Displaying posts tagged with

“AIJAC”

Sep
9
2009

Sandilands, The Holocaust, and our Leaders’ Response:The Smart, The Stupid, and The Very, Very Ugly

Kyle Sandilands is the product of a commercial media environment that has abandoned even the pretence of caring about public decency. Only the threat of advertising dollar withdrawal seems to have any power to influence his management.
The appalling treatment on air of a teenage rape victim should have been indication enough that this was a [...]

Aug
21
2009

In the AJN 2 – Congratulations and Caveats: AIJAC

On opposite ends of the political spectrum, this week, there have been signs of Jews behaving sensibly – together.
The AJN (page 6) reported on the AIJAC sponsored Inter-religious Coordinating Council of Israel’s members’, Rula Shubeita, Issa Jaber, and Dr Debbie Weissman, visit to Australia.
After overcoming the cognitive dissonance, there are many elements of this initiative [...]

Aug
19
2009

Bren Carlill of AIJAC Responds to Part Two – Axis of Honour

Bren Carlill, responding in comments, to the second in the The Axis series,  makes some very interesting points – not least of which, is that his piece in The Australian was edited so that key information was omitted.
After reading his comment, I think it’s appropriate to retract my implication that he views all Muslims/Arabs as [...]

Aug
17
2009

Part Two – The Axis of Honour: Honour, Communalism, and Islamist Suicide Terrorism

Terrorism, Terrorists and Suicide Attacks: Our Representatives Fail to Shed much Light
The first post in this series took issue with the flaccid thinking of some academics and policy makers. They are, however, no worse that many non-academics (in the media and lobby groups) on the right.
Bren Carlill of AIJAC, recently wrote in The Australian, [...]

May
27
2009

Reader Response 7: Responding to our Non/Anti-Zionist Readers

The Sensible Jew has received two comments from two separate readers over the last 24 hours. These readers have in common a non- or anti-Zionist perspective. We think it is important that we address some of their questions/statements.
Reader, Gustavm, writes “You need to address “the elephant in the room” which you seem to want to [...]

May
26
2009

An Email to our Leadership

We have just sent an email requesting comments from the leaders of some of our key institutions. These include, AIJAC, the ZFA, ECAJ, AUJS, Maccabi, and the JCCV. Below is a copy of the email that we sent.
“The Sensible Jew is a web log devoted to discussion of matters pertaining to the leadership and representation [...]

May
22
2009

AJN 2: Colin Rubinstein vs David Langsam

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series In the Australian Jewish News

Dr. Rubenstin, after years of faithful service at AIJAC, claims that his organisation was somehow bamboozled into making utterly self-defeating and inflammatory comments to the Australian media that transformed a silly 8 minute play into national news and enabled a partisan beat-up over a ridiculous Kennett painting.

May
21
2009

Reader Response 4: Coups, Town Halls, and the Reluctance to Comment

It would seem prudent to gather some momentum, and to get a feel for the common ground shared by all Jewish moderates before storming Beit Weizman.

While the last sentence is somewhat tongue in cheek, it does allude to an idea that emerged at The Sensible Jew: what do people think of an open meeting, to which all Melbourne Jews are welcome, in which we could ask the leaders of the ZFA, ECAJ, AIJAC, and other bodies some questions regarding their recent media performance, and their claims to legitimate representation?

Would such a meeting do any good? Is it at all worthwhile? Are our institutions so rotten that attempting to graft democratic elements onto them would be futile? If so, by what mechanisms could an alternative leadership be established?

May
20
2009

Reader Response 3: Media and Anti-Semitism

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series reader response

Firstly, the observation has been made on more than one occasion that there are genuine anti-Semites (some of whom are Jewish) active in the media. The Sensible Jew believes that this point is moot. Apart from the impossibility of determining exactly which journalists and editors are indeed anti-Semitic, we must acknowledge that certain people with various ideological agendas will always abuse their positions in the media. Such people cannot be “rooted out.”

May
19
2009

So What Do We Do? Jews and the Media

It often seems that we’re in an impossible bind. As commenters, Blistering, Paroggan, and Frochel have asked, how does our community deal with a media that is (The Australian excluded) either hostile or indifferent to us? How do we best approach matters such as the 8 minute play, and other issues rife with propagandising on both sides? We’ll begin with some of our ideas for change, but this is by no means an exhaustive list and we ask our readers to contribute their ideas.