By Yoram Symons

Recently an article appeared in the Jerusalem Post that detailed how the Bnei Brith’s Anti Defamation Commission had prepared a thorough report accusing two self proclaimed online news sources of being anti-Semitic in their representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While I do not necessarily dispute the conclusions of the ADC’s report, I have grave reservations about the ADC pursuing these accusations in a public way.

I hold these reservations for the following reasons:

While we are members of the Jewish community and have the right to act in our own perceived self-interest, we are also citizens of the broader Australian community. As such, our actions as an ethnic-religious minority will be perceived by the broader community within this context.

In a liberal democracy people have the right to express views that we may find unpleasant or even unconscionable. Yet it is the right of the community to be able to both express and consume any opinions that they want, provided they do not cross clearly demarcated boundaries.

And while the boundary of anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism may be clearly demarcated within the Jewish consciousness, and arguably under the Racial Vilification laws it can be defined in a legal context as well, it has no such clear demarcation within the popular consciousness as do issues like arson or terrorism.

No matter what we do, the population at large will never fully share our fear or disgust at negative representations of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Attempts by Jewish organisations to silence voices they find unpleasant or unconscionable has two effects, both extremely negative for our community.

1. It reinforces the notion that an entrenched Jewish establishment has a need to utilise legal mechanisms to silence voices that it disagrees with.
2. It provides oxygen to the perpetrators.

There are timely and newsworthy events that communal organisations should be at the forefront of combating. There is also valuable work that community organisations do in exposing not only the biases, but the ulterior motivations of certain high–profile figures. However, this does not mean that it is in our interest to go about creating news stories where none existed in the first place.

The clearest case in point for this was the community’s handling of Antony Loewenstein. By reacting so vocally and so vociferously to his opinions and to his book, we aided and abetted the creation of a mountain from what could have remained a molehill. The community’s incessant demonisation of Loewenstein only served to give him even greater legitimacy in the eyes of his supporters, and the volume of our campaign against him brought many more into his camp.

As a community we cannot afford to create another Loewenstein.

The internet sites in question are not news services on the scale of a major publication like The Age or the Australian, rather they are niche services that cater to niche readerships, presumably with strong left-wing biases to begin with.

Should the community actively pursue this issue and find it hurled into the public discourse, we run the risk of placing them front and centre of a media furore that will only serve to broaden their readership and begin to legitimise their platform in the eyes of many Australians for whom free speech is a fundamental value.

Before we go about creating a new Loewenstein, we as a community need to seriously rethink our approach to dealing with anti-Semitic media, and to do it in a way that will not effect the creation of even larger enemies.

Most of us were raised to believe that you were a Jew because your mother was Jewish. That Jewish descent passes through the woman. And no doubt we have all heard the various reasons that rabbis and others have given for this over the years. My personal favourite is the one that says women are more spiritually advanced than men and hence the Jewish spiritual DNA can only be passed through them. I mean, obviously spiritual DNA can only be passed through women, why would we have ever thought otherwise?

On a more serious note, however, the idea of matrilineal descent has major ramifications for many Jewish people. In an era where more and more Jewish boys and girls are meeting people from outside of their culture, maintaining the racial and ethnic purity of the people has never been harder. And it is especially hard on the Rabbinate to try and enforce their notion of spiritual purity with very few punitive measures available to them.

But lets examine for a moment the origin of this matrilineal descent concept. Within the 4-cubit-wide confines of rabbinic logic, the source of all Jewish laws and customs is the Torah, as interpreted by the Rabbis of the Mishnaic period (i.e 200BC-200AD). And sure enough, the Mishna is quite clear on the matter. Kiddushin 3:12 states that to be considered Jewish one must be the child of a Jewish mother or a righteous convert. For the rabbi it is simple – case closed.

But for those of us who for whatever reason see it fit to doubt the reasoning of pre-industrial scholastic logicians who were part of a nationalist populist political movement arguably responsible for the two most catastrophic wars in Jewish history up until the Holocaust, well, we have to search beyond the Mishna and its peculiar methodology of Biblical interpretation.

