New presidents tend to bring fresh expectations

Articles about Jewish education, particularly those concerning making Jewish education more affordable, always resonate with the majority of our readers. Hence we are publishing this press release we received today from The United Jewish Education Board:

As of 2012, the UJEB board has endorsed the appointment of Yossi Goldfarb as President of the organisation.
Yossi has been involved in the Melbourne Jewish Community for over twenty years in both professional and volunteer capacities. Yossi is married to Sarah Hyman and has three boys. His school-aged children attend Caulfield Junior College and the UJEB Hebrew Centre Program.

Supported by the UJEB Board, Yossi is looking forward to seeing continued growth and increased success that UJEB has enjoyed for many years. With Yossi’s leadership, UJEB will continue to be developed as the Jewish community organisation that represents, delivers services and advocates for the community of people associated with government and non-Jewish independent schools.

In recent years, the composition of the UJEB board has changed to include members whose children are also part of UJEB’s programs. This perspective will naturally lead to the development of new and exciting initiatives. Through dynamic and creative programming, we will continue to service the growing number of more than 1,200 students who are part of the UJEB community.

Daniel Jenshel, who is now the Immediate Past President, had been the President of UJEB since August 2009. The UJEB Board along with the Management and all those involved in UJEB would like to acknowledge and sincerely thank Daniel Jenshel for the commitment and dedication he has displayed as UJEB President. During his Presidency, UJEB has enjoyed increased community support, increased attendance and enrolments across all programs and most importantly, continued and ongoing improvement in the range and quality of education provided.

Comments from Yossi Goldfarb:
“As a UJEB parent myself with a history of involvement in our community, I am honoured to have the opportunity to lead the organisation. UJEB’s role in the community is more critical today than it ever has been at any point in our 120 year history. With 1,200 Jewish children attending our RE classes, Hebrew Centres, The Pratt Foundation Jewish Students Network and our camps it is critical that we not only give our children a quality Jewish educational experience, but that we also include the entire family in that endeavor.

In 2012 and in the coming years we are anticipating significant growth not only in the number of children and their families enrolled in our programs, but also in the range and reach of our activities. Our outgoing president, Daniel Jenshel, performed a wonderful job during his time at the organisation’s helm, and UJEB is really fortunate to benefit from the excellent springboard he provided.

During my term, I look forward to welcoming more people to UJEB and growing our family from all corners of our diverse community. I not only see UJEB as an organisation that delivers quality education to our 1,200 children, but also as an inclusive and representative voice for the hundreds, if not thousands of families with children enrolled in government and independent schools.”

For further comment, Yossi can be contacted via email at president AT ujeb.org.au

Following this episode, we were contacted by some of the organisation’s senior members who were concerned that such coverage could jeopardise the community’s security, and indeed we willingly removed a comment that inadvertently disclosed some confidential operational matters. Furthermore, after meeting with these representatives, we explained that we had no anti-CSG agenda, and where there had been negative articles or commentary, we were merely publishing content that had been submitted to us.

We encouraged them to submit a positive article about the CSG. However, they were of the opinion that when it comes to security matters, any uncontrolled publicity is bad publicity, and that’s fair enough. We agreed that failing any extraordinary incidents, there was little to be gained from running further CSG focussed articles.

However, with the huge double page spread in The Age today, this is clearly a topic that will again have the community talking. The main question raised being, What is the ideal balance between perceived security needs and the cost of Jewish education and community infrastructure?

It’s certainly time to have a community debate, and the comments section of Galus seems like a good place to start.

Please refrain from disclosing any security-relevant operational matters.

And purely by chance – or is it destiny? – because of a cousin’s marriage to a relative (by marriage) of a member of the Windsor clan, I can lay claim that but for certain legal impediments such as the Act of Settlement (1701), if all members of the royal family and their descendants and relatives by marriage to the nth degree were wiped out, I too could be King. I know it works because when I last visited Spencer House in London, I said, “I am related to the Queen by marriage you know,” in a not so particularly quiet way to my friend. The serious reaction of the ladies at the postcard till was immediate.

Now stop laughing. This is serious. I am concerned about ‘the aristocratic embrace’, that odious habit of loving a couple of letters after your name to set you apart from the hoi polloi and impress the impressionable.

Rather than honouring those rare and society-changing individuals who deserve special public recognition that might only occur once in a generation (John Monash, Weary Dunlop, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Eddie Mabo), the honours lists continue to be a vehicle for snobbery, status games, political payback, and a means of working over other people about how important you are with that little badge on your bespoke golf jacket.

I say this in part because I know how easy it is to play the nomination honours game if you are rich, well-connected, or know how to write a nomination letter. As part of a political payback game, I’ve been involved in a successful nomination. Others have observed how the honours list overwhelmingly reflects a particularly heterogeneous group: either the old WASP elite or others who have become part of the dominant elite, though of course there are exceptions. The Jewish elite have played this status game to the core.

