It is timely that this month we begin major works on the Museum’s Australian Jewish History Gallery to make way for a stunning new gallery named the Zelman Cowen Gallery of Australian Jewish History.

On the occasion of Sir Zelman’s 90th birthday in 2009, he graciously agreed to have the Gallery named in his honour. It was an appropriate tribute and now serves as a fitting memorial.

Rebecca Forgasz, Director, Jewish Museum of Australia says, “In any account of Australian Jewish life, Sir Zelman Cowen is celebrated. The ‘healing’ Governor-General of 1977, academic, soldier, Rhodes Scholar, Vice Chancellor of two universities, Sir Zelman always identified himself as a proud Jew and a proud Australian. His values set an example to our community about the sort of society we wish to be a part of and we are incredibly lucky to have had his support and recognition since the Museum was founded. He was such an extraordinary visionary and we will carry his spirit with us always.”

Calling Australia Home, which opens in the Zelman Cowen Gallery of Australian Jewish History in May next year, moves chronologically from Jewish settlement in Australia in 1788 until the present day. The exhibition looks at the adaptation of Jewish tradition and culture in response to the conditions of Australian life and the ways in which Jews have interacted with and contributed to Australian society.

“Visitors will engage with the diverse and unique expressions of Jewish life, culture and identity in the Australian context, and it is most appropriate that it takes place in a gallery honouring the spirit of Sir Zelman,” says Rebecca Forgasz.

Calling Australia Home opens in the Zelman Cowen Gallery of Australian Jewish History at the Jewish Museum of Australia in May 2012

Source: JMA

One of the most popular sessions was Evan Kleinman's screening of his film, Punk Jews

By Anthony Frosh
After the most recent Limmud Oz that took place at Monash University Caulfield campus in Melbourne (2010), there was considerable discussion about the absence of young people. Indeed, an article in this publication, The Missing Generation of Limmud Oz, documented that few people in their thirties or younger attended.

However, the most recent Limmud event to occur in Australia, Limmud Oz Fest, held the weekend before last at a campsite near Daylesford, Victoria, demonstrated that there is plenty of demand from the “missing generation.” That is, as long as the event is marketed and organised in a fashion that appeals to this demographic.

A little over a month before Limmud Oz Fest, the organisers of the event held a preliminary event called Taste of Fest. It was held at the popular Pause bar on Carlisle St, and provided an opportunity for people who were considering attending the Fest weekend to meet fellow travellers and find out about some of the sessions that would take place.  The evening featured a number of highly talented Jewish musicians who performed against a backdrop of a projected slideshow providing information on several sessions and presenters who would be appearing at Fest. An entertaining panel session where Alana Bruce, the evening’s MC, interviewed a few presenters about their upcoming sessions.divided up the musical acts.  This preliminary event proved to be a terrific evening, attracting plenty of young people and providing promotional momentum for the Fest .

The Limmud Oz Fest weekend itself proved to be just as well organised, albeit with a higher degree of difficulty. And while young people were abound, there were also many people from older generations as well as several young families.  It was an incredible effort from the organisers who not only assembled a brilliant array of sessions, including outstanding local talent as well as some top-notch overseas presenters (including Jeffrey Yoskowitz ,Evan Kleinman, David Brown, and Shani Tzoref), but also managed to be constantly feeding attendees with Kosher meals. All of this took place at a perfectly serene campsite.

The professionalism of the organisers did not stop at the conclusion of weekend. I had barely been back in Melbourne a day when I opened by inbox to find an invitation to an electronic survey (and a very well designed survey at that – and I should know – it’s how I make my living) in regard to my Limmud Oz Fest experience, and any thoughts I had on how it could have been improved.  It seems the organisers are determined to do even better come the next Fest.

The success of the event has reverberated around the world, with event receiving praise from Limmud international  (who had provided guidance and moral support) and ROI. 

