Challenging religious bigotry
The JCCV is trying to convince people they’re against homophobia. Yet they take bucket-loads of money from many member organisations that are intolerant of homosexuality.
The Jewish Community Council of Victoria is trying to convince people they’re against homophobia. Yet they take bucket-loads of money from numerous member organisations that are deeply intolerant of homosexuality.
Here’s my response to their GLBTI Statement from Nina Bassat AM. Click on the image to enlarge.
A letter from Daniel Baker to the Jewish Community Council of Victoria from November 2009.
Daniel Baker sent the following letter to me in Nov 2009 in lieu of being unable to attend a meeting with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria in person on Dec 4 2009. This was a meeting that the JCCV had invited members of Aleph Melbourne to attend, to establish issues of concern to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
The initial meeting invitation had been extended by the then Executive Director of the JCCV, Geoffrey Zygier (who is now the Executive Director of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission that is connected to the JCCV). This meeting/consultation turned out to be a precursor to the formation of their GLBT Reference Group, and it would seem from the discussions that panned out during this meeting that the JCCV had decided to form this reference group in advance of this consultative meeting with Aleph Melbourne.
Attending this meeting at Beth Weizmann were John Searle (the then JCCV President), Anton Block (the then JCCV Immediate Past President), Andrew Rajcher (invited as an unannounced guest of the JCCV, and unwelcome from my perspective given his particularly unhelpful stance on the matters being discussed), about 10 members of Aleph Melbourne and other interested parties that I had invited to attend, and myself.
On concluding my reading of Daniel’s letter to those present at the meeting it was immediately dismissed by the two JCCV representatives present and an expression was given indicating that they were not the slightest bit interested in its contents.
All round, a particularly unfortunate and unpleasant experience, and one that showed the true colours of the JCCV.
—
From: Daniel Ari Baker
Date: 2009/11/17
Subject: Meeting with JCCV
To: Michael BarnettHi Michael,
Thanks for your facebook message re the upcoming Aleph meeting with the JCCV. Unfortunately I will be overseas until the end of January 2010, and so won’t be able to attend, but I do have a few comments which you might bring up at the meeting; but there a number of issues raised by such a meeting which I feel I must address.
The JCCV has for many years now discriminated against GLBTQ people in the Jewish community, most obviously by its exclusion of Aleph from membership, but also by its failure to censure Rabbis and other community organizations which preach hate. Further, it has done nothing to counteract the ideology put forward by even the most forward thinking mainstream Victorian Rabbis, viz. that heterosexual marriage and the bearing of children is the only way to achieve full participation in our Jewish community and the Jewish people at large. Indeed, the very fact that this meeting is being organized now, that the JCCV is only now beginning to take an interest in ‘Gay Jews’ Concerns’ (not, incidentally, in gay Jews themselves, but in their concerns – that is, the factors which will influence their next vote for the JCCV executive) is, in my opinion, appalling. I have been studying in Philadelphia since July of this year, and can tell you that the involvement of the mainstream Jewish leadership with gay Jews puts the JCCV to shame. For example, at the University of Pennsylvania, where I am studying, Hillel, the national Jewish student union, has a subsidiary body called J-Bagel, which caters to the many gay Jewish students across America. Rabbis and community leaders attend Shabbat dinners organized by this group, and gay Jews are treated as valuable assets to the community at large. One can hardly imagine any executive member of the JCCV coming out so openly and positively for the cause of GLBTQ Jews.
Honestly, I am outraged by Mr Zygier’s statement that ‘the details of what form [inclusion] might take have to be worked out; we’re still at the information-gathering stage’. Mr Zygier’s suggestion that there is some uncertainty about what form the enfranchisement of gay Jews should take undermines the earnestness of the JCCV’s ostensibly friendly approach. There are no ‘different forms’ of inclusion: either a community is enfranchised, or it is not. Either gay Jews are full and equal members of the Victorian Jewish community, or they are not. Mr Zygier suggests that the JCCV is trying to be ‘as inclusive as possible’. The remark seems, with respect, disingenious at best and mendacious at worst. Inclusion is the easiest task in the world; all that it requires is the renouncing of one’s own antihuman prejudices. Until Jews of all kinds, including queers, are welcomed, the JCCV cannot claim to be committed to tolerance. It is possible, even preferable, for an organization which claims to represent an ethnic community to include all quarters of that community; if it does not, it can legitimately claim neither a desire for inclusiveness nor, indeed, to be a fairly representative body.
