Tag: ECAJ

Two reasons why the ECAJ must vocalise its support for marriage equality

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry calls for “equal empowerment”, “social egalitarianism” and “a belief in the equality of humankind” yet to date has not vocalised it’s position on marriage equality. I present two reasons why doing so will be to its advantage.

On December 3 2011 the Australian Labor Party voted in favour of supporting marriage equality.  This was promptly followed by a statement of support from the Union for Progressive Judaism and simultaneously a statement of opposition from the Orthodox-based Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia.  J-Wire then reported a message from Jewish Community supporting Marriage Equality (J4ME) along with a statement from the ECAJ:

Peter Wertheim, the executive Director of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told J-Wire that his organisation had no policy in place relating to same sex marriage.

The ECAJ recently passed a motion that calls for “mutual respect for the human dignity of all members of the [Jewish] community” and also acknowledges “that there is still much work to be done to remove intolerance of and unlawful discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the Jewish community and the wider Australian community”.  This motion appears on the ECAJ Platform.

Peter Wertheim has recently been promoting via email the fact that Israel is the most GLBT-friendly place in the Middle East and that it is the only safe place for GLBT people to live openly and out in the Middle East.  Indeed, the Israeli situation for GLBT people is mostly good.  In some cases Israel is actually more advanced than Australia in affording GLBT people human rights.  One such case is that Israel recognises foreign marriages of same-sex couples whereas Australia has chosen to legislate against such recognition.

I wish to make two points regarding the recent support from the ECAJ for GLBT people and the promotion of Israel as a relatively safe GLBT space.

Firstly, the human rights and equality that GLBT people in Israel have been afforded have come about through changes to civil law and have for the most part been independent of (Orthodox) Jewish law or “halacha”.  If halacha was the law of the land in Israel, GLBT people would have no equality or recognition in any form.  This is evidenced by the aforementioned ORA statement and the general attitude of Jewish Orthodoxy to homosexuality.  This religious intolerance of homosexuality is not dissimilar to that which exists in the Islamic states that surround Israel.

It is the secular and progressive attitudes toward equality and human rights that has made Israel the beacon of tolerance and acceptance of GLBT people in the Middle East that it is.  With ongoing work in this area, such as that around surrogacy and parenting (here and here), Israel will become an increasingly proud oasis of acceptance for GLBT people and will no doubt be further promoted as such by Zionist advocates.

Secondly, with the ECAJ calling for respect of GLBT people in the community and the acknowledgement that there is “unlawful discrimination” against GLBT people, such as in the case of the Australian Federal Marriage Act, I find it hard to understand that the ECAJ chooses to remain silent on marriage equality.

In fact, this silence betrays the ECAJ’s platform on Social Inclusion, where it states:

1. Social Inclusion
This Council:
1.1 NOTES that it is the vision of the ECAJ to create and support a community in which all Australians, including all Jewish Australians:
(a) feel valued and their cultural differences are respected;
(b) have a fair opportunity to meet their material and other needs; and
(c) are equally empowered as citizens to participate in and contribute to all facets of life in the wider community;
1.2 NOTES that as Australians we take great pride in what we see as the uniquely Australian values of social egalitarianism, “mateship” and a “fair go”;
1.3 REAFFIRMS our profound commitment on behalf of the Australian Jewish community to the dignity of difference, gender equality, and a belief in the equality of humankind;

Here the ECAJ is calling for “equal empowerment”, “social egalitarianism” and “a belief in the equality of humankind”.  To my understanding, marriage equality fits all of these three concepts.  To clarify, egalitarianism is defined as “affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people.”

I believe the ECAJ does want marriage equality to be legislated, but has not yet taken the time to think about the implications of not vocalising its support for it.  The ECAJ is an organisation that has a genuine concern for the human rights of all people in every nation on this planet.  Further, it is inherent in the Jewish psyche to understand what deprivation of human rights can lead to.

I sincerely urge the ECAJ to consider its stance on marriage equality in general and speak out in favour of removing the legislated discrimination that all GLBT Australians face when it comes to recognition of our relationships.  It is without a doubt in the ECAJ’s best interests to advocate marriage equality, as doing so will have the double reward of making Australia a better place for all its citizens, and simultaneously making the beacon of light in Israel, the country that it is so proud of, shine even brighter.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry passes motion in support of GLBT people

On July 27 2011 I had a conversation with Manny Waks, then president of the Canberra Jewish Community and a Vice President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, in which he agreed to sponsor a motion at the 2011 AGM of the ECAJ promoting greater respect of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Australia’s Jewish community.