So the question remains: How does Limmud Oz attract young people to the non-Fest variety of event? Or perhaps the question is: If young people attend Fest, is there a need to try to get them to also attend the regular Limmud Oz? I think the answer to the latter question is probably yes.  It’s clearly better for the Limmud brand if they can grow both types of events, and it’s difficult to foresee any growth if it doesn’t involve attracting young people.  With regard to the former question, a good start would be if the established Limmud committee (who I understand provided significant funding for Fest) capitalised on synergies with the highly capable young people who did such a great job of promoting and organising Fest.  In the meantime, hats off to the organisers, Malki Rose, Alana Bruce, Cygal Pellach, Alex Kats, Keren Tuch, Nikki Peipert, Seraphya Berrin, and all the rest of the dedicated volunteers.

A scene from the film

By Rachel Sacks-Davis & Anthony Frosh

The Jewish tradition was born in journey. From Abraham and Jacob to Moses and the Israelites, our mythic ancestors were wanderers whose encounters with God almost always occurred en route. Since the destruction of the Temple, however, although the Jewish people have moved across the globe, journey has not been part of religious practice.

Not so for Muslims, for whom the pilgrimage to Mecca remains one of the core religious obligations. Recently, a special screening was held of Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta at the IMAX in Carlton. Several members from the Jewish community, particularly from the JCCV, were in attendance at the invitation of the President of the Islamic Council Victoria (ICV), Hyder Gulam.

As the subtitle suggests, the film focuses on the Hajj undertaken by Ibn Battuta, the famous 14^th century Moroccan Berber traveller.  At a little over 20 years old, he leaves behind his comfortable life as a law student in Tangier, setting out on a Hajj that sees him travelling close to 5000km to Mecca by foot and on camel-back in a journey lasting 18 months.

Whilst Ibn Battuta’s 14^th century Hajj was much closer in time to us than our biblical forefathers, his experience of travel was surely much closer to theirs. The isolation, danger and vulnerability that marked his journey surely also marked theirs. And the spiritual gifts that so explicitly mark the journeys of our forefathers are also implicit in Ibn Battuta’s Journey to Mecca.

As is typical of IMAX films, the cinematography is breathtaking and the IMAX theatre set-up makes you feel as though you are present on the journey with Ibn Battuta. This is a unique opportunity for non-Muslims who are not usually permitted to enter Islam’s most holy city, and may also find it rather challenging to trek through the deserts of North Africa and Arabia.

Finally, Jewish film buffs will find a familiar voice. The film is narrated by Ben Kingsley, famous for his Oscar winning portrayal of Gandhi, but also having played several key Jewish characters including but not limited too Itzhak Stern (Schindler’s List), Moses, Otto Frank (Diary of Ann Frank) and even a senior Mossad commander (The Assignment).

Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta is currently playing at the IMAX theatre in Melbourne.

A cover of a Naftali Abramson album

By Alex Kats
It’s fair to say that I don’t know much about music. In fact, music was the only subject I ever failed at school. Yet despite that, I listen to at least some sort of music every day of the year, and especially at this time of year. In the week before Rosh Hashanah I went to a pre-slichot concert that put me in the mood for the music of the festivals, and now in the week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I went to two special performances.

It has become somewhat of a tradition in many shules around the world, but particularly here in Australia, to bring out guest chazanim for the festivals. Many of these cantors are established musicians in their own right, and two of the visiting chazanim performed recently in Melbourne.

The first was Avram Mlotek, who was the guest chazan for Shira Hadasha. He has been described as being from a family of Yiddish royalty. His grandfather was the editor and author of many Yiddish books and his father is the artistic director of New York’s National Yiddish Theatre. His family is so prominent in Yiddish culture in America, that his recent wedding was reported in the New York Times, amongst many other publications. As part of the performance, Avram spoke about this yichus, and also introduced the audience to his wife, who joined him on some of the harmonies and songs. But really everyone was there to see the man himself, and he didn’t disappoint. He has been performing since the age of three, and it is very clear to see that he feels comfortable in front of an audience.