Out of the eight people named as key commitee  or staff members of AIJAC on their website, five have some form of Australian honour. Likewise, of the 28 or so members of the ECAJ Executive, including life members, 18, that is nearly 65% have an Australian honour. The Zionist Federation of Australia lists no honours but that is fitting, because they are on about Israel, not about Australia, I suppose.

By way of comparison, according to the ACTU website, none of the members of their executive have a gong (or they keep it quiet), despite the important role they play in Australian life.  Of the 12  members of the Federation of the Ethnic Communities Council of Australia only 2 are named as having an honour.  If we look at another specific community, of the 20 or so members of the Greek Orthodox Community of Victoria board, none is named as having a gong. And even that bastion of the elite, Geelong Grammar, does not mention that any of the members of its school council have an honour.

Now what is going on here?

Even accounting for false modesty on elite organisations like Grammar who don’t add the sacred letters after people’s names, there appears to be massive gradeflation and a bit of a nomination industry at the top end of the Jewish community. I am sure it is happening elsewhere but it is harder to reveal through the internet. Perhaps spotting lapel pins at in the Long Room at the MCG would be a good comparative test.

I think it is time to rethink the abuse of the honours system.  Other than having me as King (yechi ha-melech! we would cry), we need something much more restricted, which is not open to game-playing.

I write in relation to your formal complaint to SBS about The Promise, a four part series broadcast by SBS on four consecutive Sunday evenings from 27 November 2011. Your complaint was among a number of complaints investigated, then reviewed and determined by the SBS Complaints Committee, chaired by the Managing Director, Michael Ebeid, which met on 17 January, 2012.

The SBS Complaints Committee is constituted under Code 8.9 of the SBS Code of Practice (see annexure 1) and was convened in light of the number of complaints that the broadcast of the 4 part series The Promise breached the SBS Codes of Practice.

The SBS Complaints Committee investigated, reviewed and determined each of the complaints about each and all of the 4 episodes of the series The Promise, including your complaint by email received on 28 November 2011.

This letter is to advise that your complaint was not upheld and the reasons for SBS’s decision.

Your complaint was investigated against Code 1.3 of the SBS Codes of Practice (see annexure 2 below). Some of the complaints investigated also raised the issue of accuracy and balance, perhaps seeking to invoke Code 2.2 of the SBS Codes of Practice (see annexure 3 below). Code 2.2 has no application to this drama, being limited to programs produced by SBS’s News and Current Affairs division. The Promise was not produced by SBS’s News and Current Affairs division.

Your complaint specifically included concerns that The Promise:

• presented one-sided Palestinian propaganda;
• was anti-Semitic; and
• characterised Jews as liars, untrustworthy and wealthy while Palestinians are portrayed as poor, loving and considerate.

That complaint was investigated and reviewed specifically. In addition, the Complaints Committee investigated and reviewed all complaints in respect of three over-arching Code-related issues raised across all the complaints taken as a whole, which, in summary, were that the program:

• was anti-Semitic;
• promoted, endorsed, or reinforced inaccurate, demeaning or discriminatory stereotypes (relevantly of Jews and/or Israelis); or
• condoned, tolerated or encouraged discrimination or prejudice against Israel and/or Jews as a people or a religious group.

Allegations of historically inaccuracy were investigated and reviewed insofar as they related to the above issues. But, as noted earlier, accuracy per se is not a Code requirement in respect of a drama such as The Promise.

Some complaints alleged that the broadcast of The Promise (either in a particular episode or collectively the series) amounted to racial vilification. These allegations have been investigated and reviewed against the Code provisions precluding condoning, tolerating or encouraging discrimination or prejudice. The advice of SBS Legal department also was taken into account in this respect.

In assessing against The Promise against Code 1.3, the Complaints Committee had regard to Australian Communication Media Authority’s test of the ordinary, reasonable viewer as defined by the ACMA’s Investigation Report No. 2537 of 2 March 2011. It states:

“In assessing the content against the Codes, the delegate considers the meaning conveyed by the relevant broadcast material. This is assessed according to the understanding of an ‘ordinary, reasonable’ viewer.

Australian Courts have considered an ‘ordinary, reasonable’ viewer to be:

A person of fair average intelligence, who is neither perverse, nor morbid or suspicious of mind, nor avid for scandal. That person does not live in an ivory tower, but can and does read between the lines in the light of that person’s general knowledge and experience of worldly affairs.[1]

The delegate asks, what would the ordinary, reasonable viewer have understood the program to have conveyed and, in so doing, the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone, and inferences that may be drawn.

Once this has been ascertained, it is for the delegate to determine whether the material has breached the Codes.”

The Complaints Committee’s investigation and findings

The Complaints Committee noted that The Promise is a high quality drama series that was written and directed by Peter Kosminsky and produced by DayBreak Pictures in association with Stonehenge films, Canal+ and Arte France. It was produced in association with SBS TV although SBS had no editorial control over the production. It was first broadcast on Channel 4 (UK) in February 2011. It was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for the Best Drama Serial. Apart from the United Kingdom and Australia, the drama has been sold to SVT Sweden, YLE Finland, DR Denmark, RUV Iceland, RTV Slovenia, Globosat Brazil, TVO Canada.

