The New Site is Live: http://sensiblejew.com

The new site is up:

Please go to http://sensiblejew.com

First post of the rank:

Melbourne Jews Gone Wild – Quietly: Rumspringa 2

Moving Day: SJ Gets its own Domain and a Shiny, New Site

A benefactor, who for now shall remain nameless, has kindly designed a new website for The Sensible Jew, and set it up in its own domain.

Within the next few days, the new site should go live.

This comes at a particularly interesting time for SJ and also for the community. As mentioned previously, there is most certainly a buzz at the moment regarding setting up new groups, organisations, and collaborations, and with groups that had been on the periphery moving well and truly towards the centre of communal life.

On the new site, I’ll continue to write about various issues affecting our community, with a special focus on the new ideas and methods that are emerging.

The continuation of the Rumspringa Series will provide a useful template for examining unmet needs in the community and analysing the Jewish Australian life-cycle, looking at what’s working and what isn’t.

As soon as SJ Mark 2 is up, I’ll put up a notification post, send out emails, and link to the new address.

A belated Shavua Tov (good new week) to you all.

Vic Alhadeff, Borderline Blood Libels, and Jews who Cry Wolf

Sometimes, there really is a wolf and someone needs to cry out.

In Australia, many Jewish leaders and spokespeople have spent the past few years diminishing the gravity of the charge of anti-Semitism, by jumping on every single instance and raising hell in any media outlet that would have them.

Unfortunately, our community has suffered from a bad case of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

So when the wolf does appear – in the guise of a slathering compendium of falsehoods and libel to be taught to NSW HSC students (see page 3 in today’s AJN) – we need an assured and effective response from our representatives.

While we cannot undo the damage of past “scares,” that have made us seem collectively unable to tolerate any unpleasantness, occasionally to the extent that we have seemed uncomfortable with free speech, we can begin to repair some of the damage by employing the Alhadeff Method.

The Alhadeff Method – named for the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO, Vic Alhadeff – seems to employ a two pronged approach to combatting the dissemination of anti-Semitic ideas.

The first is to hold one’s fire on issues that are of negligible importance, while speaking temperately about moderately harmful incidents, such as the 60 Minutes piece on Israel a few weeks back.

Alhadeff is highly skilled in framing issues of Jewish concern in universal language that resonates with wider Australian society. He avoids stridency and adversarial discourse that would pit Jews against everyone else, instead speaking from a familiar and unassailable moral standpoint with which no reasonable person would disagree.

Alhadeff’s skills were invaluable in the Jewish response to the publication and use of the horrendous text – published by Cambridge University Press – Cambridge Studies of Religion 6.

Unfortunately, the book has already taught thousands of NSW HSC students such gems as, Jews’ smearing the blood of sacrificed sheep on their doors at Pesach (Passover), or that Jewish men may marry multiple women in Israel.

While Alhadeff’s language was never aggressive, he did not hesitate in condemning the book, and was clear that the section dealing with Judaism was likely in breach of racial vilification legislation.

But rather than create a climate of high pitched, adversarial acrimony, Alhadeff instead approached Cambridge University Press with the offer of assistance in rewriting the the offending section. This show of good faith provides an invaluable foundation for future engagement with the publishing house.

In addition, Alhadeff – with inter-faith relations proponent, Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence of Sydney’s Great Synagogue – used what had been a potentially incendiary situation to advocate for more interfaith activities and dialogue.

That Alhadeff extracted two such positive outcomes from a stark example of anti-Semitism, is a clear indication that the difference between effective and ineffective leadership has profound consequences for all Australian Jews.

It is also a crucial reminder to us all that crying wolf can undermine the efficacy of even the most skilled representative, when the real wolf actually comes.

The Rumspringa Series: What We Need to Learn From Amish Gone Wild

The Amish are best known for their ascetic lifestyle and their shunning of modern technology.

Less well known is their mechanism for retaining their young folk.

In theory, a religious grouping like the Amish that is so at odds with the modern world, should find it very difficult to convince its kids that the way they grew up is preferable to the freedom and plenty in wider America.

So it’s quite surprising that so few young people choose to leave the fold permanently. It’s even more astonishing that there the Amish even have a period dedicated to youthful rebellion, called Rumspringa, in which communal rules are relaxed and Amish kids can let loose, often venturing into the wider world, drinking, drugging, fornicating, and even driving (a car – as opposed to a horse-drawn buggy).