The sizeable audience on this occasion was made up largely people in their 40s or older, some well into their 80s. There was only a very small sprinkling of younger people, including a few representatives from SKIF, the Bundist youth movement. In our community at least, Yiddish is often seen as being a dying language, and this concert certainly reinforced that. But it didn’t deter Avram. He started with a few songs from the old country that much of the audience recognised and sang along with. He told the stories behind the songs and the beauty of some of the language that may have otherwise been lost on the Yiddishly challenged amongst us. He accompanied one of his songs on the piano and played the bongo drum on a few others, but mostly it was just Avram and a microphone. He explained that normally he plays with a band, but on this occasion it was the purity of his voice that drew us in.

After a few known Yiddish songs, he introduced us to some of his own original compositions. He described them as fusion, and the truth is that there is probably no other better word to use. The lyrics were a fusion of Yiddish and English, whilst the music was a fusion of hip-hop and rock mixed with niggunim and original score. But somehow it all worked. One of the original tunes was written after 9/11 and the war on terror, and another was written after Hurricane Katrina. The raw political edginess was beautifully juxtaposed by the ironic charm of Yiddish soulfulness. That alone was worth the price of admission and ingratiated Avram even more.

He finished with a lovely song for the holy days and then in answer to some questions, told the audience about his performances in New York, both in the theatre and in pubs and clubs around town, mixing it with other young artists and popularising Yiddish and Jewish culture as expressed by the Yiddish language, amongst the youth of America. He is now studying to be a rabbi, and though I don’t know much about music, I can’t wait to one-day step into his historically melodic shule.

A couple of days later though, I had a chance to experience the sound of another internationally acclaimed chazan. Naftali Abramson is an American-born Israeli who has released multiple albums of Jewish music. He was the guest chazan for Hamayan and showed off some of his talents. But before he came on, the audience was treated to a short set by local act Moshe Hendel and his band of bearded brothers. He performed a few songs from his recently released debut album. All the songs have lyrics in English, but the music is borrowed from old niggunim mixed with original compositions. Considering this concert was just a few days after Rosh Hashana, many of the songs had great poignancy. But Moshe Hendel was just the entrée.

Like Avram Mlotek’s, Naftali Abramson’s music is also described as a fusion, but in his case, a fusion of American rock, folk, and Celtic music, mixed with the tunes of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and in some cases a tinge of country music as well. All in all, it was an original combination, though the lyrics were anything but original. Most of the songs were musical interpretations of prayers or taken from other parts of Jewish liturgy and entirely in Hebrew.

His strength is certainly his ability to perform and entertain through his music. His stories were not as polished as Mlotek’s and some were quite esoteric in a Carlebach kind of way, but most people came for the music, and on that front he certainly delivered. One particular story though struck a chord, when he spoke about a friend from Yeshiva who was killed in an enemy tank explosion after volunteering for the army tank unit. Some people had tears in their eyes when he finished the story, but the song by contrast was high energy and somewhat joyous. And that was the way it was with most of his songs.

By the end of the night, half of the mostly religious, nearly 250 people strong audience, were dancing in the aisles or at least dancing in their seats and clapping along. It was an impressive and energetic performance, especially given that he only got together with the four local members of his band just the day before. During virtually every song, each of the band members had a solo part to showcase their talents, whilst Naftali himself played along on his guitar throughout each song and during most of the stories.

My favourite songs of the two hour performance were the two rock niggunim without lyrics, but then again, I don’t know much about music so I might not be a good judge. What I know for sure though is that Melbourne was privileged to have such acclaimed musicians in town for the chagim, and if their concerts were so energetic and engaging, I can only imagine that the services they led over the festivals were truly inspiring.

Velvel explains to Reb Traitle Groshkover (or a dybbuk) about a boba-ma’aseh his wife heard. Scene from "A Serious Man"

By Simon Holloway
Yiddish speakers are very polite. While English speakers might tell you to get stuffed, a Yiddish speaker only directs you to do a poo in the sea (גיי קאקן אויפן ים). While English speakers might tell you to drop dead, a Yiddish speaker will bless you that you should be like a lamp (זאלסט זיין ווי א לאמפ): hanging in the daytime, and burning through the night. In fact, even when you are speaking a load of crap, a Yiddish speaker won’t tell you so. Instead, they will most likely call it a boba-ma’aseh (באבע מעשה): an old wives’ tale.