The Promise is a four part work of fiction. Its dramatic narrative makes reference to some political or policy debates between the Jewish/Israeli and Palestinian communities and, at different times, to the political status of the area. But these references are incidental to the purpose of the series, namely, the dramatisation of the personal experiences of two related people, a grand-daughter and her grandfather, visiting the same region six decades apart.

On the Channel 4 website Peter Kominsky describes the series this way:

This is first and foremost a drama. I wanted to take two characters on a journey – starting pro-Jewish but then becoming less certain, in keeping with the thrust of our research. There are no caricatures – all the characters are based on people we met, read about or interviewed. One character is a soldier who was in Belsen, another is an Arab thrown out of his village in 1948. It would do an immense disservice to a complex situation to attempt to over-simplify it. I’m not attempting to be definitive. It’s not a comment piece. It would short-change the viewer to tell them what to think in a simplistic way.

The series is detailed and the characters portrayed are complex in the interwoven storylines which show a range of political and personal positions. As Mr Kominsky says, the film did not claim to be historically accurate, nor to be a documentary. However, it is fair to conclude that by the end of the series the sympathy of audience is more likely to be with the Palestinians than with the Israelis.

The SBS Codes of Practice do not limit the subject matter of fictional dramas, nor do they restrict the range of political views presented. Consistent with the general principles of freedom of expression, Code 1 (General Programming) of the SBS Codes of Practice acknowledges that SBS will broadcast a broad range of program material:

SBS’s programming can be controversial and provocative and may at times be distasteful or offensive to some. Not all viewpoints presented will be shared by all audience members.

Allegations of anti-Semitism

The Complaints Committee found that the series was neither anti-Semitic nor racist. While many characters in the series display increasing antipathy towards Israel, Israelis and Jews at different times, this is merely part of the dramatic narrative, creating the conflict that provides the momentum of the storyline. As you know, it is quite common to portray individuals, groups or even nations in a negative light as a part of a dramatic work.

The central character is a young English girl, Erin, who appears in the contemporary storyline, and provides the dramatic relief for the historical storyline, whose central character is her English grandfather, a British soldier Len. These two characters are brought together by being shown to make similar journeys, driven by their respective relationships with people who happen to be Jewish, a lover in Len’s case; and a school friend in Erin’s case.

The changing political perspectives of the central characters across the narrative, is a matter of politics, not race or religion. As the characters develop, the series traverses issues of betrayal, trust, love and loyalty. These highly emotional issues are the standard structures of drama on television, stage and film.

It was the view of the Complaints Committee that the series does not, demonise Jews either individually or as a collective, nor deny their individual and collective right to selfdetermination and therefore does not vilify Jews or Israelis.

Further the Complaints Committee does not accept that the program simply made the Jews look bad and by contrast made the Palestinians look unproblematic. True, some Palestinian characters criticise Jews as being “greedy” or having “stolen” land or homes but the Palestinian “suicide” bombers are obvious negative characters among the Palestinians, where the drama finds it colour in actions rather than words.

In addition Erin is critical of Omar’s suggestion that it is disrespectful to leave the home of the of the “suicide” bomber in Gaza she says “…. I didn’t respect his daughter, she murdered three people. I’ve been blown up by a suicide bomber. OK. I know what I am taking about”. In a similar vein, in the contemporary storyline, the principal Palestinian character Omar, is threatened with a gun by a Hamas supporter at the home of the “suicide bomber”, and tells Erin they have to go because “the son is Hamas and he will not have me here”.

The drama presents a range of views and perspectives, and the characterisation of the main Jewish characters, including Paul and Clara are nuanced. The same is true of the Meyer family, who are shown as complex characters. The point is underlined as the Meyer family, individually and as a whole, continues to show Erin respect and provide her with support and hospitality although she challenges and criticises them at almost every level.

Although The Promise has two interwoven stories set in different times, it is about the drama of various human relationships, which happen to involve characters from different cultural and political groups who are brought into conflict. It is the differences and tension that is critical to the drama, not the identity of the players.

Discrimination or prejudice against Israel and/or Jews as a people or a religious group

The Complaints Committee reached the conclusion that the various political or policy debates between the Jewish/Israeli characters on the one hand, and the Arab/Palestinian characters on the other hand were incidental to the main purpose of the storyline in the drama series as a whole; namely the dramatisation of two personal journeys made some 60 years apart as a young girl becomes obsessed with her grandfather’s diary.

Like all drama, there is tendency towards a binary play of “good guys” and “bad guys”. That characterises all drama, to a greater or lesser extent, and is almost inevitable given the need to hold the viewer’s interest. It is an oversimplification to cast the drama as being bad Jews versus good Palestinians.

After a careful investigation and review of each of the episodes individually and the four part series as a whole, the Complaints Committee is of the view that the film does not breach Code.1.3.

Inaccurate demeaning or discriminatory stereotypes

The Complaints Committee noted that many complaints specifically referred to stereotyping of Jews, including allegations that Jews are stereotyped as liars, untrustworthy, wealthy, conspiratorial, cruel, hateful and violent. The Complaints Committee considered that this was an incorrect reading of complex characters, which ignored their individual and collective positive characteristics.