Further, Mr Zygier’s reference to the ‘information-gathering’ stage is offensive in the extreme. Gay Jews are not specimens to be examined and theorized: we are human beings, and his suggestion that some kind of study must be performed on gays before enfranchisement can be considered is degrading and disrespectful. What information could possibly be required? We are Jews. We are gay. We are unwilling to renounce our Jewishness, and are equally unwilling to renounce our queerness. That is all there is to it: the matter is extremely simple.
Kind regards,
Daniel Ari Baker
The Jewish community is intolerant of hate perpetrated against it but not by it. Why this dichotomy of attitude?
A guaranteed way to find out if the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Anti-Defamation Commission are still in business is to report a rogue Hitler reference to them and measure how many milliseconds it takes for them to issue a media release and demand an apology by the perpetrator. Take for example this recent example involving Macquarie Bank.
Yet these very organisations have moral constipation when rabbis from their community, such as Chaim Ingram or Shimon Cowen, to name two of the more obnoxious, say that gays should consider taking their lives for being homosexual, or make claims that we can be cured of our homosexuality, as if it’s an illness.
Imagine for one minute if a Muslim or Christian cleric were to say that Jews should consider taking their lives for their religious beliefs or because their way of life was considered an illness. It has been proven by their past actions that the ECAJ and the ADC, along with other organisations such as the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and every other Jewish organisation in the country would be screaming livid. Yet stunned silence when it comes to these anti-gay statements by Jewish “leaders”.
I hold in complete contempt every single person and organisation complicit in the silence that is being perpetrated when these vile rabbis are not howled down. Why are people so scared to speak out against these perpetrators of hate? What illness has affected this community when they are more outraged at statements of hate and intolerance against them than those from their midst?
When it comes to combatting homophobia the JCCV claim they don’t run programs that bring in change on the ground. However the existence of their grass-roots education program combatting youth alcohol abuse betrays them.
On May 1 2012 Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) President Nina Bassat appeared on JOY 94.9FM with Doug Pollard and Rod Swift. The interview is available online here and the podcast can be downloaded here.
During this interview Doug Pollard asked if there had been any developments arising from the report the JCCV’s GLBT Reference Group put out in November 2011. Nina’s response (at 4:20) was:
“We’re not a body that can actually bring in change on the ground. It’s up to our affiliates to do that.”
This response needs to be considered in relation to the JCCV’s Youth Alcohol Program that has been running for a few years now. I include some statements from various sources relating to the YAP:
“Last year, the JCCV also set up the Youth Alcohol Project and has been working with our schools to combat issues like teenage binge drinking, something to which Jewish kids are certainly not immune.” — Malki Rose on Galus Australis
“The JCCV has responded strongly to information that Jewish youth as young as eleven and twelve are drinking alcohol in excessive amounts, Jewish teenage binge drinking appears to be rising and young Jewish females are drinking alcohol at a rate equal to the general teenage community.” — John Searle (via the JCCV)
“This month the JCCV Youth Alcohol Project Officer Debbie Zauder hosted Focus Groups for Year 6 Jewish School students and another for parents of Year 6 Jewish School students. The Focus Group aims were to inform the Youth Alcohol Project and the curriculum that the JCCV will deliver to the Jewish community in its forthcoming educational program on alcohol. Participants in both Focus Groups commented on the social, peer and in an increasing fashion parental pressure that Jewish youth experience to drink alcohol.” — Debbie Zauder (via AJN)
In addition, there have been a number of stories about the JCCV’s YAP in the Jewish print media recently. I attach one such story from June 22, 2012 at the end. In particular it’s worth noting this paragraph:
Debbie Zauder, JCCV Youth Alcohol Project (YAP) manager, explained that the DAW 2012 theme, “Look After Your Mind”, fits perfectly with the YAP education programs for Jewish schools. The programs offer students and parents the chance to hear experts in the alcohol and drug field discuss the short and long term effects alcohol has on the adolescent brain.
It seems, to me at least, that there’s a significant disconnect between the words that Nina Bassat said on JOY and what her organisation is actually doing. A more honest answer that Nina could have given Doug would be something along the lines of:
“The JCCV can’t actually be seen to be promoting homosexuality for fear of backlash from the Orthodox bloc of organisations that effectively control the JCCV. My hands are tied and as much as I would like to see intolerant behaviour toward homosexuality stamped out in the Jewish community, just like we are actively intolerant of anti-Semitism in the wider community, I have a job as President to keep and don’t want to risk a vote of no confidence that would see me being asked to step down. And that’s why you have seen no outcomes initiated by the JCCV further to the report.”