Literally, the phrase boba-ma’aseh is understood to mean “a grandmother story”, the word ma’aseh meaning “story” and the word boba (or buba, etc) meaning grandmother. Some gender-sensitive people have even taken the added step of inventing a new genre of nonsense: the zayde-ma’aseh (זיידע מעשה), or “grandfather story”. After all, they reason, old women are not alone in their ability to spin webs of utter inanity. Unfortunately, however, this too is nonsense.

To understand the actual origin of this delightful Yiddish phrase, we instead need to cast our thoughts back to the beginning of the 13th century, with the composition of an Anglo-Norman metrical romance known in English as Sir Bevis of Butthead Hampton. His adventures, which are related in “Alexandrines” (whereby each of the 3,850 verses is comprised of lines with exactly twelve syllables), has much in common with older legends concerned with Beowulf, as well as later legends concerning Hamlet.

The son of a murdered Count, Sir Bevis finds himself an exile, sworn to avenge his father’s murder, in love with an Egyptian princess. As with the Hamlet legend, the murderer of Sir Bevis’ father is now his mother’s husband, but unlike the Danish tragedy, Sir Bevis’ mother was instrumental in facilitating her late husband’s death. Sir Bevis acts with purpose and direction, excels himself as a man of a valour, and even conquers the giant Ascaparte, whom he appoints to be his squire. He dies in the end, as all good heroes must, and there was no sequel.

The 14th century English translation of Boeve de Haumtone (“Sir Bevis of Hampton”) was made from various French versions of the epic, themselves written in decasyllables and with over 10,000 verses. The most popular version, however, was the Italian, which was titled Buovo d’Antona, and which went through over thirty editions in the 14th century. Focusing largely on the romance between Buovo and the princess, there named Druziane, it is fair to say that there is little about the story that might be deemed Jewish. Its protagonists are Christians, they pray both to God and to Mary, various individuals get baptised, and there is nary a herring in sight. And so it is a mystery, and perhaps one of the most curious things in all of Jewish literature, that this chivalric romance should have been translated from Italian into Yiddish.

Born in the second half of the 15th century, Elia Levita is best remembered today as a grammarian. He wrote a dictionary of the Talmud and Midrash (תשבי), a dictionary of Targum Onkelos (ספר מתורגמן), an alphabetical presentation of technical Hebrew words (שמות דברים), and a translation of the Torah, the haftarot and the five megillot into Yiddish. His version of Buovo d’Antona, entitled באבה ד’אנטונא, was the first non-religious text published in the Yiddish language, preceding the first Hebrew novel by almost 300 years. Known by many as the באבה בוך (Bovo Bukh, or “Bovo Book”), it is considered by some to represent the finest poetry in the Yiddish language. If you can read it, it is available as a free download here.

In Levita’s version of the story, in which he supplanted various Christological references for subject matter that would have resonated with a Jewish audience, it is the princess of Flanders with whom the exiled Bovo falls in love, and the wicked king of Babylonia who constitutes his nemesis. The Babylonian prince, Lucifer, is promised the beautiful princess, the King of Flanders is taken into Babylonian captivity, Bovo rescues him with the assistance of a magic horse, and the wicked Lucifer is put to death. Twice in the story do Bovo and his lover think the other dead, twice is she almost married to another, and in the midst of all of this excitement he finds the time to return to Antona, banish his mother to a nunnery, kill her murderous husband and become the new king. It’s a real page-turner, I am sure.

And yet, such tremendous excitement notwithstanding, it didn’t take long before many became critical of these sorts of stories. Already by the 17th century, Cervantes found much to ridicule about the chivalric urge, and while Sir Bevis’ giant might have really been a giant, the sober windmills of Quixote have received greater literary attention. Are we so fearful of the fantastic that we need to ground it in realism? Is it truly necessary for a story to be predicated on reason and logic for us to accept its premise? Cannot profound truths be disported within a nonsensical carriage?