Some complaints alleged that this perspective was reinforced by a contrast with the depiction of other (non-Jewish) characters in a favourable light. Some complaints focused upon the disparity of wealth. For example, in the contemporary storyline, The Promise depicts the Meyers as being rich family. These are Jewish characters, but their wealth has a dramatic function in the narrative, about the effects of political turmoil reaching every Israeli. The drama is set in one Jewish family’s home, almost in isolation.

The Complaints Committee rejects the allegation that the use of one family involves any stereotyping, positive or negative. It is simply a family around whom a drama is hung. There is no suggestion that the Meyer family is a typical Israeli family, they are clearly affluent. However they can be contrasted against the settler family who appear to be only moderately comfortable. The Complaints Committee found that as only two Jewish families are shown, the ordinary reasonable viewer would not conclude that these families typify Jewish or Israeli society.

Conclusion

This is a complex drama, that is obviously presented as a work of fiction. Each of the main characters has many facets. Obviously, some viewers will focus upon particular facets of each character. But in any drama as densely layered as The Promise, characters are depicted at different time in different ways; the loving father may also be a stern taskmaster, the reckless teenager may be a loving daughter too. The portrayals vary with the narrative and the development of the drama. This is typical of all drama.

The Complaints Committee is satisfied that the ordinary reasonable viewer fully appreciated that The Promise was a fictional drama and nothing more than that. The Complaints Committee found that that the characterisations in The Promise did not cross the threshold into racism, and in particular that it did not promote, endorse, or reinforce inaccurate, demeaning or discriminatory stereotypes.

In the light of some early representations after the first episode of the series was broadcast, SBS prefaced the broadcast of each subsequent episode with a reminder that the film was a drama to negate any suggestion it was a historical or documentary film. SBS considers that the disclaimers highlighted what is obvious from the content of the film, that it is a work of a fiction.

If you consider that this response is inadequate you are entitled to take your concerns to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for external review. SBS appreciates you raising your concerns with us, and would like to assure you that SBS presents a wide range of factual and fictional program material on the Middle East.

Yours sincerely

Sally Begbie

SBS Ombudsman

Although they left flailing academic careers to start a small business, it doesn't get more alternative or more in the spirit of tikkun olam than ghost busting

By Keren Tuch

A new year, a new set of first round university offers, and hard decisions to make.  Which university course to do – law, commerce or medicine? Embarking on an alternative career is almost seen as sacrilegious.  Yet people do, and for good reason.

The not-for-profit sector accounts for 9.6% of Australia’s economy, and although Jews do not account for an overwhelming majority of this sector, it is not surprising to find a sprinkling of Jews that work across the field.

Ilana Jaffe, 30, is one such person who decided to choose a career which she was passionate about – tackling homelessness in Melbourne.  Ms. Jaffe is the Health and Human Services Unit Manager at Youth Projects, The Living Room Primary Health Service . Her role is to oversee the drop-in and primary health unit for homeless people with complex healthcare needs.

Ms Jaffe explains that she was motivated to work in this field due to a growing sense of social injustice at how society was structured and fragmented. Growing up in the Jewish Community she could see how fortunate she was to be part of such a vibrant community. When it was time to choose a career path, the  array of choices was overwhelming, but she realised that advocating for social change was important and thus  chose to work in the community sector.

Ms Jaffe loves that her job is closely aligned with her value system and she can practice with integrity.  It may mean she receives less pay than peers of the same age and responsibilities, but she is happy to work in an area she is passionate about, as  personal job satisfaction outweighs the bank account.

Simon Lipschitz, 27, is a rare breed being a Jewish male community worker.  Mr. Lipschitz works in the community sector for a youth and family service team in the Western suburbs of Melbourne.  His motivation? “Knowing that I am making society a better place.”   After studying an undergraduate degree in psychology, he realised his passion was youth and helping those less fortunate.

Mr. Lipschitz grew up in the small Jewish Community of Adelaide where he became a member of the youth group Habonim Dror.  A lot of habonim activities were focused on social justice themes, which partly influenced Lipschitz’s values.  He was also taught the necessary leadership skills at Habonim to work with youth in his work environment.  His friends are all in the corporate sector, but that doesn’t bother him.  His friends can’t relate to the work that he does, but they react favorably to his career choice.

Jordi Kraus, 23, is also working in the community sector for the homeless.  Kraus is excited to work in this industry as there are current governmental reforms to help create a paradigm shift from ’servicing’ homelessness to actually breaking the cycle of homelessness. It was a natural progression after a meaningful volunteer experience with Sudanese refugees at Jewish Aid Australia, and an internship at Global Poverty Project.  Although she is at the beginning of her career, she plans to continue to work in this sector and hopes to move into international development down the track.

However, Ms. Kraus also acknowledges a societal change in how people can contribute. “We are undergoing a huge shift in terms of cross-sector collaboration to achieve social innovation and social justice. Social justice is no longer the domain of an isolated ‘charity’ sector.”