Four months later, on November 27 2011, the following resolution was unanimously passed at the ECAJ AGM:

Policy on counteracting hatred and discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons

This Council:

RECOGNISES that the Australian Jewish community is part of the Jewish people worldwide, with a shared history, culture and religious tradition is at the same time diverse and pluralistic, with its members holding different views on a range of issues;

CALLS FOR mutual respect for the human dignity of all members of the community, despite any strongly held differences; recognition that disagreement is possible in ways that do not vilify other persons or their views; and avoidance of any public or private conduct that incites hatred, ridicule or contempt of another person or class of persons on the ground of their sexual orientation or gender identity; and, in accordance with the aforesaid principles;

OPPOSES any form of hatred of any person on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity;

ACKNOWLEDGES that there is still much work to be done to remove intolerance of and unlawful discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the Jewish community and the wider Australian community, and to provide adequate services and support for them and their families; and

CALLS ON persons and organisations in the Jewish community to support that work both in our community and in the wider Australian community.

This motion passed by the ECAJ joins similar motions passed by the Victorian, New South Wales and ACT Jewish communities.  Whilst time will tell how effective these motions will be in helping provide a safer and more tolerant place for GLBT Australians, I am confident that this milestone in the history of Australian Jewry will help pave the way to a greater understanding, acceptance and inclusion of GLBT people.

ECAJ vocal on terror attacks in Norway

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has written a letter of support to the Norwegian people on the recent terror attacks. This is the same morally bankrupt organisation that turned a blind eye to the shooting at the GLBT youth centre in Tel Aviv.

[SOURCE]

In March this year I wrote about the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and their ability to write letters of support as it suits them.  Yesterday the ECAJ, through its president Dr Danny Lamm, published another letter of support, this time in response to the horrific attacks in Norway.

On behalf of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the elected peak national body of the Australian Jewish community, I extend our deepest sympathies to the Norwegian government and people following the double terror attacks in Oslo on Friday and especially to the injured and to all Norwegians who have lost loved ones.

…

I encourage the ECAJ to write these heartfelt letters for each horrific tragedy that happens around the world.  It is necessary to see communities supporting each other in times of hardship.  However if the ECAJ is going to write letters when there are terrorist attacks in Norway, tsunamis in Japan or bombings in Jerusalem, then it must also respond to violent shootings in youth centers in Tel Aviv.

The hypocrisy will become increasingly apparent the next time this morally bankrupt organisation remains silent when again the victims are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews, in Israel or anywhere else.

ADC Chairman Anton Block to address Gay & Lesbian community

Anti-Defamation Commission Chairman Anton Block talks on Melbourne’s gay and lesbian radio station JOY 94.9 about his organisation including concerns about GLBT issues in it’s purview.

Following the recent news that the Anti-Defamation Commission has included concerns about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues to its purview, ADC Chairman Anton Block is going to be talking on Melbourne’s gay and lesbian radio station JOY 94.9 about the news.

Anton Block
Anton Block

It’s rewarding to see such a high-profile member of Melbourne’s Jewish community, the previous president of  the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and former board member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, beginning a conversation with the GLBT community.  I hope this is the first of many such conversations, from which increasingly positive outcomes will arise for the welfare of GLBT people in the Jewish community.

Tune in to Doug Pollard’s “Rainbow Report” from 12 noon to 1pm Friday July 1, 2011 on JOY 94.9FM in Melbourne or on the live stream on www.joy.org.au.  Participate in the discussion via SMS on 0427 JOY 949 (0427 569 949), by email to onair@joy.org.au or by Twitter to @rainbowreporter.

Find the link to the show here.

ECAJ and The Hypocrisy of Selective Outrage

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry demonstrates its capacity for selective outrage, preferring to ignore Jewish victims of hate crimes when they are homosexual. They find it easier to concentrate on terrorist attacks, tsunamis, and even the occasional Christian saint.

A bomb blows up near a bus stop in Jerusalem and one woman is killed and 39 injured.  Peter Wertheim, the Executive Director of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) wrote a letter of condolence to Yuval Rotem, the Ambassador of Israeli to Australia, to convey his deepest sympathy.