Whilst I’m on the topic of Orthodox, Nina Bassat went on in the interview to say (at 10:20):
“I think the Orthodox community is very open to discussion. … I don’t think our community is closed.”
To which I ask Nina why the JCCV has shut down all discussion about the submission that the Rabbinic Council of Victoria made to the Australian Senate stating their opposition to marriage equality. This submission goes against the recommendations of the JCCV’s report and is clearly an embarrassment to the JCCV.
Double standards much?
22 Jun 2012
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
AJN STAFF
“Recent research proves alcohol … does permanently affect the development … of the adolescent brain.”
Debbie Zauder
YAP manager
JEWISH community leaders have joined together to show their support for this week’s Drug Action Week (DAW).
The Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV), Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV), David Southwick MP and Chevra Hatzolah have all spoken out in support of the initiative from the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia (AODCA).
Debbie Zauder, JCCV Youth Alcohol Project (YAP) manager, explained that the DAW 2012 theme, “Look After Your Mind”, fits perfectly with the YAP education programs for Jewish schools. The programs offer students and parents the chance to hear experts in the alcohol and drug field discuss the short and long term effects alcohol has on the adolescent brain.
“Recent research absolutely proves that alcohol, especially binge drinking which is popular with Jewish teenagers, does permanently affect the development and condition of the adolescent brain,” Zauder said.
Nina Bassat, president of JCCV, said the media coverage of a Purim party in Melbourne earlier this year, in which several teens were treated for drunkenness, should serve as a stark reminder of the perils of binge drinking among our youths. model appropriate drinking behaviour and to fully discuss with their children their family’s values and expectations in relation to alcohol,” she said.
Rabbi Yaakov Glasman, RCV president, commented that “Excellent work has been done in educating school students through the YAP program, but clearly the message hasn’t got through to many older teens and adolescents.”
Member for Caulfield David Southwick said the state government was taking appropriate steps to educate parents.
“Thanks to the state government’s leadership here in Victoria we have legislation which makes it crystal clear that parents are responsible for ensuring young people do not engage in unsafe drinking practices. Parents can now face fines up to $7167 for allowing their kid’s friends to drink in their homes without parental consent, an act that was legal under previous laws.”
Why is Victoria Police continually excluding the only organisation representing Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people from their annual reception with the Jewish community?
For the third consecutive year Aleph Melbourne, the only organisation representing GLBT people in the Melbourne Jewish community, has not received an invitation to attend this year’s Victoria Police Jewish community reception. This year’s cocktail party was organised in conjunction with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV), as it was in previous years. Aleph Melbourne was invited to the 2008 and 2009 Victoria Police Jewish Community reception dinners.
I was advised by Bruce Colcott of Victoria Police in advance of the 2011 Victoria Police Jewish community cocktail reception:
The organisers invited those members of the Jewish Community who hadn’t been given an opportunity in the past to attend to represent their organisations.
Giving the benefit of the doubt, it would be fair to say that with the number of organisations in the Jewish community, “the organisers” would have been able to include everyone they had previously overlooked in their 2010 and 2011 events. It staggers me to think that with 100 police and over 70 members of the Jewish community in attendance, there wouldn’t have been enough room to invite one more person.
In their 2011 GLBT Reference Group report, the JCCV said that all community organisations should adopt a policy prohibiting discrimination and vilification based on a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity and that it was clear that Jewish members of the GLBT community are subjected to discrimination, harassment and abuse because of their sexuality.
It would seem that the JCCV haven’t followed their own advice and Aleph Melbourne continues to be discriminated against by them and some of the wider Jewish community.
I question whether there is some sinister motivation for the ongoing exclusion of the most vulnerable, marginalised, and excluded group of people from such an event. Victoria Police have not been able to come up with a credible reason why there has been such an “oversight” on previous occasions.
Does Victoria Police have a policy of excluding GLBT organisations from these types of events? If not, why the ongoing exclusion? It doesn’t bode well for their liaison with the GLBT community.
22 Jun 2012
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
AJN STAFF
THERE was no emergency call and no suspicious characters or packages that led 100 police to descend on Beth Weizmann Community Centre earlier this month. There was, however, plenty of goodwill and friendship, as the Men in Blue and the Jewish community came together for their annual reception.
“We are fortunate to enjoy warm and productive
relationships with Victoria Police at all levels.”
Nina Bassat
JCCV president
Now in its sixth year, the cocktail function saw Victoria Police men and women and over 70 members of the Jewish community, as well as representatives from other ethnic communities, celebrate diversity.
