The Sensible Jew

I’ve written before about the story of my paternal grandmother’s Holocaust survival. In short, her father, a religious Jew, made friends with the local priest long before the catastrophic events that wiped out Polish Jewry.

As Jews from my family’s village were packed off to the concentration camps, this priest managed to forge papers for my grandmother – then a young teen – and find her a family of righteous Gentiles who risked their lives and the lives of their own families to pretend my grandmother was  one of them.

In Melbourne, we Jews are overwhelmingly descended from Holocaust survivors. Outside of Israel, we have the highest number, per-capita, of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. And every so often, astonishing tales of survival are punctuated by the memories of righteous Gentiles who, in the face of genocidal Nazism and paroxysms of pan-European hatred, risked everything for us.

Even in those blighted  countries that we fled, in which we describe the generalised hatred of us as being imbibed in “mothers’ milk,” there were still people whose extraordinary courage, compassion, and sheer goodness still remind us that we are not alone – that as much as we might try to close ourselves off and turn our backs on the difficulties of living amongst Others – that for both good AND bad, we are inexorably linked with our non-Jewish neighbours and friends.

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Of course, Australia at the close of 2009 is not war-time Europe.

As I wrote in the previous post, we use the term anti-Semitism often without distinguishing between the horrors of genocide, and the trivialities of foolish art.

The long time reader and commenter, Sadducee, points out that we must be able to differentiate between the soft anti-Semitism that annoys or offends, and the hard-anti-Semitism that seeks to strip us of our humanity, through denying our ethnogenesis, our right to a homeland, or through characterisations of us that paint us all as inhuman persecutors.

The latter is what leads to the darker times.

Our inability to distinguish between the two is what robs us of the good-will of the majority that we need in order to function within the broader framework of Australian society.

Yelling and chest-thumping at every small soft-anti-Semitic infraction does not create the atmosphere its practitioners might hope for.

People do not see us as strong and forthright in such circumstances: they see us as people who encroach on others’ freedom of expression.

How do I know this?

I have also written earlier about the problematic situation in which most of our leaders and many others in the community could not name five non-Jewish people with whom they enjoy a close, personal friendship.

This is different from a professional or communal association in which people are less likely to speak their minds. Close personal friendships with non-Jews allow for an exchange of ideas and a bi-directional flow of information about perceptions of Jews in Australia.

That so many of us do not have access to this, renders any opinions we might have on how we are perceived as a community, utterly irrelevant because they are baseless guesses.

Precisely this situations robs us of our agency: we have no way of knowing whether we, as a community are in a good or bad position. By closing ourselves off, we render ourselves powerless.

There are, however, those Jews who do enjoy friendships with non-Jews.

Almost every one of them that I have spoken to shares my feeling that by being out and about in broader society, we often find ourselves explaining things about Judaism to interested non-Jews, combatting false beliefs about Jews or Israel (in a non-adversarial way that actually has a serious, positive impact on the way Israel or Jews are viewed), and generally forming connections with other human beings that bind our fates together.

The efficacy of one patient, informed Jew of good faith in a room full of non-Jews, in debunking myths about our people is enormous.

It has an exponential effect as the original non-Jewish audience become ambassadors on our behalf. No decent non-Jew who has a close Jewish friend will tolerate anti-Semitic remarks in a social or even work environment.

The efficacy, on the other hand, of one of our untrained, unelected leaders, completely divorced from the sensibilities of wider Australia, raining fury on the opinion pages is absolutely nil.

The only possible justification for such actions is to scare people who don’t like us into public silence, temporarily. And it is always temporary.

If it is self evident that Jews out in the world do a lot of good for the community as a whole, it is less clear how Jewish continuity might be maintained under such circumstances.

At the moment, a common refrain heard from recent graduates of Jewish schools is that if they never had any communal involvement again, they’d be happy.

They’re put off the religion, they despise the way things are done generally, and they’re off travelling to find some meaning or joy in life.

The irony is: Judaism itself offers so much joy and meaning – escape from a Jewish community shouldn’t be a necessary path to finding these things.