In the week prior to the bombing I wrote on how the ECAJ is prolific in writing such letters when Israelis are victims of hate, or in other catastrophic situations such as the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

The ECAJ also likes to put pen to paper for more vacuous situations, such as the letter written to George Pell on the canonisation of a Catholic woman who has been purported to have performed miracles subsequent to her death.

All it seems to take for the ECAJ to write a letter of outrage, condolence or congratulation is a bomb at a Jerusalem bus stop, a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, or the canonisation of a Christian.

Yet when Israeli youth are murdered in cold blood in Tel Aviv by an unknown gunman with unknown motives, the ECAJ turns its back on the tragedy and stays silent.  I put it that they stayed silent because this was a crime in a gay and lesbian community centre and that the ECAJ are too afraid and gutless to issue a statement of condolence for the death of gay and lesbian youth.

This silence is deeply offensive and it continues to leave a black mark on this organisation that I’m ashamed to say calls itself Australian.  It reeks of hypocrisy and double-standards and exposes the organisation for its moral bankruptcy and spinelessness.

The ECAJ still has no platform position on the welfare of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Jews in Australia, despite it calling itself a council representing Australian Jewry.  It is clear to me the priorities of this organisation, an organisation with a penchant for selective outrage, are not with the welfare of any Jew, Australian or otherwise, who is GLBT, and if that’s the case, then that clearly makes the ECAJ a hateful and intolerant Jewish organisation.

On the ECAJ, Itamar and a Zionist agenda

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry issues media releases and letters when significant events occur in Australia and around the world.  This week the ECAJ issued one statement on the Japanese tsunami and two on the Itamar shooting, one to the Israeli ambassador Yuval Rotem and the other to the Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.  So prolific is the ECAJ that going back to the beginning of 2009 one can find approximately 70 media releases on their website.

On August 1 2009 two Israelis were gunned down in a horrific attack in a youth centre in Tel Aviv.  Fifteen other people were seriously injured.  This was a serious event in Israel that was reported extensively in the Australian Jewish press and by numerous other media outlets globally.

The ECAJ ignored this shooting in Israel.  It turned a blind eye to the event and let it pass as if to say the deaths were insignificant and inconsequential.  It would appear that the ECAJ is not interested in the deaths of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Israelis.

Now when I see the ECAJ speak out against the brutal deaths of Israelis in this most recent, abominable situation, it sends me the message that they are shamelessly using these deaths to fulfil their Zionist agenda, and could actually care less about the victims or their family.

On behalf of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the peak national body of the Australian Jewish community, I write to thank you and the Australian government most sincerely for issuing a prompt, public condemnation of the shocking stabbing murders of an Israeli mother, father and three of their children late on Friday night, 11 March 2011, in Itamar, south-east of Nablus.

I commend you and the Australian government for your long standing friendship with Israel and for your firm and principled condemnation of these latest heinous murders of Israeli civilians.

I ask the ECAJ to explain why they were silent when Liz Troubishi and Nir Katz were murdered and fifteen of their peers injured in the most horrific of circumstances, at close range by a masked gunman.  Why did these deaths not see the ECAJ issue a statement of condolence to the families and a strong message of outrage and condemnation at the senseless waste of life of the two young Israeli Jews?

The ECAJ appears to be a cold, spineless and heartless organisation, driven by a blinkered Zionist agenda.  The ECAJ does not appear to be an organisation that the Australian Jewish community or wider Australian society can be proud of.

No joy in Jewish community heads gaining Lion membership

JCCV President John Searle fails to gain membership of a Jewish community radio station, yet he endorses the view that marginalisation of GLBT members of the Jewish community is acceptable.

[SOURCE]

This week the Australian Jewish News (Mar 4 2011, p3) reported that heads of key organisations in Melbourne’s Jewish community faced difficulty gaining membership of embattled aspirant community broadcaster Lion FM (Melbourne Jewish Radio):

“MJR president John Kraus … submitted Lion FM membership applications for ECAJ president Dr Danny Lamm, JCCV president John Searle and Zionist Council of Victoria president Sam Tatarka. The executive, however, passed a resolution to defer membership deliberations – “a disgusting and disgraceful state of events”, according to Kraus, particularly given that Searle and Tatarka were present.

