Australian Jews protest 'Hate Thy Neighbour' TV production
SYDNEY—The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has lodged a complaint with the Nine Network's 60 Minutes over a report it screened on West Bank settlements.
The segment, titled Hate Thy Neighbour, which was screened on Sunday September 20, appeared heavily weighted towards Palestinians' accounts of settlers' activities and contained major factual errors.
ECAJ president Robert Goot issued a statement in which he said Palestinians "have made no secret of the fact that they seek
to harness [media] coverage whenever possible in support of their cause as a tactic in their long-term struggle against Israel's existence. This makes it all the more important for journalists to maintain the highest professional standards when reporting on any aspect of these conflicts".
In a letter to the program's executive producer, Goot complained about coverage of an incident in which Jewish settler Zev Braude opened fire on a group of Palestinians "without provocation".
The 60 Minutes report stated that "all charges were dropped and he walked free" and that settlers like Braude "have become a law unto themselves"."
Goot pointed out that the Jerusalem Magistrates Court was told Braude was looking for his son, and when he was surrounded by rock wielding Palestinians, he fired two shots into the air. Braude was prosecuted by Israeli police and was acquitted by the court after the due legal process had occurred.
The report "made no semblance of an attempt to provide [Braude's] side of the story or the judge's findings," wrote Goot.
"Instead of presenting all the relevant material to viewers and giving them the opportunity to form their own opinions, you decided to both restrict the material to one side of the story only and to tell viewers what to think. In our view, your report constitutes a serious abuse of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance' Journalists Code of Ethics."
According to the letter, in another major factual error, reporter Liam Bartlett incorrectly stated that Jewish settlers are "building new towns on Palestinian land," when in fact the expansion is
occurring within existing settlements and on land that is not Palestinian, but is recognised by the United Nations as disputed territory.
Goot said: "The reporter misused his authority as a supposedly objective narrator to say that 'hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers are moving into the West Bank'. The use of the present tense makes this statement quite misleading. No settlements have been established under Israeli government authority since 1996."
Daylight saving dilemma for orthodox obsevance
MELBOURNE- Shule service start times will be disrupted this weekend with daylight saving beginning at 2am on Sunday morning.
While daylight saving is not usually an issue, this year Succot falls on the changeover evening.
Because of the festival, observant Jews cannot change the time on their clocks, meaning they will effectively ignore daylight saving for 18 hours until the yom tov ends. But what does this mean for shuls?
While some congregations in Victoria are keeping the prayer times to Australian Eastern Standard Time, others are scheduling services one hour later due to daylight saving.
In many instances, daylight saving times will apply for services, even though congregants' clocks will remain an hour behind.
While there was initial talk of implementing a uniformed approach to the time dilemma across Victorian synagogues, Rabbinical Council of Victoria president Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant said the decision was left up to each shul.
"Each shul can implement as they see fit," he said. "We advise people to stay in touch with their shul to ensure they are up-to-date with the times and the shul's decision."
Service times in NSW will also vary, with many leaving prayer times the same as standard time, despite yom tov ending an hour later due to daylight saving.
"For all intents and purposes, the times will be kept the same except for yom tov, which finishes one hour later," Rabbi Eli Feldman of Young Adult Chabad in Bondi said.
This means that whereas Yom Kippur ended at 6.30pm or 7pm, depending on the state, Succot will end around 8pm.
It is customary to build a succah, or tabernacle, and to eat, sleep and live in it, as if it were a home.
Daylight saving commenced on Sunday, October 4, at 2am and ends on the first Sunday in April.
Kashrut supervision to be streamlined
MELBOURNE - A meeting of representatives from Australia's kosher authorities has been called "historic," but moves
towards a national kosher organisation were played down.
Last week, rabbis and lay people from all the major kosher authorities held a teleconference organised by the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA).
ORA vice-president Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant said the inaugural meeting of the ORA subcommittee on kashrut was "all too easy to
organise," with authorities willing participants.
He said that initial discussions mainly revolved around issues of shechitah (ritual slaughter).
"The meetings are for discussing and reflecting on matters of common interest," Rabbi Kluwgant said. "It was a timely meeting and ORA was best placed to make it happen."
Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, head of NSW's Kashrut Authority, also welcomed the meeting.
"We had every kashrut organisation in Australia 'sitting around the table', trying to brainstorm issues that are important to kashrut in general," Rabbi Gutnick said. "Nothing divides us, it is just that we have different territories."
However, Rabbi Gutnick dismissed the idea of a national kosher authority.