Since this blog began, the countless numbers of people I’ve spoken to say the same thing: joy and meaning have almost no expression in the community.

There are of course exceptions, such as the shtiebls (small congregations) and other small organisations. There are also the youth movements, which provide one of the very few institutionalised means to finding joy and meaning in Judaism. But youth movement people graduate at 21 and find themselves bereft of meaningful communal structures.

On quite a number of occasions,  young and youngish religious Zionists have told me that the “best and brightest” of their lot make Aliya (emigrate to Israel), and those that are left in Australia are not necessarily motivated to enter the communal fray.

Indeed, how many of our young people are prepared to enter this “fray” – the existing institutions?

The institutional leaders themselves admit to a degree of panic at the absence of young blood.

The simple answer is that there is little these larger organisations (except the youth movements) can do to attract young people, simply because official culture is completely at odds with the realities of young Jewish life in Australia.

The levels of outright cynicism or complete apathy among Gen X/Y about anything institutional have surprised me over the past few months.

They are extreme.

And when I talk about institutions, I not only refer to the roof bodies – which most young Jews could not care less about, if they’re even aware of their existence.

I refer particularly to the schools.

The level of animosity the Jewish schools generate among Gen X/Y is an indication that something isn’t working.

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Small groups, however, are springing up to fill the gaps in young people’s Jewish lives. I have written about some of them.

Should such groups reach a critical mass, that they offer a viable alternative network of Jewish living, we may find ourselves with new generations that do not resent the religion, but love it, and do not approach their identity with apathetic resignation, but embrace it.

There is a fire in the belly of most young Jews. Many just don’t have the tools or structures yet, to stoke it.

I am not advocating that we as a community become religious – apart from the undesirability of homogeneity, it is just untenable, considering at least 75% of us are not practising.

But for most of us, gaining more knowledge, peering into the depths of one of the most complex belief systems on earth, and having our history illuminated, is enough to cement our identity, if it’s done well.

If we bring our kids up to love where they come from, to desire more knowledge about our history and beliefs, and do not alienate them completely, they will be able to go into the wider world, forging friendships and networks with non-Jewish Australia, while their Jewish core not only remains strong, but is regularly strengthened.

In essence, to be more Australian, first we need to learn how to be more Jewish.

We need more than just the companionship of people who share our genetic heritage. And we need the companionship of those who are different from us.

When we do eventually find this balance, so much soft anti-Semitism will disappear, and so will much of the threat of assimilation.

A beautiful irony indeed.

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Off-blog projects demand I take a hiatus from the blog for a while. Comments will still be welcome.

Meanwhile keep your eyes open for the latest emerging scandal that may or may not have some serious implications for the community – particularly the Orthodox.

It all started with the JCCV reaching out to the GLBT (Gay,  Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) community in the spirit of inclusion.

Of course, the recent expose on ABC Radio National about the JCCV’s previous bad behaviour, and a nasty Jewish homophobic web site may have inspired this spirit of good will – and sudden reversal of a decade-long policy of pretending that Jewish GLBT don’t exist.

That sort of good faith was ably matched by GLBT representative, Michael Barnett, who systematically alienated the JCCV, the mainstream media, government agencies, and finally, other Jewish GLBT.

Ultimately, the only people wanting to receive Barnett’s missives were non-Jewish GLBT activists, some of whom may or may not traverse the permeable border with the extreme left.

Particularly delightful in all of this was Michael’s identification of Orthodox Jews and Orthodoxy as massively homophobic across the board.

As far as I’m concerned, this is  libel. And unfortunately, many of the groups still listening to Barnett are predisposed to animus towards all organised religion and are happy to propogate  the libel.

Meanwhile, President of the JCCV, John Searle, decided he couldn’t work with Barnett.

Fair enough.

But Searle’s idea was to hold a super  “secret” meeting with more amenable GLBT Jews.

The only problem is that “secret” in the Jewish community is like “free media” in Russia – a nice idea, but something that’s never actually been experienced.

So of course I heard about it. You may have as well.