“This night is a significant occasion on the police calendar and indicates the commitment of the force to community engagement as a mainstream policing strategy,” said commander Ashley Dickinson, who acted as host and emcee on the evening alongside deputy commissioner Tim Cartwright.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) president Nina Bassat thanked police for the way they handled recent protests outside Parliament House, which was hosting a cocktail party to celebrate Israel’s 64th birthday at the time. Anti-Israel demonstrators screamed abuse, called for the destruction of the Jewish State and burned an effigy of Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu.
“We are fortunate to enjoy warm and productive relationships with Victoria Police at all levels,” she said.
“This enables us to feel as a community that our voices are heard, and that we can count on VicPol to do their utmost to ensure our safety,” she added.
A Q&A session with a young member of the police force and a performance by Leibler-Yavneh College’s a cappella choir followed.
The JCCV claim to represent the entire Jewish community in Victoria. In reality they only represent heterosexual Jews and those pretending to be heterosexual.
The Jewish Community Council of Victoria has launched their 2012 appeal with an enticing email:
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The pitch begins:
THE JCCV WHO?
We’re often asked what we do, how we support the Jewish community and build social cohesion within the wider multicultural community. Given the JCCV 2012 Appeal, it is timely to address these questions.
A good starting point is to define the role of a peak body – a representative organisation that provides information dissemination services, membership support, coordination, advocacy and representation, and research and policy development services for members and other interested parties…
and wraps up with:
So to our original question – the JCCV who? We speak on behalf of our community and are recognised as the body to turn to for issues regarding the Jewish and broader communities. There is so much more that we would like to do if we were better resourced and we need your support to remain relevant, viable and effective. , and to increase our efforts on the community’s behalf, we need our community’s support and your understanding.
Just before you whip out your credit card and fork out your hard-earned, take a moment to ponder the integrity of the message you’re being fed and question whether you’re donating your money to an honest, ethical organisation.
The JCCV appear to be taking some creative license here in having you believe they speak on behalf of the entire Jewish community. It is clear that they don’t represent the best interests of gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or same-sex attracted Jews whilst they stand by the following claim:
The reference group recognised that Jewish Halacha prohibits gay sexual behaviour and, according to orthodox rabbinic interpretation, lesbian sexual behaviour.
So whilst the JCCV would want you to believe it represents the entire Jewish community in Victoria, in reality it only represents those people who are heterosexual, those who are pretending to be heterosexual, or those who are openly same-sex attracted and celibate. Some honesty in their marketing would be a start (followed by some integrity in their leadership).
I should add that this over-zealous desire to infer representation of an entire community of Jews is not constrained to Victoria, as has recently been evidenced in New South Wales, where their orthodox rabbinical council inaccurately claimed representation over all “mainstream” Jews in that state.
If you’re looking to donate money to a worthwhile organisation that is genuinely interested in the welfare of all people in the community, and not just those that meet with certain narrow religious expectations, ask some questions first. Find out if the organisation you plan to fund is accepting and inclusive of all people, without regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and if they welcome and recognise those people, along with their partner and any children, unhesitatingly.
VEOHRC Chairman and immediate past President of the JCCV John Searle has declared he has no issues with same-sex marriage.
In an interview with ABC journalist Alison Caldwell today, Chairman of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and immediate past president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria John Searle declared that he “has no issues” with same-sex marriage:
ALISON CALDWELL: What are your views regarding same sex marriage?
JOHN SEARLE: My views?
ALISON CALDWELL: Yes.
JOHN SEARLE: My personal views, I have no issues with it.
ELEANOR HALL: That is the chairman of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, John Searle. He was speaking with Alison Caldwell in Melbourne and Professor George is still Victoria’s deputy chief psychiatrist.
Well, a most welcome admission indeed. For a person who is out of character in making supportive public statements on GLBT issues, this admission that he “has no issues with it” is a quantum leap forward.
Only a pity he was unprepared to make such a declaration on GLBT matters during his recent term as President of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria. Having done so would have actually assisted many in need in the community he was claiming to act in the best interests of.
With John Searle’s new-found support of marriage equality I’m sure the team at Equal Love will be booking him in to address the August 11 Equal Love Rally. They should be prepared for his unavailability though, with the rally being on a Saturday, so a pre-recorded address from him should suit nicely.
Cartoon by Merv Barnett depicting the lack of GLBT representation in the JCCV’s community umbrella.
