Robert Weil on hate speech spree while Jewish community leaders remain silent

Serial homophobe and President of Caulfield Synagogue Robert Weil is on a rampant hate speech spree against gays.

Jewish community “comic“, outgoing president of Caulfield Hebrew Congregation and serial homophobe Robert Weil today took yet another swipe at same-sex attracted and gender diverse members of the Jewish community by accusing them of unsubstantiated “bullying tactics” in a comment posted on J-Wire article Gay and Lesbian support group apply for JCCV affiliation:

Robert Weil alleging LGBTI people are using bullying tactics

Increasingly people who are intolerant of homosexuality are finding fewer platforms to spruik their outdated attitudes. The tragic part of what his intolerance does is promote higher self-esteem and anxiety issues in same-sex attracted and gender diverse youth, feeding into harmful behaviours such as drug and alcohol abuse, self harm and suicide.

The community leadership (eg JCCV, Caulfield Shule, ADC) needs to speak out against hate speech such as this.  They won’t accept hate speech against Jews, yet it seems hate speech by prominent Jews against gays is not noteworthy.

The standard the community walks past is the standard the community accepts.

Jewish community leaders accused of doing nothing to stop homophobia | ABC PM

Jewish leaders accused of ignoring homophobia | ABC PM (Sep 16, 2009)

Jewish community leaders accused of doing nothing to stop homophobia

By: Alison Caldwell

Download Jewish community leaders accused of doing nothing to stop homophobia (1.96 MB)

Posted Wed 16 Sep 2009, 6:36pm Updated Tue 22 Sep 2009, 2:31pm

A rift is developing within Australia’s Jewish community over the treatment of homosexuals. A major gay and lesbian support group claims Jewish community leaders are ignoring discrimination and hate language aimed at homosexuals. A Jewish community leader rejects the claims and says he’s against anti vilification of people according to their sexual orientation.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: A rift is developing in Australia’s Jewish community over the treatment of homosexuals.

A major gay and lesbian support group claims Jewish community leaders are ignoring discrimination and hate language aimed at homosexuals. It wants Jewish representative bodies to come up with a clear policy upholding gay rights.

Alison Caldwell reports.

ALISON CALDWELL: When two young people were shot dead in Tel Aviv last month at a gay and lesbian youth centre, Melbourne-based Michael Barnett wanted nothing more than for the leaders of the Australian Jewish community to take a stand against violence towards homosexuals. But he says his calls for action fell on deaf ears.

MICHAEL BARNETT: The Israeli leadership, the Prime Minister, the President of Israel, they spoke out against intolerance and hatred and said you know, everyone deserves respect.

Yet in Melbourne where there is the family of one of the two people killed, there wasn’t even a single statement from the community leaders.

ALISON CALDWELL: He says the silence from the Jewish leadership was symptomatic of a much deeper problem.

MICHAEL BARNETT: There’s a lot of intolerance of gay people in the Jewish people. Calling gay people perverted and disgusting, comparing gay people to people who commit incest or bestiality, there’s all this language that gets used from people like some rabbis in the orthodox world who speak out against gay people.

ALISON CALDWELL: Michael Barnett is the coordinator of Aleph Melbourne, a support group for homosexual people in the Jewish community. He believes representative groups are afraid to express their support for homosexuals for fear of offending ultra-orthodox groups in the community.

MICHAEL BARNETT: I want every state and national Jewish peak body in Australia to have a specific, unambiguous policy addressing the persecution of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews in regard to homophobic hate and intolerance, irrespective of whether it originates from outside or inside the Jewish community.

The policies must be enforced with the same zero tolerance afforded to anti-Semitism and holocaust rhetoric and other hate crimes.

ALISON CALDWELL: Much of his anger is levelled at a Jewish blog which recently described homosexuality as “depravity and debasement” and extolled the virtues of reprogramming homosexuals.

In July, a Sydney rabbi wrote to the Australian Jewish News, comparing homosexual intercourse with adultery, bestiality and incest.

JOHN SEARLE: If it’s a matter that’s guided by religious laws, then those laws will presumably be applied. Now I can’t say very much about those because I’m not an expert in those areas.

ALISON CALDWELL: John Searle is the president of the Jewish Community Council in Victoria. It describes itself as the roof body of Victorian Jewry. On its website, it says it shows zero tolerance towards anti-Semitism and racism but it has nothing to say about supporting or protecting gay or lesbian people within the Jewish community.

JOHN SEARLE: If we need to rewrite a policy that was written some time ago, we can certainly look at that and if it needs to be adjusted in any way, we can adjust that.

ALISON CALDWELL: John Searle says he’s against vilification of any sort.

JOHN SEARLE: The JCCV has issued statements condemning vilification of all minority groups, including vilification based on grounds of sexual orientation, sexual preference.