Even in the United States, where the Orthodox Union certifies products across the country, supervision for kosher restaurants and caterers remains localised to smaller kashrut authorities.
"I can't see kashrut working on a federal level," he said of Australia's market, citing variations in the local markets and differences in the way kashrut is funded in different states.
However, Rabbi Gutnick was hopeful that kashrut organisations would continue working together, adding that "the aim of this exercise was to find those areas where we can work together".
As well as the Kashrut Authority in NSW and Kosher Australia in Victoria, Western Australia has a small kosher authority and the Adass Israel community runs a separate body.
Museum's gift on Sir Zelman's birthday
MELBOURNE - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd personally announced a $200,000 federal Government grant to the Jewish Museum of
Australia on the occasion of Sir Zelman Cowen's 90th birthday.
Rudd, addressing a birthday event for the former governor-general last week, said the donation would go towards the museum's $1.5 million refurbishment of the Australian Jewish History Gallery, to be named in honour of Sir Zelman. The Prime Minsiter paid tribute to Sir Zelman, who he said " committed immeasurably to the intellectual rigour of the nation" and remains a proud Australian Jew.
"One thing that defines Sir Zelman Cowen is a big thing. It is his sense of humanity. His warmth, his humility, his integrity and his compassion are the overwhelming themes when people speak of him." Rudd said.
Sir Zelman, an academic by profession was appointed governor-general in 1977. Rudd noted that after the tumultuous political times, Sir Zelman extended a "simple gesture" to former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam "that signalled it was time to for the healing to begin."
Sir Zelman is sharing his 90th birthday celebrations with the Jewish Museum of Australia, an organisation of which he is a patron.
Gremlins still haunting automatic pedestrian lights
MELBOURNE - How many public officials does it take to make a pedestrian crossing automatic? Observant Jews may be asking
themselves this question as the saga of automatic traffic signals on yom tov continues.
Problems with automated traffic lights persisted over the yom tovim, preventing orthodox Jews crossing the street safely. While the automatic switching for Shabbat is more straightforward that programming the cycle to the varying yom tov
calendar, most would argue it's not rocket science. Walking to synangogue, Rabbinical Council of Victoria head Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant discovered that some of the corners designated as automatic pedestrian lights under the plans finalised late in 2008 were not functioning on Yom Kippur.
JCCV president John Searle has spoken to Rabbi Kluwgant about the latests problems with the pedestrian crossings. "We certainly advised the relevant authorities of all the appropriate dates, and are trying to ascertain where it fell through the cracks", Searle said.
A spokesperson for the local council under which the area falls, said that the council would follow up to see if these faults were due to
electronic malfunctions of programming errors.
Rosen back with Maccabi
SYDNEY - Brad Rosen remembers where it all began. He vividly remembers his parents' involvement with Maccabi when, as a youngster, he fell in love with basketball, and they shlepped him to games.
Now, 188 top-flight basketball games later, the former Sydney Kings captain has returned to take the court as player-coach of Sydney's Maccabi Premier League Basketball team.
Rosen, who spent two seasons as captain of the Kings, was assistant coach to Brian Goorjian for two of the former Australian basketball
powerhouse's National Basketball League championships earlier in the decade.
He will draw on a wealth of experience to boost a group of young players who have kept Maccabi in the highest tier of the City of Sydney Basketball Association for two consecutive seasons - the first time this has happened in 25 years.
The 2007 Maccabi Hall of Fame inductee, club junior and now patron of NSW Maccabi Basketball said returning to Maccabi after ankle surgery was a "no-brainer". His ambition was always to return to the club that is "in my blood," injury permitting.
With such a young team in 2009, Rosen thought it might only be in a coaching capacity, but when approached by team managers Archie Platt and John Bineth to both play and coach, it all fell into place.
"It feels really good, it's a really nice feeling," said. "I always wanted to come back and play, but I was out after ankle surgery.
Playing with that team was something I didn't think would happen. They are a younger generation and it was nice seeing young guys playing, but when they approached me, it just fitted beautifully."
The point guard will team up with a group that has been playing with Maccabi since the under-8 juniors.
Ben Marks, Mat Bineth, Simon Platt, Geoffrey Cohen and Jonathan Lemish have been loyal members of the club for more than 12 years and have now added Barry Dubovsky to the ranks. Rosen has also brought former Kings teammate Bruce Bolden along with him to assist coaching the team to another level.
Rosen's main ambition is for the guys to walk off the court at the end of the season "as better players for it on and off the court . then I've achieved everything that I wanted".
While being competitive throughout their two seasons in the Premier League, club president Michael America and his committee have made a concerted effort to take the team to a more competitive level
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