The secretiveneess was ostensibly designed to sideline Barnett, but I wonder how much of it was an attempt to act without folk from the Council of Orthodox Synagogues Victoria (COSV) – particularly their most vocal member, Mr. Romy Leibler – who were so vehemently opposed to any GLBT affiliation with the JCCV in 1999.

Of course, John Searle hasn’t, to my knowledge, mentioned this as a reason for the secrecy, but it’s hard to know…

The people who attended the super “secret” GLBT/JCCV meeting on Wednesday night were “encouraged” to swear complete confidentiality regarding anything that took place at the meeting.

A couple of people involved in the previous meeting wanted me to go along to the “secret” one on Wednesday night.

I had some concerns about the way Jews and particularly Orthodox Jews might be portrayed unfairly as homophobes in the wider GLBT media, and how that might spill over as a tool for the extreme left to use against us.

I was particularly concerned that the JCCV might see fit to speak once again on all our behalves, rather than step back and allow GLBT Jews to handle things.

John Searle was adamant, however, that I not attend.

Fair enough. I’m not GLBT (though I am a supporter).

But I thought I’d give him a call and let him know of some of my concerns.

I was pretty sure he had no idea how Jews and Orthodoxy were beginning to be portrayed in the GLBT media.

On the phone, Searle alternated between outright vehemence (YOU WILL NOT ATTEND THIS MEETING), and sweet offers, (I’m happy to meet with you).

He seemed far less interested in a possible public relations disaster.

When I asked how he might handle the community being painted as homophobic, he spoke about how that was for the JCCV to handle.

When I mentioned that this might be counter-productive, Searle referred to an interview he had done on the GLBT radio station, JOY.fm.

I was forced to alert him to the negative response to his interview by the interviewer himself.

There was a bit of backpedaling, and then Searle decided that indeed it was for Jewish GLBTs to handle these sorts of situations…

But…

Only those Jewish GLBTs that he himself had chosen.

Earlier in the conversation, Searle had explained to me that he had, “hand picked” the people attending.

Others have told me this was not true, so who knows.

Searle’s vision seems to be to form a very low profile GLBT “sub-committe.”

I assume this does not mean that these GLBT will be actual member of the JCCV, because there is no escaping a repeat of the COSV threats of pulling out of the JCCV.

Searle also made it clear that he wants this “sub-committe” to be the official voice of Jewish GLBT, even if they don’t enjoy the same rights and access as other Jewish groups.

When I asked from where such people would derive their mandate to speak on behalf of all Jewish GLBT, Searle seemed confused.

He spoke about how they were leaders of their own organisations, and he could not address the simple question of what happens to the GLBT Jews who are not members of Searle’s handpicked people’s organisations.

It’s all very murky.

It’s all so clandestine!

Michael Barnett’s reaction to being so thoroughly sidelined from the process may or may not put us all in a difficult position.

My only hope, going into this hiatus, is that Jewish officialdom will not mismanage this extraordinarily delicate and potentially inflammatory situation.

Good luck!

We have a tendency to cast the spectre of anti-Semitism as a vast, amorphous thing that can never be quantified.

This means not distinguishing between an unpleasant letter to the editor, a school-yard taunt, an ill-conceived play;  and expulsions, pogroms, and gas chambers. These are all conflated.

for some, they might exist on a continuum, but most of the time proponents of the amorphous school of understanding anti-Semitism prefer not to delve into proximate and ultimate causes.

Instead, the preference is to assign an almost divine provenance to the malign intent of others – something which not only cannot be understood within the normal human realms of social inquiry, but indeed must be elevated above it as a particularly heinous crime, the investigation of which is almost sacrilege.

Clearly, I do not support this view.

Indeed, I credit this view with making Jews vulnerable to the vagaries of the social tides – the ebb and flow of welcome and hatred.

It most certainly removes from Jews any sense of agency – any notion that they are masters of their own destiny, that they can play a role in ensuring not only their own welfare, but the welfare of future generations.

Sometimes things do go really really wrong – and quite quickly.