They are given the freedom to do this on the understanding that they can choose to return to their communities to be baptised and become full members, or to leave their sect if they so wish. Once a young Amish person undergoes baptism, he or she is held once again to the rigorous standards of the community.

There is something familiar in all of this.

Indeed, we might say our young people start their Rumspringa at the beginning of high school and continue it well into their 20s. Purely anecdotal evidence suggests that many of our young people “return” eventually as well.

The only question is, what damage has been done in the interim, and is the current model serving our kids and our community as best it could?

Firstly, it’s important to remember that when a Jewish kid starts to go off the rails, there is no word or concept like, “Rumspringa” to explain the behaviours or to calm frantic parents.

So often I have seen parents of kids who are busy “experimenting,” panicking quietly, desperate to keep the extent of their child’s behaviours out of the public realm.

Because all these parents’ peers have been in exactly the same situation, it was often the case that individual families were convinced that they were alone in experiencing such problems.

This was even more acute when it came to young people and mental illness. Often the link between drugs, alcohol, and mental illness is blurred. What is cause and what is effect? What is the source and what is the symptom? What is more shameful – substance abuse or mental breakdown?

I began to wonder if the shame of it all that seems to engulf and corrode so many families is perhaps more destructive than the behaviours or illnesses that cause it.

There is nothing quite like isolation for intensifying and exacerbating an already difficult situation. And there is nothing like shame to motivate the secrecy necessary for such isolation.

Whereas the whole concept of Rumspringa provides a framework for understanding and dealing with difficult adolescent behaviors communally, Australian Jews are forced to go it alone.

I should point out that this is not a call to parents to advertise their children’s problems in AJN notices. It is simply an observation about how our community currently works… or doesn’t work.

A brief examination (not to mention, generalisation) of the average non-orthodox Jewish Australian path to adulthood can give us a clue to how we might begin to tackle this issue.

1) Childhood: often, this is the stage in which key Jewish values are inculcated.

2) Adolescence: for the sake of argument, let’s say this begins at age 12 and finishes somewhere in a person’s 20s. This is when drugs, sex, alcohol, and often a deep animosity towards aspects of the Jewish community become an issue. Because there are so few ways at the moment to channel adolescent energies and tendencies to rebel, the destructive behaviours often have no check, and the animosity isn’t effectively challenged.

This period also needs to be broken up into two parts:

The first period is the time in which young people exist within Jewish structures, whether they are Jewish schools, or youth movements. Such structures do not seem to limit destructive behaviours necessarily, but they do provide an antidote to isolation.

The second period involves graduation – either from schools or movements. Young people are rarely older than 22 when they discover that communal organisations that are a natural extentions of the rest of their lives no longer exist.

In order to find new organisations that might suit them requires a level of motivation – not to mention faith – that might not exist. Indeed, so many kids are desperate to escape the community upon graduation – if only temporarily – that the idea of hunting for new Jewish organisations to join is often anathema.

3) The Come Down: this is a period at the end of adolescence which varies in severity and intensity from person to person. Some people have to contend with full blown substance abuse problems or mental illness, others are able to make the transition to adulthood with less trauma. The come down is also characterised by an absence of communal involvement.

4) Early Adulthood: Many young, non-orthodox Jews enter the period of settling down (less travel, serious job, starting a family) with very little organised Jewish connection. The nature of adulthood is that demands on one’s time from various quarters means that throwing oneself into communal groups or institutions is very difficult.

Obviously, the Jewish Australian way of life is very different from the Amish at a practical level, so there is limited value in examining the nuts and bolts of how the Amish implement their Rumspringa.

Because Australian Jews are far more integrated into mainstream Australia, because we are more diffuse, and because the duration of our adolescence is far longer, we need to establish our own response to the Rumspringa challenge.

This series will examine issues and ideas for reorganising and reinvigorating the connections people have to the community.

Among many, some of the topics that will be examined:

- The twin issues of shame and Schadenfreude

- reconciling liberal democratic values with our religion

- creating an environment in which cultural expression is made easier

- ideas for communal organisational structures that stop duplication of services, and cannibalisation of membership, and instead foster the sharing of resources and talent.

- removing the notion of sub-community as the only path to Jewish identity

- reorienting concepts of academic success

- informal interfaith/intercommunal activity

Shavua Tov – Now Read This….

Shavua Tov (A Good New Week) to everyone.