For many, perhaps not. And so it is not entirely surprising that the very name by which Levita’s Yiddish translation came to be known in the 18th century – the Bovo Ma’aseh, or Bovo Tale – should have come to denote a piece of foolish nonsense. For my part, I think it time that its original nuance be restored. Had an exciting weekend? Found yourself subject to forces beyond your control, over which you managed to assert yourself in a manner deserving recount? Feel free to embellish it with all manner of extra, fantastical details, and be sure to hold your head up high. Let your listeners know that “it was a real boba-ma’aseh, I assure you”.

[Addendum: It is worth noting the phonological shift between באבה (= bovo) and באבע (= boba). Until a Yiddish expert can correct me, I am under the impression that Yiddish today disallows the representation of a non-aspirated /b/ with anything other than two waws (ie: bovo would be באווה). At the time when Levinas' באבה דאנטונא was first published, the typesetter employed a rafe (a horizontal stroke) above the second ב, thus indicating that it is not to be aspirated. I expect that the reference to this text being a באבה מעשה (bovo ma'aseh), spelt with a ב, contributed towards it being relexicalised as באבע מעשה (boba ma'aseh), on analogy with the English expression, "old wives' tale".]

This article was first published in Davar Akher.

Kozminsky Jewellers in the Melbourne CBD

By Bracha Rafael

This July my entire family travelled to California to attend my grandfather’s 90^th birthday party. The day we landed in San Francisco, my sister received an email from a long-lost cousin of ours. He is a historian who had been looking for people from my grandfather’s side of the family for over 30 years. He found my sister, an amateur genealogist, on ancestry.com. And he came to our family reunion, to tell my grandfather why his side of the family had abandoned our side of the family 110 years ago.

In the midst of all this drama, I was reading about a different rift that occurred within a different family, but at almost exactly the same time. It is the story of Simon Kozminsky and his family, and the abrupt departure of one his sons from the family circle.

Tangea Tansley has written an imagined version of her family’s arrival to Australia in the height of the gold rush. With snippets of information gleaned from her father’s stories and the few primary documents that do exist, she has filled the gaps with creativity and verve. Unaware of her Jewish ancestry until well into her adult life, A Break in the Chain depicts the events that explain why, three generations later, this is so.

Her story begins with Simon Kozminsky’s journey to Australia from Prussia in the mid-19^th century, and finishes in 1936 in London. In between we witness the infancy of Kozminsky, the Melbourne jewellery icon, and are given rare insight into the world of 20^th century astrology. Tansley examines difficult questions of identity, from ancestry to faith to names. The story moves at a comfortable pace, and we see Melbourne grow and transform as does Simon’s business and family.

Tansley is to be commended for the research she must have done into Jewish traditions: but for one scene containing a couple of glaring errors, her depiction of the casual orthodoxy prevalent in eastern Europe in the 19^th century feels authentic. Her searing descriptions of the goldfields are also something to behold.

“And so now nothing would live here; nothing could live in a place where all that was left was the curious grey harshness of the felled trees lying with their roots pointing at the sun, where the soil was trampled to fine dust, where the flies still hovered over piles of cans, flour bags and torn cardboard boxes, and all the water was gone. Just as on the voyage, Simon thought, it was man against nature and to see this destruction it would seem that man had won.”

All of that said, I have some serious misgivings about the novel.

Tansley’s characters are forever imparting wisdom to the younger generation, to the point where you wonder if they ever spoke about mundane things. They also tend to speak in paragraphs rather than in phrases, and this makes for uninspiring reading.

As a collection of imagined significant moments in her great-grandfather and grandfather’s lives, they satisfy, but I couldn’t help but feel that too much is left out. When was Simon Kozminsky first confronted by the difficulty of keeping Shabbat in Australia? How did he feel? What did he do? We see nothing of this: we meet Simon as an unphilosophical observant Jew at age 20, and then are reintroduced to him in his 30’s, where he breakfasts on bacon and eggs before making his way to shul on Shabbat.

However, at certain points such gaps intensify the reading experience. We are as bewildered as Israel (Simon’s son) by his parents’ rejection of his non-Jewish partner. And we can easily see how this bewilderment, with its lack of explanation or dialogue or interest offered over so many years, leads to an irrecoverable hurt, and the irreparable rift in the family.