This comes two weeks after the JCCV issued a media release (covered in my blog here) stating:

Rabbi Rapoport contends that the GLBT community must accept that they cannot become official members of the JCCV as this would fracture the Jewish community.

In 1999 the JCCV refused membership to Aleph Melbourne[1], then a social and support group for gay and bisexual Jewish men.  Now in 2011 the JCCV unapologetically endorses the unsubstantiated view of Rabbi Rapoport that membership of the JCCV by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the Jewish community would be harmful to said community.  In my opinion these two events overshadow the fraught membership application by the JCCV president of community radio station Lion FM.

There may be meritorious reasons for Lion putting on hold the membership applications of Searle, Lamm and Tatarka.  It is unhelpful that Searle endorses Rapoport’s claim the JCCV should not have GLBT membership.  This action further marginalises GLBT members of the Jewish community.  If any community organisation wants to be successful, it must work cooperatively with every member of the community it is a part of, not just those that fit its political agenda.

It’s worth noting that in 1999 that both the State Zionist Council and Danny Lamm actively spoke against membership of Aleph Melbourne to the JCCV.

By no stretch of the imagination do they [Aleph Melbourne] follow Jewish ideals and the motion [for membership] should not be put forward — Erwin Lamm, SZC delegate[2]

The organisation [Aleph Melbourne] … is not an organisation that ought to be represented at the JCCV. — Dr Danny Lamm, Mizrachi delegate[3]

If Searle, Lamm or Tatarka approached Aleph Melbourne for membership, they would be pleased to hear that membership would be approved without hesitation.  Aleph Melbourne doesn’t ask questions about how prospective members bat or the way they prefer to score goals.  The organisation welcomes all members of the Jewish community, with the only prerequisite being a Jewish identity or heritage.

Lastly, if any of the aforementioned wish to become members of a long-standing and reputable community radio station in Melbourne, they can approach JOY 94.9.  Their membership application process is especially transparent.  Apply here.

1 JCCV Plenum Meeting minutes – May 10 1999

2 “Gay group seeks to join the JCCV” [AJN, Apr 9 1999; p7]

3 “Could Aleph split the JCCV?” [AJN, Apr 30 1999; p7]

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry remains silent on Gay Youth Suicide

In the aftermath of the August 1 2009 shooting at the Tel Aviv GLBT youth centre and the subsequent AJN Watch hate blog against gay Jews I wrote a letter (Aug 23 2009) to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).  Two days later (Aug 25 2009) I followed that letter up with a copy of a letter I sent the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV).  It was a very tense time, given these events, both locally in Melbourne and overseas in Israel.  It remains disturbing that to the present day neither the JCCV nor the ECAJ have spoken out against this homophobic intolerance and hate.

In my second letter I made mention that the ECAJ Policy Platform page on the ECAJ web site featured Israel at #1 (whilst Australia didn’t feature until at least #13):

The peak body of the Australian Jewish community, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), does not have a single statement on homophobia. I actually question its priorities and wonder it is it simply a self-serving bag of hot air or if it really gives a damn. First on it’s list of priorities is Israel.    I would have thought that an organisation that spoke on behalf of the Australian Jewish community would actually put Australia first and place some importance on the welfare of Australians. Go figure.

You can see the ECAJ policy platform (“Confirmed in 2008”) here as it stood on September 8 2009.   As of November 2009, just two months after my letter to the ECAJ, you can see here that not only have they moved Australia to the top of their policy platform list, but there are in fact two entire sections devoted to Australia, appropriately placed above a third section devoted to Israel.  Well, that’s quite something.  I’m pleased to see that the ECAJ is listening and has started to get its priorities right.

Sadly though there’s still not a single mention of anything closely resembling a policy on dealing with homophobic hate targeting people in the Jewish community.  Nor is there a policy on the merits of accepting homosexuality as normal, given the overwhelming evidence of destruction religious intolerance of homosexuality has on young people.

I still maintain that topic #27 (Young Adult Representation) and topic #28 (Jewish Burial Rights) would be best combined and simply called “Jewish Young Adult Burial”, at least while there’s no policy dealing with homophobic hate and intolerance.

Wake up ECAJ.  Every day you remain silent and don’t fight the intolerance and hatred of homosexuality in your community, the more blood you will have on your hands.  Suicide amongst same-sex attracted youth is a very real problem in the Jewish community.  One only has to wonder just how much you love your children.