I have refrained from commenting on John Safran’s show because there is plenty of comment about in both Jewish and wider Australian fora.

The article that I am urging you to read, by Michelle Coleman in today’s Age, uses Safran’s latest offering (ahem) as her starting (and finishing) point, and constructs an article that is a template for intelligent Jewish/Arab engagement with the media in this country.

She very effectively puts the Palestinian case without once resorting to statistical bombardments, or rhetorical ambushes. Indeed, her partisanship is hardly detectable – and that is the key.

No one has ever been persuaded of anything related to this conflict because compelling figures were presented, or unassailable arguments were carefully constructed.

Of course, there is a need for such rigorous examinations, but we must understand that their purpose is not to persuade people of our point of view.

When we argue the facts of the case, we must acknowledge that we are engaging in an academic exercise that is important for its own sake: in the pursuit of truth.

When, however, we seek to present Israel’s (or our own) human face, we must relinquish the crutch of old school debating techniques, and anything else that might be construed as adversarial. Indeed, part of the humanising process is to dismantle the adversarial carapace that currently surrounds our public image.

***

Less politically loaded, but perhaps just as important for us as a community, is the topic of Schadenfreude (taking pleasure in others’ misfortunes) and lashon ha’ra (nasty gossip). Over the last few days, during numerous meetings with various people, this topic has arisen time and again as something people perceive as being particularly pernicious in the community.

Unfortunately, no data currently exists on the subject, and it’s hard to imagine that such studies will be conducted any time soon, into whether we (Jewish Australians) are more likely to engage in this behaviour than other people.

I can only guess that lashon ha’ra might seem particularly acute to community members because we are reasonably tightly knit, and the channels for information are not particularly convoluted. We are rarely removed from each other by more than one degree of separation.

Whether we indulge more in Schadenfreude – whether we gain more pleasure than others might- from the misfortunes of fellow Jews is equally moot.

The perception among many young people, however, is that such a culture does exist and that the repercussions can range from merely annoying (eg. discomfort at social gatherings) to quite dire (eg. the massive stigmas associated with mental illness, drug abuse, or not getting the marks for law or medicine – all equally grave sources of shame for many parents).

This is a significant topic – if only in that so many people perceive it as a serious problem – and will be tackled in depth in the coming week.

***

Also this week, I will begin to post about some of the trends that seem to be emerging in response to our community’s various challenges. There seems to be an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the status quo, but also a determination to do something about it, in a number of areas.

For those with a tendency to despair, there’s a chance that reports of our community’s imminent death may be exaggerated (with apologies to Mr Twain).

Part 2 – A Fascinating Meeting: The Subtle Art of Talking to Non-Jews

While superficially, most of us are indistinguishable from other Australians, Melbourne Jewry is nevertheless informed by historical and cultural circumstances that are unique.

Of course, there are  generational differences: the survivors were clearly distinguishable as migrants, their children somewhat distinguishable as the offspring of migrants, while the third generation appears to be entirely assimilated – although, again, I believe this is only the case at a superficial level.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going create a crude dichotomy:

Broadly speaking, Melbourne Jewry can be divided into two camps – those with regular and deep social connections with non-Jews, and those whose associations beyond the confines of the community only exist professionally or incidentally.

To set some parameters for this distinction – and these are necessarily, if unfortunately, somewhat arbitrary – let’s say that in order to qualify as having deep social connections with people from outside the community, one would count at least five non-Jewish individuals as close friends, and would see at least one of these friends for purely social reasons at least once a week.

The distinction between the two types of  Melbourne Jew is of particular interest when examining the makeup of people working  either voluntarily or professionally in our communal institutions.

I suspect that the vast bulk of our communal work is done by Jews from the group that has little regular or deep social interaction with wider society.

For any number of reasons, those who do have a large non-Jewish social group seem far less inclined to involve themselves in Jewish organisations.

The practical repercussions mean that those Jews who are best placed to understand the psychology, ethical frameworks, and culture of wider Australia, are not available to provide advice or leadership in our institutions.

Similarly, those who are least au fait with, for example, the mores and protocols of Anglo Saxon discourse, are charged with the task of attempting to target public relations campaigns to them.

Whether it’s more desirable to mix freely with non-Jews and risk assimilation, or to hunker down in the communal bosom, and become so insular that pathologies develop, is the topic for another post.

This post, however, is about the consequences of cultural differences and anomalies that have hampered our community’s ability to communicate with broader Australia.

