About two weeks ago we began following the story of Peter Wertheim’s appointment to the position of Executive Director at ECAJ. The utterly opaque process by which this appointment had been made smacked of the very failings in accountability of leadership about which we have been writing from the outset.
In response to “letter writers to [...]
Jul
7
2009
7
2009
Defence of the Wertheim Appointment – Just Not Good Enough
Jun
25
2009
25
2009
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
25
2009
25
2009
Jun
15
2009
15
2009
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 [...]
Jun
14
2009
14
2009
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 [...]
Jun
3
2009
3
2009
The Sensible Jew Salutes Antony Loewenstein.
Sometimes, we all need a bit of light relief. The Sensible Jew therefore salutes Antony Loewenstein for providing us with a very silly blog piece about Israel.
Mr. Loewenstein begins with a horrifying description of some bad amateur theatrics in which Israeli leaders at a Birthright programme play the part of Palestinians and then try to [...]
Jun
3
2009
3
2009
Dani Klein of StandWithUs and The SJ in Dialogue
We’d like to thank Dani Klein of StandWithUs for writing in our comments section. His uninterrupted comment can be read here.
Mr Klein writes:
“My name is Dani Klein, and I am the North American Campus Director for StandWithUs (working with campuses in the USA & Canada). I have had the pleasure of working with Michelle Rojas [...]
Jun
2
2009
2
2009
Who are the Sensible Jews? A Partial Coming Out
We have received numerous emails and a number of comments since we began this blog expressing disquiet about our anonymity. We have always sympathised with this sentiment; however, we believed that keeping our personalities out of the debate was the best way to ensure the discourse could stay on-topic. Unfortunately, the issue of anonymity seems [...]
May
31
2009
31
2009
May
31
2009
31
2009
Mazal Tov: A Very Sensible Community Prevails at Maccabi
The SJ would like to wish the Jewish community and Maccabi a hearty mazal tov on overturning the directive to rid the sports organisation of non-Jews.
As reported in today’s Age, due to community uproar, Harry Procel and his board were forced to abandon immediate plans to keep the clubs from being overrun by barbarians Gentiles. [...]
Australian Jews, a New Format, and Later Today
This blog began as a forum for for discussion of Australian Jewish issues. Because it began in Melbourne, its has tended to focus on Victorian governance and media shenanigans.
We hope, however, to commission posts soon from writers outside this city. Each community shares a number of challenges and some of these are national in scope.