Disappointingly, Tansley does a lot of telling rather than showing. We hear a lot about Simon’s difficulty with the English language, but beyond a couple of stilted conversations during his crossing to Australia, we don’t see it. He makes many impassioned speeches to his young son, and not once does he struggle for words. We never see a business deal go wrong or an argument lost because of his imperfect English. And yet we are told, many times, that he struggles with the language.

Language itself is often a bit hit-and-miss with Tansley. Her creative similes are often delightful, but frequently fall flat: “it had ignited, in fact, somewhat like a spark set to a stagnant puddle of energy.” At other times, however, her prose is pitch-perfect:

“[Rhizomes] had a lot in common with extended families. Not much to be seen on the surface, but underneath you could be sure there was a vast network of tentacles working away in their subterranean hideout, linked for the term of their natural lives in dark and closeted conspiracy.”

She also uses terms that struck me as a little anachronistic. While Jews in the early 20^th century were certainly struggling with issues of identity, culture, community and assimilation, I can’t believe they discussed them using these terms. The tone of these arguments is altogether too postmodern to be convincing.

Despite these faults, A Break in the Chain is an engaging story that gives a human face to Melbourne’s explosive growth during the gold rush. The dilemmas facing Tansley’s family are no less significant or relevant today than a century ago. The rift in my own family is still felt keenly by my grandfather, even though the events that caused it occurred years before he was born. He openly wept at his own birthday party when he welcomed our mysterious cousin back into the fold. For him, our cousin’s presence meant that the tragedy that had stained his family had finally been overcome. For Tansley, it seems that an intergenerational reconciliation occurred in the researching and writing of her first novel.

A Break in the Chain will resonate with anyone who has ever witnessed the deep, astonishing antagonism to an interfaith relationship, and the permanent damage to family ties that such antagonism can cause.

Sometimes the right logo is everything

By Anthony Frosh

The Gen08 survey of the Australian Jewish community revealed some worrying trends.  Generation X & Y are more likely than their parents to be disengaged from the Jewish community. Furthermore, the transition of leadership roles within the community from the Baby Boomer generation to the next generation is perceived as occurring at a pace not dissimilar to that of a crowd of people departing shul on a day with a particularly festive and delicious kiddush.

Those closest to the Gen08 survey research feel that while we currently have a great community, our 18-34 year olds are less engaged and less active within the Jewish community than ever before. This, together with future demographic and economic challenges (e.g. aging community, less affordable housing and education), poses a real threat to maintaining the quality of community that is currently enjoyed.

This is where the Groundswell initiative comes in.   According to David Werdiger, a fellow Groundswell committee member, “The Groundswell 2011 initiative intends to turn things upside down. There is so much untapped talent in our community, and that talent holds the key to discovering new ways to engage and foster better continuity. It doesn’t seem to be happening top-down with the institutions we already have, so maybe it’s time to make it happen from the ground up.”

The Groundswell committee is currently made up of a mix of community members, from a wide range of ages, religious, and political persuasions. However, the committee is only established to facilitate the genesis of Groundswell. The future is there for the taking.

Groundswell is now looking for a logo, and as part of the ground-up style, we’re looking for every opportunity to engage young people from within the community in the development process, and not just the outcomes.

Hence Groundswell is holding a competition to design its logo. We’re looking for creative young people to put forward their best entry.  The winner will receive a pair of Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ Studio™ High Definition Powered Isolation Headphones, with a RRP of $499.  Even more importantly, the winner will receive the recognition and satisfaction of having their design featured as the logo of great new initiative for the Melbourne Jewish Community.

To enter, or to find out more, email Frosh AT GalusAustralis dot com

Entries must be received no later than Monday August 15 2011.

Groundswell has just opened a Facebook page, and fittingly, it totally blank at the moment. We’re looking for people to join the group, invite their friends, and generate the content … and of course the logo!

The future will be what we make it.

The other day I complained to my husband about my iphone (I find that I often lean on it in such a way that I turn myself on mute) and he told me to stop ‘white whining’. He had just read about a new idiom in the Good Weekend; a ‘white whine’. When people who ostensibly have nothing to complain about, complain about something trivial and materialistic – like an iphone.

So, while I sip my white wine alone tonight, allow me to whine.