Jewish welfare workers are there for the job satisfaction of tangibly making the world a better place.  They face difficulties ranging from lack of resources to a mountain of bureaucracy, but find their careers worthwhile and rewarding.

These people are not your mainstream Jewish accountants, doctors or lawyers, but they are also highly skilled and passionate about what they do.  And arguably living a real Jewish life through their job.

If anyone is interested in volunteering at the Living Room Primary Health Service www.youthprojects.org.au, please contact Ms. Jaffe via email:

Ilanaj AT youthprojects.org.au

The late Andrés Escobar, reacting after his sadly infamous own goal in 1994

By Anthony Frosh

In attempting to ban DVD sales of The Promise, a polemical mini-series recently screened on SBS, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) have done a proverbial Andrés Escobar.

Attempts, or even perceived attempts, at censorship only ever result in cultivating more interest in the object of the censorship. If you want to get your high school students to read their physics textbooks, you can’t do much better than banning them.

I only saw the first episode of the series. As a piece of drama, I found it too unsophisticated to keep my interest. One of the first things I noticed, besides the lame acting and dialogue, was that Israeli youths were driving far more expensive cars than those driven by even some of their most spoilt Toorak or Vaucluse contemporaries, a sure sign that the film makers had little interest in being true-to-life. Perhaps they were trying to perpetuate a stereotype (that has nothing to with Israel) about Jews that one might sometimes encounter in Western universities concerning Jewish kids being rich and spoilt.

The first episode, although lacking in accuracy and realism, seemed more balanced than I had expected. Later, I heard that the hostile portrayal of Jews, Zionism, and Israel, really takes off as the series progresses. When I heard this, I wondered whether this was an example of the hostile media phenomenon, whereby emotionally invested parties perceive relatively neutral or balanced media content as strongly hostile to their own side.

However, if this were merely a case of the hostile media phenomenon, then the scientific literature predicts that Palestinian advocates would have also had similar reactions; that is, they would have perceived the series as being highly hostile to their side. A little bit of research reveals this is not the case. Australians For Palestine (which would be more accurately named Australians against Israel) called for supportive submissions to SBS and the relevant politicians within the communications portfolio concerning the series. I also witnessed a number of anti-Semites on Facebook championing the series.

All this leads me to believe that ECAJ is accurate in its perception of the series as anti-Semitic. As for their comparisons to Nazi propaganda, well I have not seen the series other than the first episode, but I think everyone should be extra-cautious when it comes to Nazi comparisons, as these risk trivialising the horrors that Nazis represented.

None of this changes the fact that censorship is not only wrong in principle, but is highly counterproductive. ECAJ’s efforts will sadly see a lame piece of propaganda disguised as art get far more attention than it deserves. It will also result in the Australian Jewish community once again being labelled as advocates of censorship and media control.

The so-called “separation between church and state” is enshrined in section 116 of our constitution, which states: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. While this seems to be loosely based on the first amendment to the US constitution, the highest courts in the US have tested the separation to a far greater extent than have we.

In any case, this section makes it very clear that we are a democracy, and not a theocracy. Marriage is an institution enshrined in (secular) legislation. Anything the Church or the Rabbinate say about an issue like gay marriage carries no weight. So why do religious groups comment, and what do they seek to achieve by getting involved in such a debate?

Let’s take a step back and consider the extent of the separation between religion and state in Australia. As indicated earlier, it’s far less so than in the US. We continue to debate the issue of religious instruction in public schools, and there is plenty of government support for religious schools and institutions. The Secular Party of Australia would like a far greater separation than we already have, including teaching of “secular values” in schools, the removal of any religious references. They feel that while separation is enshrined in the constitution, Australia is practically more of a pluralistic theocracy, where the state supports many religions.

To understand this, we have to look beyond religion (in the way that it relates to the state) and instead to the values that underpin our western democratic society. These are commonly referred to as Judeo-Christian values, because their source is biblical, and because while the founders of modern western societies like Australia and the US were themselves Christian, they sought to create states that embodied their values, and balanced them with the principles such as equality for all, and freedom of religion for their citizens.

The slogan of the Secular Party is “Freedom of religion and freedom from religion”. What they seek to do is break with the religious values that underpin our society so that it no longer “weighs down” secularism with its absolutism and old-fashioned dependence on that archaic Bible. It seems to me that in fact they are actually mandating the pseudo-religion of “secularism” to replace the support for any other religions that we have now.

Much of the objection to gay marriage takes the form of a slippery slope argument. That is, we are against X not on the grounds that X itself is bad, but rather because if we allow X, then it will lead to Y and Z, which are things we definitely don’t want. Interestingly, this is similar to the principle in Pirkei Avot 1:1 of making a ‘fence’ around the Torah (beware of anything that could lead to dancing).

While the defence against this argument is usually that the chain of logical implication is not established, with the likelihood of gay marriage being legalized here, the polyamory community has jumped on the bandwagon, and sees this as an important step in allowing their relationships to be legally recognized. This style of argument is also used by the right against euthanasia and genetic engineering. However, those on the left rely on similar arguments against such technologies as genetically modified crops.

