more reprehensible," Alhadeff said.
"Roozendaal has been a champion of the need to speak out against all forms of racial hatred since his days as a university student, and the community will continue to support him in this endeavour."
Jim Saleam, leader of Australia First, denied his group had any involvement in the incident.
Australian, Israeli doctors team to detect brain cancer by blood tests
MELBOURNE - Cancer researchers at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem and The Royal Melbourne Hospital in Melbourne are joining forces to pioneer a blood-based test for detecting brain cancer.
Not only will the technique facilitate monitoring the disease in patients, it will speed the introduction of new therapies.
Andrew Kaye, professor of surgery at the University of Melbourne and director of The Royal Melbourne Hospital department of neurosurgery, said: "This will totally change the way we evaluate cancer therapies for brain tumours.".
To translate scientific research into cures, researchers need to share their expertise and their patients. That is exactly what Kaye is up to with Professor Tali Siegal and Dr Iris Lavon,
who visited RMH earlier this month.
Siegal, a neurologist-researcher, is Director of Hadassah's neuro-oncology centre; Lavon heads the research laboratory. The pair are paying Kaye a return visit after he and other Melbourne researchers visited Hadassah Hospital in April as
part of Hadassah Australia's AUSiMED Initiative.
While many types of cancers are yielding to modern therapies, brain cancer has remained one of the most resistant. Part of the problem is that researchers do not have a sensitive way to monitor their treatments.
Unlike the lung or bowel, it is extremely hard to get an accurate picture of what is going on in the brain. The mainstay technique, MRI, is a blurred lens. Not only is it unable to detect tumours less than 5mm in size, it fails to distinguish between tumours and local inflammation. This becomes a problem in the follow-up period after chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
A suspicious shadow on an MRI scan often turns out to be inflammation not cancer, meaning the patient has been put through risky surgery for no reason. "Many times we have a dilemma, we have endless arguments," says Siegal
A blood-based test to detect brain cancers is "the holy grail", says Kaye. Often cancers do leave clues to their existence in the bloodstream; they shed cells, proteins or even DNA. In prostate cancer, for instance, the protein PSA is used as a marker for the cancer.
But so far there is no equivalent for brain cancer.
Hadassah and RMH are forging a partnership in this quest. Kaye's laboratory has focussed its efforts on cells that can sprout into blood vessels, so-called endothelial cells. In patients with cancer, these cells are commonly found
circulating through the bloodstream and might
provide the hoped-for "marker" for brain cancer.
On a different front, Hadassah researchers are
developing a test to detect the DNA of cancer cells.
As Lavon explains, cancers not only grow more prolifically than other cells, they also die more prolifically. When cancer cells disintegrate some of the debris ends up in the bloodstream as DNA.
Like a fingerprint, the DNA of a cancer cell is specific for that cancer. For instance a type of brain cancer known as oligodendroglioma tends to lose particular bits of its DNA in specific regions of chromosomes 1 and 19. Another known as
glioblastoma tends to lose methyl groups from a gene called MDMT.
Over the past three years Lavon tested these DNA markers in blood samples and in brain tissue specimens of patients. She was indeed able to detect the same DNA signature in the brain tissue and the bloodstream of the patient, results that
will be published shortly in the journal Neuroncology.
Now the key question is: how early can these blood-borne DNA signatures be detected in the course of the disease? To answer that question as quickly as possible, the Jerusalem and Melbourne researchers are combining forces to recruit 250
patients with newly diagnosed brain cancer. RMH technicians will extract DNA from their blood and brain tissue, as per Lavon's instructions, and send the samples to her Jerusalem lab for DNA testing.
For these combatants against brain cancer this is just the beginning of a powerful strategic alliance. "I see great synergies that can be developed; this is the first step," says Kaye.
JCCV calls on Muslim community to act on terrorism
MELBOURNE—The Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) has rejected an interfaith group's request to differentiate terrorism from religion.
