Sadly, the perpetrators of the hoax did not foresee some of the negative consequences.  Several members of Galus’ Facebook fan site disaffiliated (or in Facebook terms, “unliked”) from the group in disgust.  Several others expressed tremendous disappointment and vowed not to return to the website they now believed to be under new management.  Even some regular contributors contacted the editors expressing dismay at the sale to the AJN, and stating that they would need to reconsider any future involvement they might have with the publication.

A number of readers also left comments displaying their concern or dissatisfaction with the apparent takeover. “Don’t change a thing or I won’t be coming back!” wrote one reader.  Another reader wrote “We are here because it is NOT the Jewish News…Please respectfully keep that in mind Mr Magid.”

While the editors were able to reassure regular contributors that the story was only a purim hoax, unfortunately, the damage cannot be so easily undone as far as other readers and Facebook followers are concerned.

As predicted by the editors, David Werdiger, businessman  as well as regular contributor on Galus, was the first to publicly expose the story as a hoax.

The editors would like to apologise for any distress caused, and they hope disgruntled former readers will come back and rejoin the Facebook group.

Purim Sameach!

In what is believed to be the biggest deal of its kind in the Australian Jewish online media sector, Robert Magid, owner of the Australian Jewish News (AJN), has purchased Galus Australis from co-owners Rachel Sacks-Davis and Anthony Frosh. Galus Australis is the most widely read online Jewish publication in Australia.

While the purchase price has not been publicly disclosed, the figure is apparently substantial enough that it has significantly surprised sector analysts, given that Galus Australis currently makes almost no revenue.

A spokesperson for Mr Magid told the AJN that “Galus Australis is a very respected brand, and has a broad and highly engaged audience. We believe we’ll bring the necessary synergies and experience to successfully monetise this acquisition. There is tremendous untapped value”

It is believed that in the short term, Magid plans to introduce more foreign syndicated content to the Galus website, as well establishing a weekly column on the website for AIJAC.

In a joint statement, Ms Sacks-Davis and Mr Frosh commented “We have thoroughly enjoyed developing this pluralistic publication, but it’s also been a tremendous drain on our time. We’re looking forward to getting our lives back, and having the opportunity to pursue other endeavours. We’d like to thank all our readers, and wish them a purim sameach.”

When I saw the full page advert in the Australian Jewish News (August 13 2010) that shouts “Why are Tony Abbott and the Liberals backing the Greens Party?” I thought, Wow, Todd Sampson from the The Gruen Nation would have a field day.  Never has an advert had a more confused and illogical message.

Presumably this scare-mongering advert was paid for by the Australian Labor Party (ALP), although all it says is that it was authorised by B.Cohen (who we must assume is former Hawke government minister, Barry Cohen).

The first things I notice is that they’ve got Tony Abbott’s photo shaded in green.  What are they trying to tell us? Don’t vote for Abbot, he’s too green? This is the man with no apparent environmental policy whatsoever.

Then the advert slams the Liberal Party for not putting the Greens last, but instead preferencing the Greens ahead of the Labor party. This despite the fact that it is the ALP (and not the Liberals) that has a preference deal with the Greens (and the advert even admits this!)  The advert then tries to justify the ALP’s deal with the Greens by saying it is ok to do a deal with senate preferences, but not in the lower house.

The reality is that whereas people can easily ignore the how-to-vote card and select their own preferences in the lower house, it is in the senate where most people vote above the line and thus defer their preferences entirely to the selections of their first chosen party.  Thus, if one were to accept the advert’s scare-mongering that the Greens are terribly anti-Israel, a preference deal in the senate is in fact far worse than giving deferential treatment on a lower house how-to-vote card.

Making the advert even more bizarre and absurdly hypocritical is that on many ALP candidates’ how-to-vote card, they’ve put the Greens second.  This includes the how-to-vote card of Michael Danby, arguably the ALP’s most staunch supporter of Israel.  I guess that’s all ok though, since Danby, while unlikely to lose his seat at all, is far less likely to lose his seat to the Greens than to the Liberals.