ALISON CALDWELL: He says the council has sought advice from numerous sources on how to be more inclusive and will invite gay and lesbian support groups to events in the future.

Michael Barnett says it’s not enough.

MICHAEL BARNETT: Lip service, motherhood statements, platitudes, rhetoric, anything but “yes, we’re going to do this and take it seriously”.

JOHN SEARLE: I reject the allegation or assertion that inviting people to participate in community events is simply lip service.

ALEX FEIN: My blog is called The Sensible Jew.

ALISON CALDWELL: Jewish blogger Alex Fein has written about the issue in recent weeks. She says the vast majority of Jews support homosexuals and describes those who don’t as minority extremists. But she says groups like the Jewish Community Council of Victoria need to be more proactive.

ALEX FEIN: It’s not enough to say that homophobia is problematic. I think all people of good faith would like to see concrete action.

MARK COLVIN: Alex Fein the author of the blog known as the sensiblejew.wordpress.com, ending Alison Caldwell’s report.

A Dedication to the Absence of Humility

A dedication to the absence of humility.

I dedicate this post to those people who believe they are more entitled to certain rights than other people.

I dedicate this post to those people who use religion to uphold bigotry and state that their god believes some people are sinful because of the way they live their lives.

I dedicate this post to those people who support those people who uphold bigotry and state that their god believes some people are sinful because of the way they live their lives.

I dedicate this post to those people who remain silent when those people who uphold bigotry state that their god believes some people are sinful because of the way they live their lives.

I dedicate this post to those people who know better and yet they remain tight-lipped.

I dedicate this post to those people who are so ideologically manipulated and brain-washed that there is no hope for them ever.

I dedicate this post to those people who believe fags should be killed.

I dedicate this post to leaders of states who don’t believe their citizens are all entitled to the same rights.

I dedicate this post to people who believe they are more worthy of certain rights just because.

I dedicate this post to hatred, intolerance, homophobia, transphobia, religious brain-washing, spinelessness and political cunning.

I dedicate this post to those people who enjoy beating a person to within inches of death and then tying them to a fence to see out the final hours of their life.

I dedicate this post to everyone who believes some people are less deserving of equal rights than other people.

~~~

~~~

MACKLEMORE LYRICS

“Same Love”
(with Ryan Lewis)
(feat. Mary Lambert)

When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay
‘Cause I could draw, and my uncle was, and I kept my room straight
I told my mom tears rushing down my face
She’s like “Ben you’ve loved girls since before pre-k shrimp”
Trippin’, yeah, I guess she had a point, didn’t she?
Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.
I remember doing the math like, “yea I’m good at little league”
A preconceived idea of what it all meant
For those that liked the same sex
Had the characteristics
The right wing conservatives think it’s a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing god, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don’t know
And god loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago
I don’t know

And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
I can’t change
Even if I try
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me
Have you read the YouTube comments lately
“Man, that’s gay” gets dropped on the daily
We become so numb to what we’re saying
A culture founded from oppression
Yet we don’t have acceptance for ‘em
Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board
A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It’s the same hate that’s caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It’s human rights for everybody, there is no difference!
Live on and be yourself
When I was at church they taught me something else
If you preach hate at the service those words aren’t anointed
That holy water that you soak in is then poisoned
When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen
I might not be the same, but that’s not important
No freedom till we’re equal, damn right I support it

And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

We press play, don’t press pause
Progress, march on
With the veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
When kids are walking ‘round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper isn’t gonna solve it all
But it’s a damn good place to start
No law is gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever god we believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it’s all the same love
About time that we raised up

And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
I can’t change
Even if I try
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I‘m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
Love is kind

Equal Love Rally. We’re all equal. Get over your intolerance.

Today was another Equal Love Rally in Melbourne.  It was held outside the State Library of Victoria on a glorious sunny Melbourne day.  Lots of people were there.  Lots of ordinary, everyday, normal people.  There were some great speeches.  There was a lot of inspiration, love and acceptance.

In this world there is a lot of intolerance, ignorance and fear around people who don’t conform to some rigid stereotype of “normal”.  Sadly these people lack the compassion, humanity and maturity to understand that their bigoted, homophobic and hateful attitudes are wrong, outdated, and plain old mean.

When will these people grow up and learn to love?

Check out my photos from the Equal Love Rally today on Google Albums and Facebook.

My Jewish New Year message

My Jewish New Year message is that I will be fighting intolerance of homosexuality by Jewish religious bigots in the new year. Spread the love.

It’s the eve of the Jewish New Year.  The Jewish world moves from 5770 to 5771.

My message for the Jewish New Year is that I am going to continue to fight the hate and bigotry perpetrated by the religious bigots in the Jewish community.  I’m going to fight the attitudes that contribute to the atrocious levels of youth suicide, self harm and mental health issues.