Following a meeting of the Victoria Police Multi-faith Council last week, the JCCV has written to police top brass expressing its dissatisfaction with the proposal.
Geoffrey Zygier, JCCV executive director, said if radicalism were an issue in the Jewish, Methodist or Buddhist communities, it would be incumbent on those communities to take responsibility to confront it.
Similarly, following recent charges against Muslim men over an alleged potential suicide attack on an Australian army base, Zygier said the Islamic community needs to recognise and deal with the problem.
Reflecting on statements made in the media by Dr Ameer Ali, former head of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Zygier said "it cannot be denied that this is a Muslim problem
and the leaders of this community must take the lead in stamping it out".
"To do otherwise would simultaneously disempower and infantalise Muslims and inevitably perpetuate the problem," he said.
He went on to discuss a view, expressed by members of the Multi-faith Council, that it is understandable local Muslims feel a sense of injustice because of Australia's involvement in
wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
"We agree with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that Australia's overseas military actions are not directed against Islam or Muslims, per se, but against extremists who seek to impose their values," he said. "Even if that were not the case, our society provides constructive ways to protest against perceived injustice. To resort to terrorism is simply unacceptable."
The JCCV have taken a strong line on attitudes to terrorism in recent weeks, also submitting a response to the Victoria Police-led, federal Government-supported Lexicon of Terrorism.
In its submission, JCCV president John Searle argued a proposal to "sanitise" the language of terrorism was "ill-considered."
Searle argued against ignoring the fact that some
perpetrators of terrorism were motivated by extreme Islam.
"A Lexicon of Terror that infantilises and absolves Muslims of responsibility by creating a generic, overly careful and politically correct language will doom us all to failure," Searle said.
Danby versus China
CANBERRA- Michael Danby is making quite a name for himself doing something that few others dare: speaking loudly and consistently against the Chinese government.
A parliamentarian for 11 years and a backbencher for all that time, Danby has become adept at occupying a niche.
For almost 10 of those 11 years he was the sole Jewish federal MP, and fought for the Jewish community and Israel from the opposition side before the Rudd Government won office.
During those 11 years, he also spoke out on behalf of numerous injustices. He called for recognition for the victims of the Armenian genocide in the early 20th century, raised
awareness for alleged war crimes in Darfur and everything in between.
But it is the Chinese regime's oppression of its minority groups that brings out the fighter in Danby.
This week he hit the headlines over his support for the visit of Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer to Australia.
Danby was one of the only government MPs willing to show public support for Kadeer, who has been accused by the Chinese government of inciting last month's ethnic rioting in Xinjiang.
In a press release prior to Kadeer's arrival, Danby made a telling statement.
"I feel it is necessary for someone from my background to support religious or cultural minorities who pursue their rights in a non-violent manner, whether it is the Vietnamese,
Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, the Baha'i or the Uighurs."
Danby was one of two parliamentarians to speak at Sunday's controversial film premiere of The 10 Conditions of Love - a documentary on Kadeer's life - the other was Greens leader Senator Bob Brown.
It was a brave move, considering the amount of pressure the Chinese government applied to have the documentary canned.
In the lead-up to the screening, newspapers reported the Chinese government had asked Melbourne's Lord Mayor Robert Doyle to pull the plug on the film and threatened to cancel Melbourne's sister-city relationship with the
city of Tianjin. Chinese nationals have also been accused of hacking into the website of the Melbourne International Film Festival - which screened the film.
At the premiere, Danby delivered a message to Kadeer supporters from his good friend, the Dalai Lama.
"He asked me to convey to you in Melbourne that she is another one of the national leaders who is a paradigm of non-violence," Danby told the audience.
"He wanted to make it very clear to people that the claims of this woman being a violent person, or instigating violence, is from his point of view and with all of his authority - wrong."
Few people can call the Dalai Lama a friend, but Danby might just be one of them.