I love my husband’s job. Michael is the Education Director of Encounters @ Shalom, part of The Shalom Institute here in Sydney. He gets to direct amazing events such as the Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival, Limmud-Oz (Sydney) and was responsible for bringing Limmud-Oz Fest to Australia.

The perks I get from his job are amazing. Last year I got to have dinner with Yehuda Bauer. I spent quality time with Ron Ben Yishai. I walked the Bondi to Bronte with Steve Israel.

Since my days at Machon I admired Steve and would have sorely loved to hear more of him. He was one of the primary presenters at last year’s inaugural Limmud-Oz Fest. But, I just happened to be 37 weeks pregnant at the time. I missed out. I spent the weekend at my parents’ place alone and kept looking at the clock wondering what I was missing. Our beautiful son Eitan was born five days later! Lucky I didn’t listen to those who told me first babies never come early!

In 2005 I went to visit my grandparents in Israel. My cousins introduced me to an up-and-coming Israeli artist by the name of Efrat Gosh. I was hooked and have been following her career and her music since then.

In 2008 Michael and I travelled to England to participate in Limmud Conference – the original one. It was an inspirational weekend. And I fell in culinary love. With Israeli celebrity chef, Gil Hovav. Not only is he a wonderful cook, he is such a delightful man. Kind and modest despite his fame and his yichis. I had already read his biography and now went out and purchased his cookbooks.

So for many years now I have been listening to Efrat Gosh and cooking ‘with’ Gil Hovav – sometimes even together. So you can just imagine my excitement when I learnt that BOTH Efrat and Gil were going to be a part of Limmud-Oz! AMAZING!

Did I mention the perks of being Michael’s wife? Last Friday night we had dinner with the international presenters that came to Limmud-Oz. And I just happened to be sitting opposite Gil Hovav. I planned to be witty and charming and ask insightful questions; not the ones that everyone else asks.

Eitan, however, had other plans for me. Our son is usually an amazing sleeper and very transportable. That Friday night however, he just would not settle. And I found myself pacing up and down and singing to him in a dark room while everyone else mingled and chatted. Instead of witty and charming I was flustered and covered in saliva and vomit. At the end of the night I had the feeling of being left behind. I felt deflated and disappointed. That night Eitan did not sleep and on Shabbat I discovered that he was teething. Typical. 6 months and 2 days old and my little yeke has to be bang on time! Couldn’t wait three days for Limmud-Oz to be over.

Today was the first day of Limmud-Oz. Eitan had had his morning sleep, his breakfast and his morning feed.  He was surprisingly calm on our drive to the University of New South Wales. But then, just as we arrived, everything went pear shaped. My chilled little boy whined and whimpered and cried all morning. I didn’t get to the first session and not the second (Gil Hovav’s just by the way).

I left Gil’s session after two minutes, feeling that sense of deflation and went to change Eitan’s nappy. I was supposed to be in a panel during the next session and wanted Eitan to be clean and fed before I passed him over so I could speak with a clear conscience. But again, Eitan had other plans for me. He peed all over me, himself and the bench I was using. He screamed and screamed and I was forced to go home. No Gil Hovav for me. And though Efrat Gosh’s main concert is tonight she is giving an afternoon one tomorrow. And I won’t be there. I own many of Gil’s books and all of Efrat’s CD’s. Most of those in the audience for both of them had never heard of them before.

And thus I find myself  alone at home listening to Efrat (Lerot Et Haor on repeat) and having a white whine.

Except that here’s the thing. My son was not himself today. He was sore and unhappy and clingy. And there was no one who could give him what he needed except me. He clung on to me tightly all day. He grabbed handfuls of my hair and would not let go. He nuzzled into my neck whimpering while I sang to him and soothed him and kissed him. I saw the tension melt away from his body as I gently rubbed ointment into his tender gums. I rocked him as usual while I fed him before bed and held his loving gaze. His big brown seal eyes holding mine. And I haven’t felt so blessed since the first time I locked eyes with my beautiful son six months ago as he entered the world. Truly tonight I am the luckiest woman alive.