Organisations such as the Jewish Community Council of Victoria will remain my key targets.  Whilst they remain adamant that it’s ok for segments of the Jewish community to remain intolerant of homosexuality, I will fight them.  They will be shown up for the narrow-minded bigots, haters and fools that they are.

Intolerance is unacceptable.

Bring on 5771.  Bring on the fight.

Sending sweet wishes of New Year love.

Michael.

A Secular solution for Marriage Equality for Australia’s second-class citizens

Marriage Equality
Marriage Equality

On August 14 the Equal Love people put on another rally in Melbourne.  It started on the steps of the State Library of Victoria and ended on the steps of the Marriage Registry in Spring Street.

It was a lovely afternoon for a rally to protest the unnecessary discrimination that same-sex couples face in Australia.  There is absolutely no justification for this appalling situation.

I have documented the event using photos, and uploaded them to Picasa and Facebook, as I have done in the past.  Please take a moment to look at the photos and understand that the people you see who are not allowed to get married by the Australian government are all second-class citizens.  Australia is a better place than that.  It’s citizens deserve full equality in all aspects of life.

There is a federal election less than a week away.  One way you can send a message to the politicians who legislated this hateful situation and also to the politicians who have not promised to overturn it is to vote for a party that promises full equality in marriage.

I will be voting for the Secular Party of Australia.  They promise 100% marriage equality and will fight to overturn every piece of legislation that denies full equality to Australia’s GLBT citizens.  So committed to marriage equality are the Secular Party that they have undertaken a commitment to guarantee full marriage equality in advance of a nationwide relationship register. I understand this is an undertaking the Australian Greens refuse to commit to.  The Secular Party will ensure marriage equality is a priority.  Equality must be 100%.

You can help make a positive change this election by voting Secular in the Senate, and if you have a candidate in your electorate, also for the house of reps.

If you want full equality in marriage, you have the power to make a difference.  Use it wisely.

Michael.

The world needs more people like Rochelle and Jonathan

The world needs more people like Rochelle Millar and Jonathan Keren-Black.

From time to time I find myself remembering Rochelle Millar.  The world needs more Rochelles.  The world also needs more Jonathans.  They’re decent people.  The world needs more decent people.

Michael.

Rabbi Jonathan Keren Black and Rochelle Millar
Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black and Rochelle Millar


Gays are people too.  Jonathan Keren-Black.   LBC 04/11/06

At the end of the Noah story, Noah plants vines, makes wine, and gets drunk.  After all that he’d been through, you can hardly blame him!  But in his drunken state, his usual sense of modesty and decency seems to have been set aside – something inappropriate happened.  It is not at all clear what it was.  It involved his son Ham, who may only have seen his father naked – whatever it was though, Ham was damned as a slave for all time.

In our own portion this week, Avram palms off his wife Sarai as his sister.  She goes off to be one of Pharaoh’s wives.  Clearly this is again an inappropriate, at least potentially sexual, relationship.  And the bible abounds with such stories, such as Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, who he thought was a prostitute, or Potiphar’s wife trying to entice Joseph.

The bible returns time and again to the theme of appropriate and inappropriate sexual relationships.  You probably heard the story of Moses returning to the Israelites – I’ve got good news and bad news, he says.  The good news is I’ve got it down to ten – the bad news is number seven is still in!  So we are reminded that the prohibition against adultery even made it into the ten commandments.

Just because something may have been considered inappropriate to our ancestors of three thousand and more years ago does not mean it is necessarily the same for us today.  For example, they decreed that if a woman was raped in a town, she and the rapist should both be put to death.  The rationale is that if she wanted to, she could have called for help.   Never mind that the rapist could be threatening her with a sharp flint or knife, or that no-one else dared go out to help.  The kind of argument that rightly causes a furore in the western media even today if someone suggests it.

Bear in mind that the goal of our ancestors was to build a big, strong nation – to produce as many children as possible, to successfully conquer the land of Canaan. The first commandment, given to the animals and then repeated to humans, was P’ru U’rvu – be fruitful and multiply.

If anyone felt attracted to their own sex, that was not considered normal or permissible.  It would not produce new children, more soldiers.  And so, right in the heart of Leviticus, we seem to have two strong prohibitions on homosexuality – one who lies with a man as with a woman should be put to death.  When, at a later stage, the ancient rabbis considered the matter again, they decreed that, even if you did have homosexual feelings, you should still marry and have children.  It was not in the feelings that one was sinning against God, but in the action.