A straight reading of the Torah leaves one with a fairly overwhelming impression that in Biblical and pre-Biblical times, all notions of tribal descent were passed through the father. There are numerous characters in the Bible, for example Judah’s sons, Ephraim, Menashe and the children of Moses who all had non-Jewish mothers and were all considered Jewish. The rabbis conveniently explain that all of their mothers converted to Judaism but as with most rabbinic statements, they bear little relation to any literal reading of the text and require the application  of the arcane science of drash to force those meanings out.

In addition to this is the overwhelming number of references to the father’s tribe being the most important, to all descent occurring through the patrilineal line, the generation lists that only mention fathers and the constant reference to the Gods of Forefathers, implying that tribe and religion are the domain of the male.

And this makes perfect sense. We know that the Biblical and pre-Biblical society was highly patriarchal, both for the Israelites and the Hebrews and for most people around the world at that time. If a Jewish man married a non-Jewish woman what was happening in effect was that the man was taking her into his tribe, she would be absorbed in to the new people, and thus her previous identity and her previous gods would be irrelevant.

What is equally clear to all historians of this matter is that at some point this changed and matrilineal descent took over as normative practice. There are a number of arguments put forward, each with greater or lesser degrees of evidence to back them.

There is the idea that it originated with Ezra, when he forced Jewish men to banish their non-Jewish wives. There is another idea that it was instituted after the Bar Kochba revolt as a leniency to the children of women raped by the Romans, so that an entire generation of children would not be lost to Judaism. There is a further idea that in contrast to paternal descent, maternal descent is certain and provable.

But the truth and historicity of any of these reasons is not the real point. The real point is that according to the best evidence that historians can bring up:

1. Once upon a time Jews believed in patrilineal descent
2. At a later period they changed to matrilineal descent
3. No one has ever really understood exactly why this change took place

Despite the overwhelming historical evidence pointing to a tradition of patrilineal descent, the Halacha is steadfast in its exclusive acceptance of matrilineal descent.  As far as Halacha is concerned, if the Mishnaic sages interpreted a biblical verse in a certain way – then come hell or high water their interpretation will stand until the end of time.

What is important for us is the following: Why as a community do we allow ourselves to be bound by the interpretation and tradition of the Halacha? Why do we allow questions of such fundamental importance like “Who is a Jew?” to be arbitrated by a system that borders on the superstitious?

Being Jewish is not a superstition – it is a very real and powerful experience that transcends the narrow and stringent practices of Halacha. Most of us feel very comfortable being Jewish without keeping any real Halacha at all. The question of whether one can be Jewish without keeping the Halacha was answered long ago. The question now is slightly different:

Can a community claim to be Jewish without relying on the Halacha for definitions of its own Jewishness?

Even though most of us feel entirely Jewish as individuals without the need for any formal Halacha in our lives – we have left the ultimate Jewish character of the community entirely in the hands of the Halachists.

The Halachic system performed a great service to the Jewish people. Arguably it guaranteed the survival of the Jewish people for 2000 years without a homeland or a sovereign state of our own. Yet the great epoch of the Halacha is at an end. We may not be living in the era of redemption, but neither are we living in the Exile proper.

As a community we need to rethink our relationship to the Halacha. Instead of accepting it as a ruler and master, we should adopt it for what it actually is – a frame of reference. The word Torah etymologically derives from the word “hora’ah” or guidance. In the language of our most ancient forefathers the word Torah did not mean law but guidance.

If we saw the Halacha as a guide to our ancient traditions, rather than hard and fast law, we would be in a better position to fashion a Jewish experience that is congruent and consistent with the way we actually live our lives.

Both Michael Jackson and the Lubavitcher Rebbe died on the 3^rd of Tammuz.  This much is fact. The rest of this piece is entirely speculation.

The first I heard of Michael Jackson’s death was when a lapsed Lubavitcher called me.  In a daze, an almost hallucinogenic tone to his voice was asking me: what was the significance that Michael had died on the 3^rd of Tammuz, the exact same date that the Rebbe had passed from the world. He had been shaken, almost to his core it seemed. For while he is indeed a lapsed Lubavitcher, the memories of childhood can never fade and the phenomenon that was the Rebbe’s final mortal days left an indelible mark upon his soul.