Last month, the Member for Melbourne Ports returned home from a visit to the Indian home of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
As the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet, Danby was a member of the first-ever delegation of MPs to Dharamsala. He travelled with fellow Labor MP Melissa Parke, Liberal MP
Peter Slipper, Greens senators Sarah Hanson-Young
and Scott Ludlam and independent Senator Nick Xenophon.
Despite having met the Dalai Lama - the leader of Tibet's government-in-exile - a number of times, Danby said his eyes were opened in Dharamsala.
"The thing that would strike you if you went there is that everything is so well organised," he said. "Everything is so frugal, everything is so modest, but they have institutions for
archives, for medicine, an institute of the arts with Tibetan artists, institutions for refugees, for retraining nuns.
"What strikes you is that here is a people who get no support from the United Nations, not a dollar, who get very little assistance from any government apart from the Indian government, and who have these handwritten signs on buildings, who have everything."
Danby, who travelled to India straight from Israel, where he attended the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, contrasted the set-up in Dharamsala with the Palestinian government in Ramallah.
"The difference in the mentality and institutions is something," he said. "Here you have Ramallah, [and] the Palestinians, who are having butter gorged down their throats by the United Nations, by the European Union, and yet they don't have
anything by comparison to the Tibetans.
"It is not something that you can really make a wider point about outside the Jewish community, but inside the Jewish community people would understand. It is so maddening to see this."
Danby was diplomatic when it came to discussing the way the Chinese treat the Tibetans. The Chinese government considers the Tibetans to be a minority ethnic group living within China's
borders. However, Tibetans consider themselves to be an independent nation.
"It is a very bleak period in their history. Discussions after the Olympics with the Chinese broke down completely," Danby reported, adding he hoped to raise the plight of the Tibetan people through his position as an MP.
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He did not hold back though, when calling on Australians to alter the way they view China, particularly in the wake of the arrest of Rio Tinto businessman Stern Hu.
"Our relationship with them should be businesslike, cordial, but hard-headed. We know who you are," Danby said of the Chinese.
Danby said the "Rudyard Kipling-Australian National University school of appeasement" favours carrots over sticks. But Kevin Rudd is much morr aware than they are of these kinds of things."
His recommendation was that Australia should utilise China "to keep us out of recession", but should avoid "idealising" the country.
"It is interesting, among young people, they have no illusions about China at all," Danby noted. "They regard it as one of the international bad guys.
"Those born since 1989 have a completely different view. When I was young, with the Chinese Revolution and Chairman Mao, we used to wear Mao T-shirts just like people wear Che
Guevara T-shirts now. They don't do that anymore."
As an influential government backbencher and chair of the parliamentary foreign affairs sub-committee, Danby is hoping his ongoing David and Goliath battle for justice for minority
groups against the Chinese government will ultimately be successful.
The true face of Julia Gillard
CANBERRA, Australia - Within the Jewish community, discussions about Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard often include the whispered question: "She might support Israel
now, but have you heard what she was like in her university days?"
So, an exploration of Gillard's days involved in student politics seemed to be a logical step to try and answer the question. Where did she stand in debates about Israel when she was president of the now-defunct Australian Union of Students (AUS)?
"AUS in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s was racked by conflicting views over Israel and Palestine," Gillard explained during a recent interview.
"It caused many Jewish students around the country and their representative organisation - the Australasian Union of Jewish Students - to become anti-AUS."
Gillard commenced studying an arts and law degree in Adelaide in 1979, but it wasn't until a couple of years later, when she transferred her studies to Melbourne that she launched into the quagmire that was student politics at the time.
"When I came into the AUS, sensible people - and I put myself in that category - were saying 'Well people will have their individual views about this question, it is a democracy, people can debate and try and persuade each other, but this is not business for AUS'."
Gillard went on to become a figurehead in the movement and she supported the AUS members' vote to discard their Middle East policy and not replace it.
"I supported that - the union not having any formal policy on that - as a way of concentrating, or trying to concentrate, the
union on the things that make a difference. That was always my position on it."
