By Daphne Anson
Under the presidency of Sydney medico Dr David Adler, a new Jewish communal organisation calling itself the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) has been set up “by a team including senior community members of standing in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia” unhappy at what the pervasive drift towards political correctness in the Jewish communal leadership:
‘You can expect it to be more direct and outspoken on matters of principle rather than cowed by “political correctness”. AJA will speak out clearly on security issues, sources of anti-Semitism, other external threats and advocacy involving Israel,’ its website avers.
Its mission statement here begins:
“The mission of AJA is to be a membership based representative organisation for the Jewish community in Australia based on genuine authentic Jewish and conservative Australian democratic values.
The AJA welcomes members from the Jewish community who support this mission.
To be guided by authentic Jewish values means having regard in policy formulation to principles of Torah. This imposes no requirement on how members conduct their lives. The organisation will welcome members of all levels of observance.
To be guided by conservative Australian democratic values means prioritising policies which support individual freedoms, self-determination, human rights, security and respect for rule of law.”
Regarding Israel, it breaks ranks with the official communal leadership’s position:
“Support Israel as the only nation-state and the cultural and religious home of the Jewish people. Support the right of Jews to live in security and peace in their traditional ancient biblical homeland”
continuing in the relevant clause:
“Jerusalem is the eternal undivided capital of Israel and the entire city including the Temple Mount should be administered by Israeli authorities.
The land of Israel includes the biblical Jewish homelands of Judea and Samaria.
Support policies and initiatives to further develop and strengthen the relationship between Australia and Israel.”
The AJA was scheduled to be launched in Melbourne tomorrow (Sunday, 10 September) at the Beth Weizmann Community Centre, with the distinguished Anglican scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie as guest speaker. But when it became known to Zionism Victoria, the body that administers Beth Weizmann, that the theme of the evening would be “The Threat of Islam to Jews” the longstanding booking was cancelled.
The current issue of the Australian Jewish News (AJN; 8 September) quotes Beth Weizmann chairperson Ben Tatarka thus:
“Having just become aware of he details of the event, which had been booked as a ‘public speaker’, and after due consideration, we have decided that we are not prepared to have the Jewish Community Centre of Melbourne used for or associated with an event that, on its face, seeks to foment fear and hatred.”
The same paper reports Dr Adler’s reaction:
“It would have been expected that instead of reacting to erroneous information, that the management of Beth Weizmann would have made contact with us, the organizers, to find out the truth.
As soon as possible we gave them additional information for consideration because they had made false assumptions and we informed them that the talk, or similar ones, had been presented in NSW Parliament in March this year and at Limmud New Zealand last month.”
Dr Adler went on to tell the AJN that an alternative venue had since been found, and at first he was unwilling to disclose it, being loath to
“attract the aggressive and irrational group who, without information and based on false assumptions, went off the rail.”
(That new venue hired was the Goldenberger Hall of the Mizrachi Synagogue on Balaclava Road in the heart of the Shtetl on the Yarra’s “Golden Mile”; the Mizrachi Synagogue itself, the AJN noted, had not endorsed the event.)
Immediately, the name of the new venue was made known, the Jewish far-left anti-Israel movement sprang into attack mode:
(The above group loves to note that it’s coming to you from “The occupied lands of the Kulin nation, Melbourne, Australia”; curiously, however, it shows no sign of preparedness to evacuate those lands.)
(The CSG is the Community Security Group.)
An urgent call to action went out from one Israel-bashing Jewish lefty to his cohorts:
‘This is not a drill. You are needed.’The Threat of Islam to Jews’ is going ahead and we have to turn up to tell them to fuck off.
You can expect a superchilled affair with a stack of Jewy tunes. But you need to come: to take responsibility for this in our community, to not be silent in the face of hate.
Invite your friends. Now.’ [Emphasis added]
Suggestions for “Jewy tunes” with which to serenade try to shame and intimidate members of the Jewish community attending the Adler/Durie event quickly came:
By invoking the heroic Bundists and other resisters and martyrs, these “Jews Against Fascism” are, of course, implying that all who are wary of and warn of the dangers of Islamist antisemitism are comparable to Tsarist antisemites and informers and to the bestial Nazis is, which, needless to say, as ludicrous as it is obscene.
Unfortunately, the totalitarian Left have succeeded in getting the event cancelled for a second time.
Claim and counter-claim continue to fly, as this is something of a “breaking story,” with one commenter on the Facebook page of the outraged “Nothing Left” (closely linked with the AJA and the event) writing that it was cancelled owing to fears of reprisal attacks on the Mizrachi-associated Yavneh kindergarten:
“This event was cancelled because of protests from Yavneh parents who didn’t want you turning our children’s kindergarten into an increased risk of terror attack. It had nothing to do with politics….
You’re the ones running talks about the threat they pose to Jews. As you well know, they have targeted Jewish institutions and places they perceive as insulting their prophet. It’s a terrible problem that we as a community have to deal with. Why would you increase the risk of my children’s kindergarten? Do it in your own home so Islamic extremists can target you.”
Meanwhile one Jew who had intended to turn up to protest the event jibes:
“Nothing Left , that [the cancellation] is the best news I have had all week. You may want to check the mirror for fascist, threaten, intimidate. Not afraid of you. Disgusted is more the word that comes to mind.”
And another Jewish leftist, a university academic, makes the breath-taking assertion:
“Jews have nothing to fear from Islam. Only from terrorists who kill more of their own people.”
(Clearly, he could benefit from listening to Islam-expert Dr Durie on what’s been going on in Europe!)
An apt retort to the leftists from a Nothing Left spokesman:
“I find it kind of ironic one of the main Jewish fascists behind the shutting down of free speech [by other Jews] is a member of a Jewish Palestinian activist group [presumably the Australian Jewish Democratic Society] affiliated with JCCV [Jewish Community Council of Victoria] and only recently some members of this same group demonstrated on behalf of Arabs in Israel outside the very offices of Beth Weizmann and these are the types B[eth] W[eizmann] Board have aligned them selves with , Crazy world we live in”
Though happy as Larry (pardon the pun) one of the activists centrally involved in the campaign to cancel the meetings has proved rather modest:
Not so modest, the Jews Against Fascism (but not Islamofascism), displaying their customary
elegant, erudite turn of phrase:
Incidentally, on leftwing hypocrisy and Islamofascism/da Joos/Zionism see two good articles here and here
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