I was never a huge Michael Jackson fan. I liked his music but I would never have thought of myself as a genuine fan, a devotee. And the same goes for the Rebbe. Not having been raised Lubavitch, observing the hysterical euphoria of the movement in the early nineties had a sense of watching something unreal and distant. It was not something that I was a part of, merely a spectator to.

Yet the deaths of both Michael and the Rebbe shook me somehow. For the past few days I have been trying to make sense of this emotion. Watching Michael’s video clips and interviews via YouTube, listening to his songs played over on the radio and reading bits and pieces about his life, gleaned from the Wikipedia and the fan-sites and the overwhelming number of blogs. Yet through it all my question remained – why am I upset over the death of Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson’s death was a tragedy. There he was, so incredibly and almost inhumanly talented, yet at the same time so obviously and inconsolably sad. After watching countless YouTube clips and listening to endless playbacks, I began to have the sense that every time Michael spoke, in that soft, almost feminine voice, he was staring out from behind a mask.

Michael spent his lifetime wearing a mask. At first the mask was the same as all performers wear – the outlandish and flamboyant costumes of his Jackson 5 days. But by the time he released Thriller he was wearing a new kind of mask, a mask that had been sculpted into his very skin. And this mask proved too addictive. It never hid him quite enough, so he had it changed and enhanced and altered until by the end of his life he had taken to wearing a veil – the ultimate, most unsubtle and most obvious mask of all.

The Rebbe also wore a mask. In his final days he would appear before his followers from a balcony. While the crowd sang itself into a frenzy of yechi’s they would see only a veil. Then at the crescendoing moment the veil would be lifted and behind it was the Rebbe. For a few brief moments the Chassidim would bask in the glory of their master and then almost as quickly the veil was drawn tight and the Rebbe disappeared.

Chassidus teaches us that we all wear masks. We all hide our true selves behind layers and layers of a constructed personality.  The human is unable to deal with other humans face to face. Only from the safety of our personas can we engage with the world. Chassidus teaches that it is not only the Michael Jacksons who wear masks. We all do. And for the same reason. To escape the glare.

There was something messianic in Michael Jackson’s tone. From when his decision to cease being merely a popstar and enter the realms of philanthropy and activism, there became an almost palpable sense that he believed, through the power of music, that he could heal the world. Perhaps when so many individuals use you as a canvas on which to project their hopes and dreams, you begin to absorb it and then radiate those hopes and dreams back into the world.

The Rebbe taught that in every generation there is a messiah. Perhaps this means that the messiah isn’t just a single person, but an energy that is present in the world at any given moment, that finds individuals and coalesces around them. Perhaps messiah is the word for our collective longing for something better, something transcendent.  But it is a longing that we are too ashamed to openly declare, so we stand back and allow others to absorb our longings and let them declare them for us.

Celebrities embody that longing. They become focal points for masses of emotional energy. Whether their celebrity is won through incomparable talent or simply succeeding in a prime time cooking game show, celebrity always functions in the same manner, differing only in degree. While on the stage, in the glare of spotlight, the celebrity openly declares their ambition and desire – their longing. While under the spotlight they take off their mask. We need celebrities and leaders and messiahs. We need to see someone to take off their mask, because we cannot take off our own.

The Lubavitchers of Melbourne publish a newsletter called The Lamplighter. The symbolism is that the one who lights the lamps on the street takes a single candle and from it can light many others. I am told that the Rebbe saw his mission on earth like that, helping others to light their own candles. The tragedy of the Rebbe and indeed of all leaders is that we get so absorbed in the light reflecting from them, we fail to realize that the source of their light is from the light that is within us.

This blog has spent considerable time discussing the idea of communal leadership. And while no one would equate communal leaders to the Michael Jacksons and the Lubavitcher Rebbes of the world, in some ways they serve a similar function. They put themselves out there to do what most people will not.  And while the debate around the selection processes of a leadership body is worthwhile, the underlying reality of leadership – that a few must act in the name of the many – will not change, no matter how selection takes place, from the most clandestine to the most democratic.