The Middle East debate, she added, was at its height a few years before she joined the AUS and her time there was during the tail end of the controversy.
With her early relationship with Israeli politics established, Gillard then discussed her recent trip to Israel.
Last month, she led the Australian delegation tothe Australia-Israel Leadership Forum in Jerusalem.
Speaking highly of that forum, the first of its kind between the countries, she compared it with the prestigious Australia-American Leadership Forum.
"[The Australian-American Leadership Dialogue] has done so much to drive connections between the two countries: at a political level, at a business level, at a social level, at a
scientific level. So to be there for the start of what you would hope will grow into something like that, I thought that was a tremendous privilege and opportunity.
"While it is early days and it was the first meeting, I thought all the signs were good."
The contents of the forum were, unfortunately, confidential.
But the debate, which took place was between Gillard, former treasurer Peter Costello, Liberal shadow minister Christopher Pyne and other Australian MPs sitting across the table from
members of the Israeli Knesset, journalists and other decision-makers.
Writing in the Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange newsletter, a journalist called the event an "invigorating, candid and often amusing collaboration."
Gillard said the forum and the rest of her time in Israel demonstrated to her that, excluding the security situation, the two countries had wide-ranging commonalities.
"I think both countries visualise themselves as having a highly skilled, high-tech, high-innovation future," Gillard said.
She echoed a thought that appears to be verbalised more and more in recent months: that Australia has a lot to learn from Israel, particularly in the high-tech field.
Speaking on education, a matter close to her heart - as well as Deputy Prime Minister, she holds the portfolios of education, employment and workplace relations and social inclusion - she
said Australia and Israel would benefit from sharing knowledge.
"Both countries are working through how do you keep improving quality, particularly in circumstances where you've got large numbers of migrants into the nation from different places," she said.
"They have had to have an education system aspiring for excellence, but dealing with a lot of diversity and our education system is the same. I think the possibilities for exchange there are very strong."
Gillard was relaxed and comfortable talking about Israel, emphasising recent meetings with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.
"To have a discussion about economic issues, security issues, world events generally, that was a great privilege," she said.
AIJAC lobbies on Hezbolah TV
CANBERRA - The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) this week lobbied the federal Government to reconsider its decision to permit al-Manar to broadcast into Australia.
AIJAC'S Mark Leibler and Dr Colin Rubenstein met with Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy.
The pair informed Senator Conroy the decision to allow the station, which is run by Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, to broadcast was problematic because the regulatory authority had relied on one week of programming to determine its ruling.
"We received a very sympathetic hearing and we are confident our concerns will be forwarded to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and that the federal Government is open to having another look at the current
regulations for terrorist-linked media in Australia," Leibler stated.
Their meeting echoed the request of shadow communications minister Senator Nick Minchin, who on Sunday called for the anti-terrorism broadcasting services standard to be reviewed.
"This case demonstrates that the anti-terrorism broadcasting standards appears to be far too narrow in its focus and applications," Senator Minchin said. "I call on Senator Conroy to assure Australians that the Government, and its relevant
agencies, will take all necessary steps to ensure that viewers are not exposed to content that in any way promotes radicalism, including terrorism."
Leader of the Opposition addresses AUJS
CANBERRA -In Canberra for its annual national political training seminar (PTS), members of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) this week met with Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.
In meeting with the students, Turnbull discussed the economy and Australia's level of debt, as well as restating the Liberal party's commitment to Israel.
"Resolute support for Israel, particularly in these times, is absolutely vital," he said.
Turnbull also reiterated the Coalition's support for a two-state solution, but one which has to be "achieved on terms that deliver peace and security for the people of Israel" on a practical level.
"The fundamental duty of every state, every government is the protection of its own citizens," he said.
Turnbull noted that Israel faces existential threats that the vast majority of Australians could only imagine. He said first time visitors to Israel are struck by its small geographical
area and the strategic challenges that arise as a result.
Following his address, Turnbull turned the floor to the students, who had the opportunity to ask questions which ranged from his reasons for entering politics, environmental issues, and even his opinion of Barack Obama's performance as president of the United States.