Our  argumentative style is the most obvious manifestation of this cultural disconnect.

Whether it is a product of post-Holocaust communal trauma, or simply a cultural relic of Talmudic debating styles, the dominant Melbourne Jewish style of argument is simply not commensurate with notions of acceptable discourse in wider Australia.

With this in mind, I wondered – but did not have the opportunity to ask – whether the women of the Zionist Council of Victoria have deep and regular social interactions with non-Jews. Formal interactions, such as interfaith meetings, do not qualify because participants are not able to behave or speak as freely as they would in a less formal social setting.

I therefore have no knowledge of Ginette Searle’s, Emily Chrapot’s, or Elly Shalev’s informal contact with non-Jews. From our discussion, however, it did seem there was a lack of access to a broader Australian sensibility through informal ties.

This was made apparent during our discussion of Age Editor-in-Chief, Paul Ramadge’s presentation on the night of the JCCV plenum. The women saw the adversarial style of audience questions as symptomatic of passion, love of Israel, and open and honest debate.

To Jews of a certain political orientation, and perhaps, of a particular generation, this may indeed have been so.

When I asked them about the almost complete absence of young people from the audience, their response was familiar: it is very difficult to motivate the younger generations – particularly Generation Y.

I asked if perhaps it is impossible to motivate this generation within the specific context of such a presentation, in which so much of the audience was of like mind, and quite vociferous in their opposition to anything resembling dissent.

Once more, the women could not see the highly charged atmosphere as anything other than the natural form of Jewish debate.

When I moved on, and tried to explain the different ways such argument is viewed – that it would be utterly unacceptable in an Anglo-Saxon dominated audience, for example – I was met with surprise.

One very interesting point, made by Emily Chrapot, the ZCV’s Israel Advocacy Analyst, was that when stories are broadcast or published, such as the one-sided 60 Minutes piece on Israel that recently aired on Channel 9, she is inundated with demands that the ZCV “do something.”

Chrapot, along with Searle and Shalev, spoke about the weight of expectation on them to counter negative or unfair reportage on Israel.

This expectation obviously comes from within the Jewish community, and the desire to see unfair journalistic practices tackled is, of course, understandable.

Far more complex, however, is separating the desire for the instant gratification of an angry letter, article  or even a TV appearance from one of our leaders, and the need to have a level-headed, logical, and above all effective media and public relations strategy.

So often, the instant gratification route results in the opposite of the intended effect.

This is because we have traditionally written our angry letters and articles, or spoken loudly on radio or TV, in the manner that will satisfy other Jews, rather than in a way that actually has a chance at convincing those outside the community.

But how can our leaders know how to speak in a way that will resonate with non-Jews if they have no deep social knowledge of the non-Jewish world?

The increasingly necessary reformation in style cannot occur without substantial reform of the leadership’s makeup. Knowing how to talk to non-Jews is not something that can be learned on a weekend retreat. It is the product of a certain lifestyle.

While it is true that most Australians are not particularly concerned with Middle Eastern politics, that does not mean that the right combination of our own PR mismanagement, developments in the region, and a shift in the news cycle would have a significant impact on the favoured status Jews currently enjoy in the corridors of power.

It is important to remember that while our wealth and successes as a community are disproportionate to our numbers, those numbers and that wealth are still not significant enough to protect our current status should we ever become an electoral liability for the major parties.

The truth is, the majority of Australians do not actually need to care about Middle Eastern politics enough to go into the streets and demonstrate. They only need to care enough that their displeasure is reflected in opinion polls.

Indeed, such opinion polls are so valued by politicians because, blunt instrument though they are, they are still one of the better ways of getting a feel for broad public sentiment that may be reflected – in a heightened manner – among the difficult to identify swing voters.

It is the swing voters that matter in elections. They generally comprise a small proportion of voters and tend to pay closer attention to the news than most Australians, and are therefore more likely to have an opinion on Israel/Palestine.

So, it would make sense that a small shift in public sentiment on Israel/Palestine – as reflected in polling – would actually be interpreted by politicians in the intensified form that they imagine the average swing voter might be processing the situation.

The equation is quite simple: should we continue to handle PR in a manner that is designed to please a sector of the Jewish community rather than to achieve our true goals of protecting ourselves, and defending the State of Israel from unfair attack, we risk transforming ourself into an electoral liability.

We need people who speak the “language” of broader society, who are able to spot when something might sound “off” to a non-Jewish person, thus damaging our message.