If there is anything to learn from the passing of Michael Jackson, it is when we put so much of our hopes and desires into another human being, we diminish our own potential and force them to bear a burden that is too great. When all the individuals of a polity are willing to assume full responsibility for that polity that is when leadership will begin to change.

I am going to begin this post from the following assumption: The JCCV is not democratic nor is it representational.

Pages have already been filled on this blog debating this issue and it is an issue that can be argued back and forth ad infinitum. Whether it is or is not democratic or representational may ultimately come down to various definitions of what precisely constitutes democracy or representation. In my mind resorting to such arguments by definition is simply a way of avoiding genuine and substantive issues.

What is of far more interest to me are the following questions:

1. What exactly should the mandate of communal governance be?
2. Is the JCCV in its current form the best organisation to fulfil such a mandate?
3. Is the JCCV’s constituency satisfied with both what the JCCV does and how it goes about achieving it?

The first question has thus far not been extensively discussed on this blog but  I will put forward the following:

1. Strategic vision for the future of the community and activities to pursue these strategic aims.
2. Coordination of all communal fundraising activities and then disbursement of those funds.
3. Responsibility for the physical security of the community.
4. Advocacy to government on the community’s behalf.
5. Public relations between the community and the broader Australian community.
6. Facilitation of greater interaction and involvement between different parts of the community.
7. Hosting a number of major events every calendar year.
8. Provision of key information to the community.
9. A forum for the settlement of disputes between communal organisations and individuals.

The second question I would answer in the resounding negative. While the JCCV certainly performs some of the functions on my list, and indeed many others as well, its general lack of democracy, its inability to be genuinely representative and the lack of transparency surrounding so many facets of its general operation leave it as a body whose primary interest is the preservation of the status quo, not as a body that can drive positive growth and change.

As for the third question, the only way to arrive at an unequivocal answer would be to conduct a survey of every single Jewish person in Melbourne and ask them directly. As the mountains of anecdotal evidence referred to on this blog maintain, there is an unusually high degree of dissatisfaction with the JCCV and Communal leadership in general.

Thus, I propose the following:

1. Abolish the JCCV in its current form entirely.
2. Establish a new organisation that is not made up of affiliate organisations but one where members of the community can vote directly on matters.
3. Establish a registry of every Jewish person in Melbourne above the age of 18 who wishes to participate. The registry would be stored securely online and operate very much like an online social community. The “Jewishness” of members would have to be verified by some process.
4. This online registry would then become the constituency.
5. The constituency would then vote once every term (lets say every two years) for the executive of the new body.
6. The executive would be constituted of positions that address the aims described above. Hence there would be:

• President /CEO – Strategic direction, ultimate arbiter
• Treasurer/ CFO – Financial matters
• Security Chief
• Advocacy Director
• PR and Communications Director
• Events Coordinator
• Director of Communal Affairs

7.    The Executive would use the online social community to communicate all substantive matters to the community. The community would be able to use the online social community to discuss relevant issues and create pressure groups around certain issues. As the affairs of the online community are easily trackable, verifiable and consistent metrics around communal attitudes can be gauged at all times.

8.    In addition to the online community, the Executive would meet in a public forum once a month where they would hear grievances, suggestions and debate from the community on any number of issues. The agenda of these meetings would be set by the online community by relevance and popularity of issues.

The establishment of such an online space for the community would have a number of significant benefits.

First, it would facilitate genuine democracy within the leadership structure. The actual will of individuals could be implemented as opposed to channelling their will through a number of dubiously representative organisations.

Second, it would bypass the need for surveys or other opinion gauging activities as the online community would be a living and dynamic gauge of communal attitudes at all times.

Third, by formalising avenues of information flow, both from and to the leadership, genuine transparency of the leadership’s actions can be maintained at all times, and the constituency will always have available channels for grievances and the like.

An approach like this, which utilises the internet’s unprecedented ability to enfranchise individuals is certainly the way forward for all governmental structures. Their ultimate implementation is more a question of “when” than one of “if”. There is no reason why the Jewish Community of Melbourne should not be a trailblazer in this regard.