AUJS' PTS gives participants the opportunity to engage with Australia's political environment, including access to senior ministers and members of the opposition. Run over three days, participants also had the opportunity to meet,
debate and socialise with other Australian students.
End to Michrachi saga
SYDNEY - Mizrachi's estranged rabbi, Moshe Gutnick, who took a dispute over his proposed sacking to the London Beth Din, has won an $800,000 payout after the court ruled he had
the right to life tenure after 21 years of service.
But there's a caveat: the money cannot be paid to him at the expense of the cash-strapped shul having to sell its premises or downsize.
The London Beth Din handed down its ruling over the weekend - more than two months after both parties flew to London, along with their consul, to attend a three-day hearing on the matter in June.
It concluded that, despite the shul's "initial reluctance" to grant life tenure and "the absence of a signed contract", an agreement between the two parties had been reached entitling the rabbi to such an arrangement.
The court, however, noting it was "an unusual request for a young, part-time official,"concluded life tenure meant the rabbi was only entitled to be paid until the normal retirement
age in Australia of 65 - not 80, as the rabbi had argued.
That translated to an annual salary of $80,000 for the next 15 years, or $1.2 million. Factoring in other mitigating circumstances, however, along with the shul's current financial woes, the court reduced the sum to $800,000.
The case first appeared before the NSW Supreme Court in April when the rabbi won a last-minute injunction blocking the shul from voting on a proposal to make his position redundant after 22 years of service.
The rabbi had argued that the board's attempt to remove him went against his contractual life tenure, and only a Jewish court had the right to decide on whether to make his position redundant.
The court ultimately ruled it was a matter for the Jewish courts.
Maccabi team gets second chance
SYDNEY - Maccabi's quest to claim an unprecedented double has hit a snag, after the Blues lost the Meldrum Cup major semifinal 16-14 to Manly Savers on Saturday.
It was the first time the Maccabi First XV has lost this season, but the side will get a second chance when it tackles Clovelly this weekend and they'll need a vastly improved performance to earn a rematch with the Savers in a fortnight.
Coach Andrew Hendry said: "I think if we played like that against Great Britain [in the Maccabiah Games] we would've lost by 60 points. I'll be doing my best to make sure the guys are mentally prepared."
The Blues found themselves under the pump from the opening whistle up against a side full of big hombres. Despite struggling in the tackle contest all match, the Blues defence held out an early onslaught and turned the tables when Captain Al
Lehrer charged over under the sticks to finish off a four-pass move.
A close call then went against hard-running centre Keith Friedlander, who looked to have finished off a 30-metre dash to the corner, but was ruled to have gone into touch.
It was finals footy and there was plenty of niggle, which erupted into a biff when a Manly opponent took aim and belted number-eight Yoni Sonnabend. Inexplicably, Sonnabend also found himself in the sin-bin.
Before long, each side had another player in the bin, but everyone was left scratching their heads as Lance Friedman was marched for what was neither a professional foul or repeat offence. The score was 7-3 at half-time.
Manly built sustained pressure in the second period - the Blues soaked up a glut of defence, but eventually cracked after quick hands in the corner.
After piloting a penalty-goal, Manly defiantly held their 11-7 lead for some time. Maccabi butchered three guilt-edged chances and just couldn't get enough quality ball out to the likes of Friedlander, Steve Cohen and Dan Ezekiel, who
all caused the defence problems whenever they got a sniff.
Ezekial then dipped into his rugby league instincts and set-up what should've been the winner. He jinked, took on the defence, and stood and off-loaded with a brilliant flick out the
back that finished with Sonnabend diving over in the corner. Cohen landed the sideline conversion.
But it wasn't to be. When the side should have closed it out to claim a scratchy win, a shanked clearance spun back and bounced cruelly past Dan Munitz, where Manly pounced for a last-gasp, and arguably a deserved win.
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The Jews Down Under