Uriya Shavit writes a great piece in Azure about the Muslim Brotherhood’s idea of democracy. Strange as it may seem, their ideal society borrows much from democratic values, yet maintains Islamic law above all. It’s not quite the theocracy that operates in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

The common factor in all these examples is the growing chasm between the historical values of a society, often absolute and based on religion, and their contemporary ones, which are relative and fluid.

What sort of society do we have? What sort of society do we want in the future? What are the values of a truly Godless, secular society? Is it one where PETA and Peter Singer elevate the rights of animals at the expense of humans and we euthanize those people who are too great a burden for us to maintain? These shifts happen over decades, not months, which is why the slippery slope argument often raises its head in debates like this.

I venture that the argument of religious groups against gay marriage are a reflection of their discomfort with the moral relativism in society today. The family unit is one of the building blocks of society, and an essential element in intergenerational cultural transmission. Seeing it being tampered with is a signal that the divergence between traditional religious values and contemporary values has clicked another notch. They see the values of our society as a house, with Judeo-Christian values as the foundation. Chip away too much at the foundation, and the whole house comes crumbling down.

Last month, while on our summer recess, Galus Australis was honoured to receive a letter from Rabbi Shimon Cowen, son of the late Sir Zelman Cowen.  Rabbi Cowen requested his letter to be published, as well as the text of his eulogy for his esteemed Father. We were of course again honoured to oblige.

I read with some concern, and have since heard from a number of people in the community surprise at, the statement in the article by Dr Chelom, published on your site, regarding my father that “As the greatest failure of his life, he listed his children’s decision to live their lives as Orthodox Jews”. There is no foundation for this statement at all. I never saw or heard such a statement from my father. One of the respondents to the article (Ariel) correctly notes that this is a misconstruction of the SBS interview with my father of blessed memory. Whilst I need to view that video again to remember what my father actually said, I can assure you that he never said what was claimed by Dr Chelom. I would like to refer you to the text of my eulogy for my father, and in fact I would be grateful if you could publish both this email and the text of my eulogy.

A shloshim service is to be held at the St Kilda Shule in Charnwood Crescent on 11 January to which the entire community is cordially invited.

Yours Sincerely,

Rabbi Shimon Cowen

A Tribute to My Father – Words on behalf of the siblings, by Shimon Cowen

Much has been said and is known about how my father treated, and how he was loved by, people. Instead I want to speak about the spiritual dimension and significance of the service of humanity, which was his life. On the face of it, G-d must come into the story of his life, since, our Sages tell us that “with whom people are happy, G-d is happy”. G-d was happy with Dad. That’s from G-d’s perspective. But what about from Dad’s perspective? Can Dad’s life’s work be understood in spiritual terms and did he understand it in spiritual terms?

I remember, as a young teenager, asking him about his spiritual stance. He answered me, “There is one question which I ask myself, and which I cannot answer, and which I only very rarely ask myself, and that is, ‘Who am I?’” In 1995 in a newspaper interview, he was a little more explicit. He said, “I am proud of my religious heritage…I find it difficult to believe that there is not some original Creator. What flows from that I don’t know. I try to live decently, not because of sanctions of Heaven or Hell but because that’s the right way”. The diffidence in these words was that of a person, who did not have a strong traditional religious background. Still this person wore the Jewish name “Zelman” with pride through public life. He identified with the plight of the physical and spiritual entity of the Jewish people unequivocally and in perfect tandem with his service of Australia and all humanity.

More than three and a half thousand years ago, our forebear and the forebear of religious humanity, Abraham, experienced the seminal consciousness of the one G-d. In the blaze of this awareness he said before his Creator “I am but dust and ashes”. Three and a half-thousand years later, with the intensified haze of 500 years of secularization, I heard Dad’s

“Who am I?” Dad’s was a relatively dull imprint of Abraham’s experienced creatureliness, but they, Abraham and Dad, were on the same page. There is a G-d. Maimonides wrote that Abraham exemplified the highest form of the service of G-d, not for fear of punishment for desire reward, but to do “truth because it is truth”. Dad’s “I try to live decently, not because of sanctions of Heaven or Hell but because that’s the right way” is a ray of that very same Abrahamic fire dimmed through thousands of years of exile.

Abraham forged a nation, the Jewish people, and was the father of a host of nations and cultures – religious humanity – through his hallmark love of humanity combined with his desire to actualize and unify individuals in the image of their Creator through culture of their Creator’s laws. As Governor General, Dad too rebuilt or healed a divided nation, and indeed throughout his life constantly sought to work consensus, by modelling mutual respect and decent values. But did Dad think, throughout his life, that he was doing these things under a spiritual aegis? Or was it essentially a secularized, liberal humanism?