Beyond that, we would benefit from moving away from the model of Jews as separate from the rest of Australian society that – perhaps unintentionally – informs so much of the style of our discourse.

This will require changing the way we talk amongst ourselves.

We need to move away from the Talmudic, post-Holocaust style of adversarial engagement in which moral certainty is not only asserted, but in which all dissenting views remain unexamined and summarily dismissed as proof of weakness or lack of moral fibre.

Back, Hale and Hearty!

Apologies for the absence of posts over the past week. I was unwell with a particularly pernicious bug.

Thanks to all who commented, emailed, and phoned with kind wishes. They were much appreciated!

I’m once again in rude health and will resume with the second half of the report on my meeting with the women of the Zionist Council of Victoria. That post will appear tomorrow.

I’m particularly excited by a seminar given today, by Melanie Landau at Monash University. Her research focuses on Jewish law and women, and while I was quite interested in her work beforehand, I was utterly unprepared for the intellectual tsunami that greeted all in attendance. It was one of the most inspiring academic experiences of my life.

In the coming days,I will try to do her presentation some justice on the blog.

It will be impossible to reproduce  the depth and complexity of her research and arguments. But some profound questions arise from her work, not least of which is: if Jewish women actually knew what was involved in Jewish marital law, would they ever consent to such marriage contracts in the first place? Are women even capable of consent?

Stay tuned….

SJ Blogger Exhibiting Flu-Like Symptoms. Either That, Or an Exorcist May be Required

Your normally robust blogger is currently experiencing symptoms that have previously fuelled media panic and the stockpiling of essential items.

While I am a number of months late for swine flu, and a couple of years from the Avian variety, I’ve never been particularly concerned with keeping abreast of fashion, and am, in marketing parlance, a “laggard.”

Hopefully, normal service will resume here soon. Apart from posting the second part of the ZCV report, today’s Jewish News is packed with interesting items for discussion.

The comments section will still be operating as normal – if perhaps a bit more slowly. Making it to the computer from bed requires a degree of planning at the moment.

Part 1 – A Fascinating Meeting With the Women of the ZCV: Women in the media

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet with Zionist Council of Victoria Executive Director, Ginette Searle. Also at the meeting were Eli Shalev (the Public Affairs Director) and Emily Chrapot (Israel Advocacy Analyst).

I’d requested the meeting with Ms Searle in order to discuss the best strategies for representing Israel to the wider community, and expected an informal chat lasting about 15 minutes. Instead, Ms Searle and the other two women spoke with me for over an hour, describing their work, and debating the efficacy of certain methods. Needless to say, this generosity was much appreciated.

Indeed, so much was discussed that I’ve had to split the report on the meeting into two parts.

The ZCV women described the importance of their internal advocacy activities: the ways in which they equip Victorian Jews with facts about Israel in order that individual Jews can debate the Israel/Palestine issue with knowledge and confidence in the wider world.

This is commendable and important work; however two questions arose for me:

1) How many young Jews can they actually reach as the younger generations atomise and become more difficult for our institutions to connect with?

2) Are people being given effective methods of arguing (beyond the facts) in order that their message is not obscured by acrimonious debate?

The answer to the first question was quite interesting. While there was general agreement about the difficulty of motivating younger Jews to become involved in institutional activities, the ZCV representatives gave a number of concrete examples of young people accessing ZCV information in unexpected ways.

The most surprising was the story of young Australian Jews in Israel during the time of Operation Cast Lead who read Emily Chrapot’s news summaries. These people praised the quality of the information and its ability to convey numerous details clearly and succinctly. Eli Shalev, meanwhile, is in the process of using social networking sites to create an online presence that has a greater likelihood of attracting and appealing to younger people.

Although it was not discussed at length, there seemed to be agreement that the broader issue of the younger generations’ atomisation was one that went beyond the ZCV’s remit.

The second question proved more complex and will require a second post in order to explore it fully.

As Ms Searle expounded on the work of her organisation, and as Ms Chrapot and Ms Shalev explained their strategies, I asked all three why it was that they were not front and centre in media representation for their organisation. All three women exhibit intelligence, directness, and an extremely pleasant manner that could present the Zionist Council in the best possible light.