When National Socialists take power and start implementing laws that harm Jews, there’s not much to be done in the way of PR or strategic planning, beyond finding somewhere else to go. Quickly.

When Poles/Ukranians/Croats/Whoever  gleefully join the National Socialists  in trying to purge their countries of Jews, no amount of interfaith dialogue or glad-handing is going to help.

Can you imagine the sort of high-level advocacy we currently conduct with Australian politicians, happening in war time Poland? Of course not. Such advocacy can only work in an environment that is not completely hostile to the Jewish population.

So make no mistake: we are not living in a place whose general population hates us.

As I’ve been saying: for the moment, most Australians do not spend much time thinking about us at all. And that is a good thing.

We change that when our leaders make ill-advised media appearances, and also, when certain rogue Jewish elements decide that the path to self-aggrandisement is paved with painting fellow Jews as desperately misguided at best, and nefarious actors at worst.

Our leaders’ behaviour  is, in theory, the simplest part of the equation to remedy. Trying to control individual voices speaking out against the community is another matter entirely, and will be examined in the next post.

This post will focus on our leaders and spokespeople.

Firstly, they need to distinguish between the different challenges that face Jewish Australia regarding anti-Semitism and our relations with wider society:

1) Violent anti-Semitism (see Menachem Vorchheimer). When someone is physically abused, the community owes the victim its complete support (legal, financial, etc…). Without this, the rest of our rhetoric rings hollow. Part of this support entails letting the police do their job in investigating a violent crime. Should that investigation become problematic for whatever reason, the community is entitled to seek redress.

If the incident is not part of a wider campaign, our leadership must avoid the temptation of lobbying state government, or making vitriolic forays into the media.

We need to take a leaf from Vic Alhadeff’s book. Because he holds his fire most of the time, when he does speak to the media, it carries real weight. The way he speaks is just as important. He avoids hyperbole, hectoring, and adversarial language wherever possible. He has built up credibility with journalists, who in turn present him well in their stories.

While Alhadeff’s most recent media foray regarding anti-Semitism was not in relation to a violent event, it was nevertheless about a grave libel perpetrated against all Jews in an HSC religious studies text. That text had the power to generate serious anti-Jewish feeling, and Alhadeff’s actions – leading to the text’s removal from the syllabus – were crucial.

2) “Artistic” anti-Semitism is going to be around for a while and we need to know how to manage it. For some reason, a certain type of artist identifies closely with the stream of the Left that has painted Jews as “part of the problem” – whether that problem is Israel, capitalism, or a high profile in the US.

The wonderful thing about these groups is that they do not mount mainstream productions: their audiences are tiny, and they are almost always playing to their friends and family. The only other attendees will already be of like mind. In short, no undecided person is going to be convinced of Jewish perfidy by such performances.

Unless…
Our spokespeople find out about it and make a giant fuss, attracting media (that would never otherwise have been at the show) and mainstream attention, all the while appearing to be enemies of free speech.

BUT…
We can actually benefit from such performances.

As I’ve written previously, it is important to know what the artistic/academic circles are thinking, should such ideas cross over into the mainstream. What unpleasant productions allow, is for us to view the least flattering portraits of ourselves, to examine those elements that might be selected for a mainstream airing, and to prepare for such an eventuality.

3) The Left is not monolithic. It comprises both reasonable people, interested in things like perspective and proportion. There is also the extreme fringe that is highly problematic.

Their ability to garner attention for anti-Zionist campaigns is based on the cyclical nature of the news. When their turn comes around to paint Jews/Zionists/Israelis as genocidal maniacs, there is ONLY one response that will not damage us.

If we debate them on their own turf – answering the straw-man questions they love to construct – we will ALWAYS seem defensive and on the back foot. We also give their arguments credence.

We must not do this.

Ever!

Instead, our best bet is to ignore the charges they lay. The details of such charges are guaranteed not to stick in the heads of ordinary Australians who don’t care all that much about the Middle East.

Similarly any details we would use trying to counter them in the school-debating style would not be retained either. No one cares, beyond the protagonists.