Dad was not philosophical. He was a doer. As a teenager, I also once probed him, “Dad, what is your philosophy of life?” He answered me, “The next thing and then the next thing”. He was a speaker too, not just at the podium, but also at the table. His voice was the first and foremost; it lead and people listened. His illness of the last twenty-two years – Parkinsons – does not attack the cognitive faculties; it causes muscular atrophy. It could not dim his immensely, constantly exercised mind. But it progressively immobilized his body; and then it virtually took away his ability to speak. Dad’s response to this was not anger nor even irritation. He was cast into, and accepted, an entire new modality of listening. And from listening, he came to something deeper –receptivity – and I believe this was the vehicle of a significant conscious spiritual growth.

Divine values were transmitted and communicated to Abraham, to be reiterated at Sinai, governing the right conduct, between human and human and between the human and his or her Creator. With respect to these values, G-d blessed Abraham, because, He said in the Bible, “I know that he will instruct his sons and his household after him to keep the way of G-d – to do charity and justice”. My father (and mother) projected a further three generations in this very same tradition from Abraham and Sinai, and were blessed. All his children married according to Jewish tradition; all his grandchildren have studied or currently study in Jewish schools and it is the intention of their parents that the great grandchildren do so too. We saw our father’s palpable pleasure in this perpetuated tradition of values. He affirmed it with the relatively few words he had left. In short, he acknowledged the spiritual lineage and content of his own work.

In recent months, my father told me privately that he felt my own efforts to communicate universal values from Sinai were very important. He affirmed the need for a moral anchor in politics, and indicated his feeling that in recent legislation and legislative debate, society was losing its moral moorings. Today the millennial transmission of the Divine template of human identity and conduct is being challenged. My father, alive to the Abrahamic spiritual heritage, knew and communicated to me his disturbance at these challenges. So we shall continue to work to preserve and strengthen the tradition of values he ever more consciously served. His accomplishments back our efforts. He is our masthead and his merit will live on and on to help carry us to success in achieving a human and a G-dly world.

Judah Maccabee

By Michael Fagenblat
The significance of Hanukah has vividly transformed in modern times. The Talmudic rabbis were conspicuously reticent about the historical and political connotations of the festival. The Book of Maccabees, which records the historical rebellion lead by Judas Maccabeus, was not included in the Jewish Bible, even though pre-rabbinic Jews regarded it as part of sacred Scripture. As a consequence we don’t read the scriptural record on Hanukah as we read, for example, the Book of Lamentations on Tisha b’Av or the Book of Esther on Purim. Hanukah, moreover, is not mentioned once in the foundational rabbinic document, the Mishnah, and its appearance in later Talmudic discussions celebrates the sacred miracle of the oil more than the historical resumption of Jewish political sovereignty. It seems clear that the Talmudic rabbis were markedly reluctant to embrace the historical and political significance of the festival and preferred to concentrate on the purely sacred miracle of the lights instead.

The contrast could hardly be starker with the significance of Hanukah in modern Israel. Here we find the opposing interpretation approaching the status of a consensus. Major currents in religious and secular Zionism view Hanukah as the symbol par excellence for celebrating the resumption of Jewish political sovereignty and “the Jewish return into history”. A stark example is provided by the fate of Psalm 106 in modern times. The second verse, Who shall praise the power of Hashem!, is transformed into a celebration of the political accomplishments of the Jewish people – Who shall praise the power of Israel! mi yim’alel gevurot yisrael.

We can observe two principal shifts of focus from the rabbinic to the modern Israeli understanding of Hanukah. The first concerns the location of the miracle, the second its source. For the rabbis, the miracle of Hanukah is to be found in a sacred realm withdrawn from political and historical life, in the oil of the temple lamp and the Talmudic academies that keep its flames flickering. By contrast, for many modern Jews the true miracle lies precisely in those historical and political events that the rabbis marginalized, in political sovereignty. It is not secularization but modernization that brought about this transformation. Religious Zionists, for example, also look to the historical and political aspects of the festival to perceive the true miracle of Hanukah, and the lights of the Temple and the Talmud now flicker in the light of History.

Similarly, for the rabbis the source of the miracle is none other than the Holy Blessed One, whereas modern Jews tend to emphasize that the source of the miracle lies in Jewish agency, or is at least mixed up in our agency. Even a Hasidic Rebbe like Levi-Yitzhak of Berdichev, writing in Poland in the late 18^th century, seems to express the modern penchant for agency over passivity. Why, he asks, do we add the prayer “for the miracles—al hanisim,” on Hanukah but not on Passover, when the latter commemorates far greater miracles such as the plagues and the splitting of the sea? His answer: because on Hanukah we brought about the miracles and they are therefore all the more blessed.

What is gained and what is lost in reevaluating the significance of Hanukah in this way? It is not simply a matter of accepting or rejecting miracles, since both ancient and modern Jews, religious and even secular, see the miraculous in Hanukah, just in different aspects. The transformations of the miracle of Hanukah are transformations of what claims us, of how we are claimed. The flickering of events in which we see light.