On Friday 10 June 2011, ACMA notified MJR Inc. that it would not be renewing the temporary community broadcasting licence for “Lion FM” with the result that “Lion FM” was required to cease broadcasting at midnight on Monday 13 June 2011.

ACMA have also announced that they do not intend to issue any further community broadcasting licences in Melbourne.

JCCV President, John Searle said “the loss of the licence is very unfortunate; indeed it is devastating news for our community for whom the benefits of the licence were enormous. It provided not only a means of communication within our community but also a wonderful window through which information could flow to the wider community”.

Searle went on to say that “the JCCV is aware that at least two other groups had been formed (in addition to “Lion FM”), each with a view to either applying for the community broadcasting licence or being involved in community broadcasting. It would appear that the “fight for the licence” might have been a contributing factor in the ACMA decision, as clearly, ACMA did not see a unified community”.

Searle went on to say that “the JCCV is of the firm view that any attempt to regain a community broadcasting licence will be futile unless it can be demonstrated to ACMA that there is indeed one cohesive, representative body seeking the licence on behalf of the entire Jewish community.

To this end the JCCV has decided to facilitate discussions between all interested parties with a view to forming such a representative body and then initiating an attempt to regain the community broadcasting licence.”

The first meeting to consider an initiative to regain the licence has been called by the JCCV and will be held at 6.00 pm – 7.30 pm, 16 June, 2011 at Beth Weizmann Community Centre, 306 Hawthorn Rd, South Caulfield. All interested people are encouraged to attend.

Are these the apocryphal "Manangatang 3rds"? Well, maybe not 3rds

By Simon Morawetz

Not many people know much about Manangatang, and on face value, there isn’t that much to know. It is a small town around 80km from Swan Hill in Victoria’s northwest, with one general store and one pub.

It was put on the map by two distinct catchcries. One surrounds the annual Manangatang Cup, a horserace that’s call of “They’re racing in Manangatang!” probably gained popularity due to the comical-sounding nature of the town’s name.

The second came from AFL legend Lou Richards, who used to claim that some players “wouldn’t get a game for the Manangatang Thirds” – probably choosing that particular town for the same reason.

That the town’s two famous anecdotes surround sport is no coincidence. As with many small Australian towns, sporting clubs are the hub at which residents congregate. Manangatang is far too small to have a cinema or a mall, so the footy and netball clubs have to make up for them.

Adam McNicol is a successful journalist with an impressive resume boasting stints at WIN TV and Channel Ten, and is currently writing for the AFL website. He also co-wrote David Schwarz’s harrowing story surrounding the former footballer’s battle with a gambling addiction, among other biographies.

Adam grew up in Manangatang. His mother, a Caulfield Jew of Hungarian parents, had left Melbourne to gain experience as a teacher, intending to return a few years later.

As it was, however, she never made it back. Despite the relatively long odds – “Manang” has just 300 residents these days – she found her one and only in the town, and settled there to raise a family on a farm in the town’s south. This farm would be Adam’s home for his first 18 years.

Growing up, there were only 140 students in the entire school, and just ten in his final year. Of those ten, nine have since left the town. This is fairly common, and accounts for the dwindling of Manangatang’s population, which was closer to 1000 half a century ago.

However, those who leave the town never lose their attachment to it. At Easter this year, Manangatang held a celebration to mark its centenary. Around 1500 former residents from all over returned to honour the town that raised them, a reunion dripping with nostalgia.

Adam’s dedication took the form of a book, which he has simply titled “Manangatang.” He combined his keen interest in history with the deep love for his home town to honour it in the best way he knew how.

Although he doesn’t practically engage with Judaism these days, Adam keeps in his heart a close connection to his heritage. From an early age, he was exposed to his roots through the Bar Mitzvah celebrations of family he had in Sydney, and he has made the pilgrimage to Hungary to experience the place his grandparents grew up.

Despite growing up in a vastly different culture to theirs – or perhaps because of it – Adam ensures he maintains a connection to his background. Combine that with a love and talent for writing, and it is likely, if not inevitable, that Adam will one day cover his grandparents’ story from Hungary to Melbourne.

With a side trip to Manangatang.