What matters – and what IS retained, is tone.

As I wrote earlier, Liam Getreu’s piece is an almost ideal example of how to set the tone of the “Reasonable Jew.”

The “Reasonable Jew” is the person an ordinary Australian would rather live next door to/ have a beer with/have as a mate, than some frothing leftist.

The “Reasonable Jew” understands that admitting his own side isn’t perfect is both telling the truth about the situation, while massively boosting his/her credibility.

The “Reasonable Jew” understands that NOT demonising the Palestinians is actually precisely the thing that will make his/her other statements regarding Israel/Palestine believable.

But most importantly, the “Reasonable Jew” understands that NOTHING he writes in an Australian paper or says on air is ever going to affect the conflict itself.

The “Reasonable Jew” knows that his/her power ONLY lies in shaping society’s views of Australian Jews, and that this is a great responsibility.

4) We must think laterally when seeking allies.

It’s easy to become distracted, and perhaps seduced by the illusion that in the debates over Israel/Palestine, we are somehow fighting for Israel.

We are not.

Israeli soldiers and reservists fight for Israel.

That we do not risk our lives in our beloved country’s defence can perhaps, occasionally, drive us to a certain zealotry in our debating styles.

We might even be deluded into thinking that the “hard men” who berate readers and audiences in wider Australia are brave champions of Israel.

They are not.

They are risking nothing except our community’s social capital within wider society.

5) The new media have taken many of leaders by surprise and they struggle to navigate the exponential nature of the new modes of information.

But these new fora actually provide us with clues as to those most likely to act in a way that might damage our community.

What we see, time and again, are angry comments that are almost cut and pasted in their sameness, that spout the usual far-leftist tropes. We see very few Arab or Muslim names, however.

Indeed, at the interfaith conference I attended a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk to a young woman from the Islamic roof body. She detailed a number of grievances with the Herald Sun and it’s demonisation of Muslims. I laughed and told her how many Jews feel just that way about The Age.

The true threats to the Islamic community come not from Zionists, but from the far-right.

Similarly, the people who dehumanise Jews most in the media are not Arabs/Muslims, but people of the far left.

Why wouldn’t Jewish organisations approach their Islamic counterparts to form a united front condemning any such dehumanisation of either party? Indeed the Jews might be vocal on behalf of the Muslims, and vice versa.

This would have a number of positive effects:

Firstly, whenever someone else, with supposed diametrically opposed interests, argues on your behalf, their words carry far more weight than if you defended only your own interests.

Secondly, Jews and Muslims working together is always a good look – for both parties. It humanises us, shows that we are being peaceful.. It is a powerful demonstration that we are not interested in importing ethnic strife, but in fostering dialogue.

Thirdly, this really would be a man bites dog story! The sheer novelty of Jews and Muslims doing each other’s PR would guarantee prominent placement in the media, ensuring our messages were heard, and not buried.

This could only work for a subset of issues, of course. Jews will never advocate for the return of Palestinian refugees to within the Green Line, and Muslims are unlikely to try to defend the settlers.

What I’m proposing is a set of circumstances, in which each group defends the other against unfair characterisation and/or racism, whenever that does not directly involve Israel/Palestine.

These are only a handful of possible courses of action, that can be taken immediately to ameliorate our current situation.

Far more challenging – and potentially rewarding will be some of the long term strategies that I will write about in the next post.

As many of you know, I have a pretty high threshold for what might constitute anti-Semitism in the arts and media.

Please keep this in mind when I write that yesterday, while watching a play, I witnessed a truly vile depiction of Jews that initially made me want to launch myself from the back row of the audience and onto the stage so that I could begin a thorough throttling of everyone involved in the production.

To summarise, it was a very long, very minor production that supposedly dealt with the vagaries of faith.

There was a Jew! And a Muslim! Together! On stage! They almost hugged at the end!

While the Muslim was played by a cherubic, innocently handsome subcontinental, the play’s creators managed to find an unfortunate young Jew who quite resembled some of Nazism’s less flattering portraits of our people.