Let us wind forward to 1885.  In Pittsburgh, the Reform movement of America held a conference and launched the so called Pittsburgh Platform, one of the formative documents of progressive Judaism.  In part it read ‘we hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism, the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age…’.  In other words, we do not consider the Torah to be binding on us, when it seems to conflict with our modern understanding and insight.  Now in 1885 it is likely that many of those wise rabbis of the Pittsburgh platform may well have been strongly homophobic.  Hopefully today we are not.  When we say that all are created in the image of God, we must truly mean it.  All are different, and in sexual identity, some are heterosexual, some are homosexual, and some are in between, or move over time in their sexual identity.  Today we understand that some people have a mismatch between their physical and emotional sexual identity.  None of this makes people better or worse, right or wrong.  Progressive Judaism, progressive religions in general, should not be prejudiced against any sexual identity.  We must address and check our own prejudice, and consider and treat each person as an equal creation of the one, all-loving God.

This is why I spoke last year and again last month at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Multicultural conference.  So far as we are concerned, people can be Jewish and Gay, and indeed for years we have been ordaining outwardly gay rabbis within our movement.  Rabbi Zylberman kindly directed me to a website and centre at Hebrew Union College for the study of human sexuality and Judaism.  There I found a prayer for coming out, and even one to use whilst taking medication for changing gender.

I am reminded of what an orthodox rabbi said at the end of the Jewish Christian Muslim conference last year: What I have to go back and explain to my congregation is that I didn’t meet Christians and Muslims, I met PEOPLE.   It is the same with the Queer conference.  I didn’t meet Homosexuals and Gays and Queers and Lesbians and Trans-sexuals – I met people, with cares and concerns about their lives and our world, just like everybody else.  Sometimes, people like to meet in interest groups, where they share something significant and feel safe and comfortable – like AFL, or an Italian, or an Israeli, background.  So we shouldn’t be surprised when gays sometimes also prefer to meet together – indeed they probably face far more prejudice from wider society than Italians or even Israelis!

I am delighted, therefore, to say that we at LBC are able to offer the Aleph group for gay Jews a home for some of their Shabbat, Pesach and New Year Havurot.  And gathering together is also empowering.  The more numbers, the more so.  This is why the Gay Pride rallies have become so important.  You might be aware of the huge battle being waged, so far through the courts, but sadly perhaps this week also on the streets, in Jerusalem.

This week the High Court finally ruled that is could go ahead, but  Yaacov Ederi, the minister responsible for Jerusalem, called on police commander Ilan Franco to reconsider and to transfer it to another city given the confrontations expected.  MK Nissim Zeev of Shas also called for the march to be stopped, saying that the participants should be sent for treatment. According to him 90% of the residents of the capital are against this demonstration.

On Tuesday the police arrested 14 orthodox protestors at an anti-Gay Pride demonstration. On Thursday they released 8 of them. They are not allowed to be in Jerusalem during the next two weeks.

On Thursday evening it was reported that the parade may be cancelled. If the police manpower necessary to safeguard it will interfere with general police operations, they may cancel it, says. Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter.  Sounds like he’s been got at!

I don’t have the latest update – but no doubt Israel will be back in the news again this week!  And of course, I hope it goes ahead safely and spectacularly.  Jerusalem is the capital for all Israelis, not just the ultra-orthodox – within which also, I understand, and as you would expect, there are more than a few gay Jews to be found.

The bible, as we saw, was preoccupied with what it considered to be inappropriate sexual relationships, and, though we would no longer accept its definitions, we would concur that there are appropriate and inappropriate sorts of relationships, and times and places.  Sex is ultimately a personal and private matter, as long as it is not exploitative or harmful.  Perhaps it is really not the realm of religion?

Finally, I mentioned Aleph a few moments ago, but Melbourne also has a Jewish lesbian group, and one of its key members over many years was a lovely woman named Rochelle Millar who I got to meet  just a few times over the past few years.  Rochelle was also involved in running the Australian Gay Multicultural council that organises the conferences.  Like me, she hailed from the United Kingdom, though her accent revealed that she came from across the Scottish border.  She arrived here when she was 14.  Michael Barnett knew her for longer than I did so I thank him for this information. He tells me that Rochelle was very proud of being a gay woman, and also of being Jewish.  Through both communities she made many lifelong friends and was loyal to them all.

Rochelle had an infectious laugh and smile and a sense of humour and outlook on life that made people want to be around her.
Sadly, the pneumonia with which she was first diagnosed turned out to be aggressive lung cancer, and her health deteriorated fairly rapidly over the past few months.  Yet up to the very end Rochelle had a smile on her face and a laugh in her voice.  She was an amazing woman that everybody loved and who loved everybody.  I believe that this was the closest to a Jewish ceremony that she had, and I am proud to be able to share it with you and with Michael and her other friends who are here this morning.  I think Rochelle would be smiling, and would be proud.  And I hope that we, as individuals and as a community, will all be a little more open to those who are a bit different, in some way or other, from ourselves.  After all, are we not all people, and all made in the image of the one, loving God?