My father Merv Barnett penned this cartoon in June 2008 in response to a JCCV advertisement in the Australian Jewish News showing the dozens of organisations represented by the JCCV. Glaringly absent from the tree of community organisations was Aleph Melbourne, or any other organisation representing the interests of GLBT Jews. Needless to say this is still the case. Hopefully 2012 will bring a more positive outlook toward GLBT Jews from the JCCV’s leadership.
With the announcement of Nina Bassat AM as the incoming President of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, and Dr Helen Light AM as the incoming Vice President, in addition to Michelle Coleman as the organisation’s Executive Officer, it will be interesting to see if having three women at the head of the JCCV will afford a more compassionate and human perspective to the organisation that calls itself “The Voice of Victorian Jewry”.
My dealings with Helen Light, former director of the Jewish Museum of Australia, were always positive and rewarding. Her support for GLBT people in the Jewish community was excellent, even to the point where she ran a series of my photographs of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in an exhibition at the museum.
I look forward to the months and years ahead under this renewed organisation and hope that with it’s new leadership team it has the foresight to unconditionally include GLBT people into its midst.
Is the GLBT community weakened when a transgender activist sits on a reference group that supports in any way the notion that homosexual and bisexual behaviour is unacceptable.
[SOURCE]
Over recent days I’ve found myself contemplating what the GLBT community is, or is supposed to be. I live in Melbourne, and base my experience of “GLBT community” from my personal experience of “it” here. It’s many things to many people. To some it’s everything. To others, it’s a “lifestyle” they’d rather not participate in. Yet for many of us, it’s an integral part of our lives, and something that for the most part enriches our experience of being not “straight”, in one way or another.
So why have I been pondering this? Something has happened that was for me so radical to my understanding of “GLBT community” that it made me begin to question if this amorphous notion of cohesiveness was simply something in my imagination, or if there was actually something going desperately wrong. What am I talking about? Specifically, it involves a well-known transgender activist signing her name, as a representative of Transgender Victoria, to a document that opens with the statement:
The reference group recognised that Jewish Halacha prohibits gay sexual behaviour and, according to orthodox rabbinic interpretation, lesbian sexual behaviour.
That a transgender activist had signed her name to a document making this statement troubles me deeply. This sends a message of approval, tacit or otherwise, that the aforementioned religious prohibitions against homosexual and bisexual behaviour cannot be challenged in any way. It shows that the transgender activist in question supports the notion that she is working under a framework of religious intolerance of homosexuality and bisexuality, and that in order to be accepted onto the reference group that this document was formed out of, there can be no dissent on this underlying principle.
The statement in question is misleading, divisive and dishonest whilst the “Jewish Halacha” being referred to is not qualified as being “Orthodox” and whilst there is no mention of a different and accepting interpretation of homosexuality and bisexuality by the Progressive and Conservative Jewish communities.
I sincerely believe the term “Sold Out” applies here. There is no plausible excuse that could convince me that a representative of an organisation whose mission statement begins with the words “To achieve justice and equity for all transgender people” could put their hand on their heart and say that acknowledging immutable religious intolerance of homosexuality and bisexuality doesn’t sit uncomfortably with them, in the slightest.
Sure, homosexuality and bisexuality are independent of transgender issues, but in the context of GLBT issues and the GLBT community they are inextricably linked. The bigotry that GLBT people experience is shared collectively. The suicide rates our youth suffer are shared collectively. The hurt and intolerance are shared collectively. Hurt one of us and you hurt all of us. Sit on a panel of people who accept an understanding that gay people are sinners and you are furthering the collective hate, bigotry and intolerance against all of us.
The actions of this renegade transgender activist who has allowed her principles to be steamrolled by a homophobic Jewish community council has left me staggered and in shock. If this is what GLBT has become then I want nothing to do with the T, and will have to make do with a diluted GLB community, a community that is less, a community that is not as rich and as fulfilling as I believed it previously was.
However, perhaps this is not what GLBT has become, and perhaps there is simply a person whose actions and beliefs are misguided and has not understood that by allowing herself to be blinkered by the hate and intolerance of some religious bigots, she has let the team down, and that she can at any stage simply say she’s not going to put up with the religious intolerance and the hateful guidelines of the reference group in question and return to the community that has supported her and the values she previously stood for.
Ultimately this is about reducing harm, saving lives and making better of a woefully bad situation. Suicide and mental health issues amongst trans and same-sex attracted people are very real. Any intolerance of us, of our relationships, of our community is unacceptable and there is no excuse for it. Supporting people who are intolerant of us is just as inexcusable.
Only time will tell whether this transgender activist will understand the harm she has done to her cause, and to ours collectively. It is possible to repair the damage, and I hope that it happens soon.