They plastered masking tape across this man , and wrote on it in giant letters: “The Liar.”

Seriously.

The Jew’s  job was to smarm and lie in obvious ways, to say unpleasant things about Muslims, and to be generally repugnant as well as unreasonable. Fortunately, the cherubic Muslim was there to play sweet, kind, honest straight-man, to guide our errant Jew gently towards The Truth. Continue reading How to Stop Losing Friends and Alienating People – Part One →

After reading the articles, read the comments below.

Robert Goot’s latest crusade

Albert Dadon’s piece in The Age

Dvir in his most recent spray

See also page 3 of this week’s Australian Jewish News

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Now ask yourself whether the horrendous comments in response to these pieces are perhaps worse than the original infraction being complained about….

Along with the usual missives from Dvir, Goot and the ADC, and – unfortunately – the otherwise wonderful Albert Dadon, our leaders are behaving in such a way that makes it look like they *want* the anti-Semites to visit Caulfield….

Ever since getting all excited about the Friends of Palestine own goal, and the beautiful piece by Liam Getreu, I’ve been punished for the hubris by yet another public Jew popping up to make our community appear like a bunch of fascists and fundamentalists. Continue reading Our Leaders/Institutions Decide Jews are not Disliked Enough – Action Taken →

Yesterday, Liam Getreu, incoming AUJS chairman, wrote an opinion piece for the Australian that should serve as a model for how this community conducts its PR.

We need to remember that no matter how interesting and important we Jews find ourselves and Israel, the rest of the population generally has other things on its mind.

Except for the occasional, massive blunder that focuses the nation’s attention, individual articles or interviews on their own will not do much to shape perceptions of Jews and Israel long term in the wider community.

It is actually the aggregate of what we do and say over longer periods that serve to create an “atmosphere,” that amorphous sense of what Australian Jewry is about, what our beliefs are, and what sort of Australians we seek to be.

The simple truth – that I’ve been promoting since this blog’s inception – is that we Jews do not live in a bubble, that outside perceptions of us do matter.

We must also shift from our “rights” based obsessions – that we have a right to do and say what we please in any attempt to defend Israel or our own community – to an outward focus that seeks to understand the wider audience for our message.

No one can be forced to love us or to love Israel. It helps our cause – and is right in and of itself – to view ourselves as part of the greater Australian whole: to move from obsessing over what we are owed, to what we can contribute.

Liam’s piece does all of that and more. But his is only one contribution and cannot alone repair the damage that has been done to our community’s reputation in recent years. My hope is that his article will lead the way in a new approach to Jewish PR and engagement, and that slowly, this approach will transform the current “atmosphere” surrounding Australian Jewry and the Israel/Palestine conflict in the broader Australian sub-conscious. Continue reading Analysing What Went Right: Liam Getreu in The Australian →

Wow!

This is a stunning piece of writing from the incoming chairman of the Australian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS).

It’s pretty much pitch perfect, and some of our more seasoned leaders would do well to study it closely.

In the next post, I will analyse the piece closely, examining how the article achieves its aims so adroitly.

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

Sometimes, you can just sit back and watch your opponents do all the hard PR yards for you.

If you are a Jewish reader of this blog, please imagine that you are an average Aussie (ie a non-Jew without any interest in the whole Israel/Palestine imbroglio).

Now imagine yourself, in front of your TV, watching a bunch of screeching, semi-violent, placard wielding, and very, very shrill people – between 100 and 200 of them, according to various media reports.

These angry folk have congregated in Melbourne to demonstrate in a way that does not strike you as very Australian. Actually, it reminds you of places depicted elsewhere on the news that make you thank God you live in a calm country, governed by the rule of law, and not by the vagaries of the mob. Continue reading Thanks Australians for Palestine →

Go to The Age online to read the article.

As many readers know, much Sensible Jew activity now happens off-line.

Right now, I’m waiting on the outcomes of some of these before writing the next post. Hopefully this will only take a day or two. If there’s a moment, I’ll write an interim post beforehand.