Displaying posts tagged with

“coup”

Jun
14
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 51 comments

Antony Loewenstein: Easily Startled

Today’s Sunday Age has published a letter from Antony Loewenstein.
We’ve written before that our objections to Mr. Loewenstein lie not only in the flawed intellectual foundations of his anti-Zionism, but also in his utterly vapid arguments which he so often supports with factual errors.
Let’s examine his latest contribution to the public discourse on Australian Jewry [...]

May
29
2009
Life By Alex Fein | Comments turned off

Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom

We wish all our readers a wonderful, cheese-cake filled Shavuot and a restful Shabbat. We, at The Sensible Jew, plan on eating quiche.
We will resume serious posting on Sunday, May 31, when we answer reader questions about diaspora criticism of Israel, and the folly of agressive Israel advocacy on western campuses.
We will also address a [...]

May
24
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 6 comments

Where to now? practical questions and suggestions for change in our community and a link to Manny Wax’s Report

Manny Waks, formerly of B’nei Brith has spent considerable time researching our community and looking into the possibility of establishing a nation-wide think tank.
[edited at 10:51pm to add] Manny has now put the report online. You can read it here. He points out that it is not an academic document, but one designed for the [...]

May
21
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 7 comments

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
Opinion By Alex Fein | 6 comments

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
Opinion By Alex Fein | 2 comments

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.

May
19
2009
Opinion By Alex Fein | 23 comments

Michael Fagenblat’s Presentation at the Seven Jewish Children Reading

Seven Jewish Children is not an anti-Semitic play. On the contrary, its challenging message deserves to be heard, especially by Jews, Israelis and Zionists. However in the context of a Nakba commemoration for Australian Friends of Palestine, the play risks degenerating from being challenging and useful to useless self-validation. Here, then, are seven responses to Seven Jewish Children in the context of a commemoration marking what Palestinians call the Nakba–the Catastrophe–of 1948.

May
18
2009
Opinion By Alex Fein | 8 comments

Reader Response 2: Incompetence, Negligence, and Legitimacy

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

One needn’t be planning the overthrow of ECAJ. Or the abolition of AIJAC as self appointed spokespeople for our community. We only seek to make public what has traditionally been private: disquiet with the direction our community’s leadership, and our interaction with the wider public. If this should inspire concrete change for the better, that would be wonderful, but that is not our job, nor has it ever been the brief of this site.

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