Finally,  not only is the message of the advert confused, illogical, and hypocritical,  but it is poorly targeted.  The ultimate aim of the advert is to convince Liberal Party-voting Jews who live in seats that the ALP could lose to the Greens (Melbourne, Sydney, and Grayndler) to put the Greens last. The problem is that there aren’t that many Jews who live in these seats.  And of the Jews who do live in these areas, not many would read the Australian Jewish News, nor be Liberal voters.

So insulting did I find this advert to my intelligence, that I dropped Labor down a few more notches on my below-the-line senate ballot.  But let’s hear what you think about this advert.

Anthony Frosh is not affiliated with any political party.  This election, he put the Carers Alliance first on his senate ballot.

Source: http://neatorama.cachefly.net/

by Ittay Flescher

The Australian Jewish News recently published an opinion piece titled “Unsettled by the terminology” where the author contended that media outlets should stop using the word, ‘settlers’ to describe Israelis living in the West Bank.  He claimed that the usual association with the word, ‘settlers’ is to describe those who “invade and uproot, and hence deserve no human understanding.” His preference was to instead label these people as ‘human beings’. The article goes on to argue that people (sympathetic to that author’s position) must “reclaim the vocabulary.” With this in mind, I have compiled a list of vocabulary used to describe the Middle East conflict.

Names for the Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish-Arab conflict, war on terrorism, good vs evil, clash of civilizations, matzav (situation), intifada, jihad (as understood by most Muslims), jihad (as understood by most in the West), caliphate, crusade

Barrier: wall, fence, security fence, fence against terror, separation fence, anti-terrorist fence, apartheid wall, demographic wall, Israeli West Bank barrier

Israeli Administered Territories: West Bank, Judea and Samaria (Yesha), Gaza Strip, Gush Katif, Golan Heights, occupied territories, disputed territories, Arab territories, green line, June 1967 borders, 1949 armistice line

Places of residence in the Administered Territories: cities, settlements, villages, communities, outposts

People who live in the Administered Territories: settlers, residents, occupiers, hilltop youth, colonialists,
Jews / Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs (blue ID, orange ID), Jerusalem Arabs, Zionists, human beings

As an avid reader of multiple Israeli newspapers each day, it is interesting to note the different terminology each employs to describe the conflict. Left wing publications prefer to use the words, ‘Palestinian’, ‘West Bank’, ‘conflict’, ‘settler’ and ‘occupied territories’. Right wing publications prefer to use the words, ‘Arab’, ‘terrorist’, ‘Judea and Samaria’, ‘jihad’, ‘Jewish citizen’, and ‘Eretz Yisrael’.

For those who are interested in seriously engaging with Israel, a great place to start could be by making a more deliberate use of language to describe the conflict. For those who support a two-state solution, it may mean referring to the areas under Israeli occupation as Palestine. For those who support the status quo, it may mean referring to these same areas by only their hebrew names or biblical designations.

With the right use of words a wall can become a fence, an occupation can become the fulfilment of a biblical commandment and a settler becomes a human being. But only if you will it…

Ittay Flescher is a Jewish Educator in Melbourne. He also blogs for Makom.

We're not comparing Paul Ramadge to Glenn Close's ruthless editor in 'The Paper'... but it's a great movie, and it's about a newspaper.

By Les Rosenblatt

No prize for guessing what the attitude was of the 150 or so attendees at the talk by The Age’s Editor- in- Chief, Paul Ramadge, to the Plenum of the JCCV (Jewish Community Council of Victoria) on Monday night. He was the ‘roo’ in the spotlight, feeling the heat as they flung repeated accusations of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic editorial/journalistic bias as their reasons for cancellations of their Age subscriptions.