But does the claim of the miracle always come from the past? If its values and symbols are opened by our responses and changing interpretations, does not the miracle still fix us to the past, to events that have long passed and perhaps ought no longer be so meaningful? The miracle must also illuminate the future, otherwise it degenerates into dead metaphors that cannot sustain genuine reanimation. And here lies the danger of the miracle. For we have all survived the miracles of the past, but the future’s miracles are far from assured.

Living with miracles is risky business. A candle can start a raging fire. As much as we are asked to see the miracle, we must therefore also find the right place for it in our lives. This is why the Psalmist whom we encountered above, who proclaims the great power of Hashem which modern experience finds in historical and political Israel, immediately reserves this vision of the miracle for “those who keep justice”. Maimonides offers another, by no means incompatible, way. At the end of his Laws of Hanukah, which urge us to proclaim the miracle in full glory, Maimonides reflects on the place of the miracle in ordinary life. If one has enough money only for oil for the Hanukah lamp or the household lamp, which one to choose? Buy oil for the house, he says, because the intimate peace of a household, of one person living with another, is greater than proclaiming all the miracles, “for the whole Torah was given to make peace in the world”.

Michael Fagenblat, Monash University (Australia), is a Templeton Fellow in Philosophical Theology at the Shalem Center for 2011-12.

Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, son of Sir Zelman. Sir Zelman apparently described his life's greatest failure as his children's decision to live their lives as Orthodox Jews. Image: westerncivilisation2011.org.au

By Vadim Chelom
Last week saw the passing of Sir Zelman Cowen, a man whose lifetime has encompassed more achievements than it seems a single lifetime could contain. A gifted lawyer, educator, statesman, a man who is credited with single-handedly restoring the nation’s trust in the office of the Governor General after the traumatic events of the Whitlam dismissal. His achievements are many and varied but it is another side of Sir Zelman’s personality that I believe deserves deeper analysis. I glimpsed this hidden side in an interview he once gave to an ABC program ‘Australian Story’ in which Sir Zelman was asked to describe his life’s greatest failure. The answer astounds me to this day. As the greatest failure of his life, he listed his children’s decision to live their lives as Orthodox Jews. It was an extraordinary, if fleeting revelation of the inner workings of this great man’s mind. Indeed, it takes a lifetime of inner frustration (guilt perhaps?) to let slip the exclamation normally reserved for the parents of drug addicts and criminals. An outside observer might comment that Sir Zelman’s children did much to make their father proud. His son Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen is a popular author, educator and an acclaimed academic in his own right.

Perhaps this seemingly irrational stance offers an insight not just into the inner workings of Sir Zelman’s mind but the essence of the generation to which he belongs. Lured by the promises of early collectivism, shattered in the horror of the holocaust, torn away from home countries and family life, it was a generation carrying the kind of spiritual burden we, their descendents, can hardly comprehend. Part of that burden was a belief born of shattered hope and immense betrayal, that the ‘old world’ – life as it used to be – could be no more. At the core of that world was the clinging to the ancient traditions of the Jewish faith, the immutable right-and-wrong of the Hebrew Bible. In the ‘new world’, these ancient beliefs had to be cast off or at least put aside, hidden to all. So a new mythology was born – the belief in the ‘cultural Judaism’ where Rashi gives way to rationalism and the Shulchan Aruch to Shakespeare. Indeed, so hypnotizing is this belief in the redundancy of Judaism to Jews, that despite overwhelming evidence, it still occupies the minds of many and not infrequently finds its way into the pages of this publication. How ironic that those who espouse the value of empirical evidence above all else seem incapable to recognize the evidence pointing to the falsehood of their beliefs.

A recent study centered on the graduates of Jewish day schools underscores the growing gap between the ‘cultural’ and ‘participatory’ Judaism. Let me first say that those participating in the study are hardly starved of Jewish cultural experiences. Quite the opposite, as the students in Melbourne’s premiere Jewish teaching institutions, they have spent twelve years of their young lives marinated in every form of organized Jewish cultural activity known to man. From tours to debates, from ‘Israel advocacy’ to ‘community leadership’, these young men and women have received a perfect (and very expensive) education in ‘Jewishness without Judaism’. So their overwhelming indifference bordering on overt hostility, to all things ‘Jewish’ and ‘Israel’ serves as the loudest, most persuasive call to reconsider this headlong march into the rootless wilderness we call ‘cultural traditions’. We are witnessing the birth of a lost generation – a generation of aliens, more interested in saving trees then saving Jewish lives in Israel, more preoccupied with the right to abort babies then with making Jewish babies of their own. What’s more, in the community where the population growth is increasingly provided by the Orthodox families, most of the ‘Jewish advocacy’ organizations (UJEB, JNF, WIZO, AJN and many other with ‘A’, ‘J’ and ‘Z’ in their names) are still headed by ‘professional Jews’, at best indifferent, at worst openly hostile to Judaism and religion – like forgotten sentinels of a long gone era.

This week, when the country is united in mourning the passing of Sir Zelman Cowen – a Jewish intellectual giant, maybe it is time we too stop for a moment to consider as a community where we have come from and where we are going.

Dr Vadim Chelom is a veterinarian, a writer and an educator. You can read his new book here.