In response to my criticisms of Danny Lamm’s media performance at the time of the Seven Jewish Children play, many people contacted me. While a number agreed that the media strategy may not have been ideal, many made a point of informing me that Lamm’s commitment to community service is second to none. His dedication and experience are clearly invaluable assets to his organisation; however, the community – and particularly those of us who are staunch Zionists wanting better media coverage for Israel – must rethink its current strategy.

In the same way that it is rare for CEOs of large companies to speak directly to the media – preferring public affairs specialists for the task – our organisations may be better served in separating the roles of leadership from media representatives.

The women I met yesterday – Searle, Chrapot, and Shalev -  would all come across extremely well on both television and radio. Their photos next to opinion columns in newspapers would similarly have significant benefits.

This is because they all possess specific traits that are conducive to presenting a particular image of Jewry to wider Australia that would be both new and appealing; however, it is also because Australian Jewish public representation is in dire need of a shift towards young women speaking on our behalf.

At the moment, much of the Australian media casts Israel as the dominant half of the Israel/Palestine conflict. A certain type of academic might say that in the media globally, Israel is “masculinised” as the dominant, aggressive power, while the Palestinians are relegated to the passive receivers of such aggressions – in other words, they are “feminised.”

Jews from most of the sub-communities in Melbourne agree that to varying extents, the risks, dangers and challenges Israel faces are downplayed in the media, while the suffering of the Palestinians at Israeli hands receives the bulk of the attention.

If we wish to counteract this image, we need far more than “facts” on our side.

We all know that raw data, no matter how relevant, will always be beaten by a powerful image or narrative in the media. So when we have middle aged, professional men speaking on our behalf, whose only defense of Israel is the truth, we will, unfortunately, not emerge looking particularly good.

This is partially explicable because a professional, middle aged man advocating for us actually reinforces the preconceptions (and stereotypes) many non-Jews already have of us.

If, however, we begin offering the media with new narratives, and new styles, presented by younger females, we actually upend these preconceptions. The same message can seem entirely different coming from a younger woman, and counteract the sense that Israel is both an aggressor and unassailably dominant in the struggle.

The sheer novelty of young Jewish women speaking for Israel will be sufficient in gaining media access initially.

It will also offer a subtle message about women’s role in Jewish life and, by implication, that our values are not so distinct from those of wider Australia.

It may be instructive to remember the Hanan Ashrawi Sydney Peace Prize “Affair.”

A number of narratives was occurring simultaneously during that conflagration. The power of Ashrawi’s – and her supporters’ – message in the wider Australian community was augmented by her gender.

Her newsworthiness, her credibility, her symbolism of peace were all heightened by her femininity. That those who opposed her were male, had the unintended consequence of reinforcing a subconcious public perception of Israeli aggression and Palestinian victimhood.

The second part of this report will examine the gulf between Jewish and non-Jewish perceptions of advocacy and public discourse.

Les Rosenblatt Writes about Expressing Unpopular Opinions at the Ramadge Address

The following post, by Les Rosenblatt of the Australian Jewish Democratic society, has also been published at Galus Australis.

At Mr Rosenblatt’s request, I am posting it here at The Sensible Jew as well.

Mr Rosenblatt was the gentleman who spoke at the Ramadge address  on Monday night in support of The Age’s coverage of the Middle East and was shouted down.

While his political opinions do not reflect my own – I take issue with Amin Saikal, Ed O’Loughlin, and the Age’s coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and I consider myself non-ideological – I was nevertheless quite disturbed at the reception his comments received on Monday night.

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. They were already  indignant and vexed before being well cued by John Searle (President of the JCCV)  and Danny Lamm (President of the ZCV) who led Ramadge deftly into firing range. Searle cracked the old joke about ‘ journos not allowing the  facts to get in the way of a good story’  as a tone-setting standard.

The accusations from the floor following  Ramadge’s talk were that the Age  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 fed by lies to Andra Jackson; that Jason Koutsoukis was unprofessional in exhorting Obama to take ‘a big stick’ to the Middle-East conflict; that Barney Schwartz was  a ‘lightweight’; that no one wanted to read Amin Saikal; that Colin Rubinstein 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 vocce, ‘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 Searle and 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 stereo-typing 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.

A Brazilian man in a suit 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 2 hands went up very slowly, neither of them members of the AJDS . One of them belonged to the Meretz representative in Australia. The other hand belonged to woman I didn’t know.  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 2 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.

He 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 Lamm and Searle always conducted themselves very professionally whenever they came to see him (as it appears they do often).

Les Rosenblatt.

AJDS Executive member.