The accusations from the floor following Ramadge’s talk were that The Age had issued apologies and retractions reluctantly, belatedly and unprominently whenever it made mistakes in fact or errors of judgement; that Michael Backman’s material should never have been published; that the reporting of the demos over ‘7 Jewish Children’ had been biased as a result of lies fed to Andra Jackson; that Jason Koutsoukis was unprofessional in exhorting Barack Obama to take ‘a big stick’ to the Middle-East conflict; that Barney Zwartz was  a ‘lightweight’; that no one wanted to read Amin Saikal; that Colin Rubenstein wasn’t given as much space as Malcolm Fraser; that the Sensible Jew shouldn’t be given any space regarding its complaints of suppression of debate in the Jewish community; that Hamas members were being referred to as ‘militants’ rather than ‘terrorists’,  etc, etc.

Ramadge managed to maintain his equilibrium despite getting this roasting, speaking sotto voce, ‘taking things on board’, urging complainants to write to him, describing the difficulties of editorial discretion and judgement, supporting the journos at The Age, and firmly repudiating any suggestions of  anti-Semitism amongst members of his organization. He also distinguished between the ideological bias of News Ltd’s The Australian newspaper and Fairfax’s more objective reportage and opinion. At this point John Searle and Danny Lamm opined that ‘the problem’ was to be found in a layer of decision-making somewhere between Ramadge and the journos.  It was amongst this layer that acceptance of offensive stereotyping and inclusion of irrelevant associations in reports were to be found. They instanced a recent article where a Jewish person deserving of sympathy was unfairly and irrelevantly associated with a Jewish female educator who had had child-abuse allegations made against her. I was in agreement with them as to its offensiveness, and Ramadge fortunately was as well, and agreed that he would look into this problem.

One man called for a show of hands as to who in the audience thought The Age was balanced and unbiased in its coverage of matters of concern to the Jewish community. I put up my hand and then reluctantly another two hands went up very slowly. He then asked for a show of hands as to who thought The Age was biased and unbalanced and every hand in the room except for mine and the other two went up. Eventually I got to speak in the question time following Ramadge’s talk and said that the AJDS represented a significant minority viewpoint in the community and had every right to have its opinions heard as being reflective of community diversity, that I was pleased The Age had published my letter (in support of Amin Saikal’s proposal for a nuclear-free Middle-East) last Thursday, that the AJDS recognized The Age made mistakes occasionally but that we were fairly pleased with its coverage of issues of relevance to the Jewish community and that we didn’t have any problems with Jason Koutsoukis or before him, Ed O’Loughlin. There were hoots of derision  at this point from the audience and I asked Ramadge whether he’d ever experienced intimidation or personal vilification from Melbourne Jews over The Age’s coverage of events. I observed that the standards of civil discourse weren’t always high within our community and that the AJN seemed to turn a blind eye to ad hominem excesses.

Ramadge said that he thought my comments indicated that he wasn’t the only brave person present (many had said how brave he was to come and talk with the JCCV) and that he thought I’d raised some good points about minority viewpoints and the importance of their inclusion. He said that he hadn’t suffered any personal threats or vilification and that Danny Lamm and John Searle always conducted themselves very professionally whenever they came to see him (as it appears they do often).

Les Rosenblatt in an Executive member of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society.

Galus Australis welcomes submissions from any attendees who would like to put forward an alternative perspective on the event discussed in this article.

Ashley Browne, recently departed editor of AJN

Ashley Browne has recently finished a 2.5 year stint as the editor of the Australian Jewish News. Before he joined the AJN team, Ashley had been the managing-editor of Sportal Australia, Australia’s largest sports website publisher. Twenty years earlier, however, he had been part-time sports editor at the AJN. Being the editor of the AJN was always something that he had wanted to do, so when the Jewish News job came up he was excited to take it up.

Then owners, Kathy Shand and Roxanne Dunkel, hired Ashley, but four weeks after he started the job he was told that they were selling the paper. The new owner, Robert Magid wanted to take the paper in a new direction, a direction which has ultimately led to Ashley’s departure from the AJN. We spoke to Ashley soon after he had finished about his thoughts on Australian Jewish media, the AJN, and his departure.

