Displaying posts tagged with

“dissent”

Aug
24
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 11 comments

The Big Sunday: Thousands visit and The Shtick

Yesterday was quite surreal.
After The Sunday Age published a story on this blog, we received unprecedengted traffic: 3,235 people visited the site (according to Wordpress statistics). This is a record for the blog, and outstrips the numbers that arrived when the initial Age story was published a couple of months ago.
This brought an expected spike [...]

Aug
20
2009
Life By Alex Fein | Comments turned off

In The AJN 1: The Stark Contrast between Albert Dadon and the JCCV

A number of items in this week’s  Australian Jewish News deserve a mention.
This post will contrast the highly problematic style of the JCCV with the sophistication and achievement of Albert Dadon.
What is so striking about Dadon’s opinion piece (AJN page 25), is the way it manages to be both humble and without vitriol, while still [...]

Aug
12
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 18 comments

Tread Carefully, Dear Leaders: John Pilger Has Won The Sydney Peace Prize

Tread carefully, dear leaders.
Remember that you are unelected representatives of Australian Jewry.
Remember that according to an AJN poll, 95% of respondents felt you are not representative of us or our interests.
Remember that your lack of mandate does not diminish the damage you can cause us.
Remember the Hanan Ashrawi Peace Prize affair. It gave birth to [...]

Jun
25
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 16 comments

Loewenstein: Why Bother?

Antony Loewenstein has provided fodder for this blog on a number of occasions. Some of our readers have asked whether writing about Loewenstein serves any function, or indeed, whether such posts provide him with oxygen or legitimacy.
Let me state for the record: I have no personal beef with Mr Loewenstein. I met him once, quite [...]

Jun
15
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 49 comments

Talking Tachles 2: In Defence of the Right to Responsive Representation and Transparency

In the first post in this series, we asked a number of questions regarding representation, legitimacy and transparency. Some of the responses  touched on themes such as apathy and whether there is indeed any “right” to representation at all.
Firstly, a  straw man has been created in the suggestion that we are somehow disciples of Joseph [...]

May
26
2009
Life By Alex Fein | 5 comments

Reader Response 5: Israel, Kangaroo Courts, Unity, Speaking Out, and Subheadings

Today, we’ve not only experienced a major spike in readership, we have also seen a plethora of comments, some of which we’ll answer in this post.
Firstly, Israel is clearly integral to a Jew’s identity – whether said Jew is pro- or anti-Zionist. We find it hard to imagine a Jew without an opinion either way. [...]

May
24
2009
Current Events By Alex Fein | 2 comments

The New Week: Ideas from SJ Readers 1 – Yoram’s Report from Auburn Rd Shul

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Ideas from SJ Readers

Firstly, Yoram, of the Auburn Rd Shul, conducted a discussion among the Shul’s congregants regarding some of the themes raised on this blog. We thank him for doing that. For more information on that discussion, you can read Yoram’s comment here. The congregants, diverse in age and background seemed to agree that the community requires some form of leadership; however, Yoram contends that even though such a forum was effective at promoting discussion, the “Town Hall” style of meeting may not be best suited to establishing tangible changes.

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.

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