Thoughts on the future of Jewish media in Australia:

AB: I guess Jewish media in Australia is a microcosm of what’s happening in media in general.  Putting out a weekly newspaper in the internet era is very difficult and challenging.  The readership at the Jewish news is quite elderly.  One of the things I tried to do, with some success I think, is take it younger…we did a redesign to freshen it up and make it more visually appealing.  It’s very hard, because you’ve got people in their mid-40s who won’t buy the paper because they flick through it at shabbos dinner at their parents’ place.  The challenge is to make people buy it.

On the offline / online conundrum

AB: The decision we were constantly facing was that if a big story broke, do we hold it for the paper or do we put it on online, and if so, how much do we put online and how much do we save for the paper?  [There was a need to determine] What are the valuable parts of the paper – stuff we wouldn’t put online straight away?  For example, I made the decision not to run [online] the features or the letters … or the editorial from the paper until the following Monday, because I wanted to give people a reason to buy the paper.  Those are the parts of the paper that are often first read.  If those were going online on Thursday morning, there was just no incentive whatsoever to buy the paper.

…And if we put the births, deaths, and marriages online, I’m not sure what it would do to the paper…

On competition with other Jewish media

AB: People are very set in their ways at the Jewish News, and I’m not sure that the Jewish News in a position to move very quickly.

The Jewish blogs are taking off. There’s your website, and there’s one or two others out there now.  The challenge for the Jewish News is that it’s so busy working on the news, I’m not sure how well placed it is in the future to lead the discussion of what’s taking place in the community… I’m not sure that the weekly newspaper is as well placed for that as it used to be.  Websites like yours are much more flexible, and they can move to a different topic from day to day, whereas the Jewish News can’t necessarily do that.

It’s unlikely [there will ever be a single all-round competitor to the AJN], although some publications will compete for sections of the audience.  For example, Heeb, when it comes here, might take away some of the younger readership from the Jewish News.  And your website will probably compete for the readers who are slightly more academic or cerebral; and Hamodia might take the Orthodox side of things.

On why he is parting with the AJN:

AB: All I can say is what has already been reported… that the publisher chose to take things in a different direction, and gave me some notice. I’m not privy to what that direction is.  Rumours of a major rift between myself and the publisher are not quite true.

We had the sort of differences of opinion that are quite common between a publisher and an editor.  The only fundamental issue I’m prepared to discuss is that he wanted more international coverage than I did, and that is fairly common knowledge.  In the end I acquiesced, and when we redesigned the paper, we pretty much doubled the world coverage.  It’s not how I would have done it, but I was happy to go along with it.

He didn’t hire me, he inherited me… and I think he wants to have his own editor.  He’s got the right to do that.

On whether Robert Magid has the desire to make the AJN a mouthpiece for groups such as AIJAC

AB: I don’t know. You only have to look at the Review to know that he is a sponsor of AIJAC… it could well be so, but I have no inside knowledge on that. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, but that’s just my own speculation.

Source: Voices.com

By Anthony Frosh

Here is another major story of which The Australian Jewish News is yet to inform the community.

At the close of this week the AJN and its national editor, Ashley Browne, will part ways.

Speculation abounds that Browne’s departure relates to the heavy-handed editorial direction of Robert Magid, who acquired the AJN in mid 2007.  Magid has apparently been trying to take the AJN in a more conservative direction, aligning it with the more right wing Zionist organisations in the community. In contrast to Browne, Magid also prefers foreign content to local news.

This seems to be in contrast to Magid’s stated intention at the time of purchasing the AJN , when he claimed that “every element of the community’s voice” would be represented in the newspaper (The Australian, July 28, 2007.)

If this is the case, this would seem to be the second time this year that an owner of a well known Australian niche publication and their editor have parted ways over editorial position.  We refer to events that took place earlier this year at The Monthly, where owner Morry Schwartz and former editor Sally Warhaft fell out, apparently partly over Schwartz’s refusal to run a piece by Peter Costello in response to this essay by Kevin Rudd.