The Jews Down Under…Roundup of Australian Jewish news

JCCV tackles teenage alcohol abuse

MELBOURNE–The Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) has moved forward in its campaign against alcohol abuse and related risky behaviour by young people in the Victorian Jewish community.

JCCV Social Justice Committee chairperson Rimma Sverdlin said the organization had appointed “Debbie Zauder to develop a community education strategy to encourage responsible consumption of alcohol. This has been facilitated by a grant from the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation.”

Zauder has a Masters degree in Applied Social Research and considerable experience in research, evaluation and program development in a number of health-related areas, including issues related to alcohol and other drugs. She currently sits on a number of boards and committees under the Monash Division of General Practice and the Department of Human Services. As a mother of young children, Zauder also has a personal commitment to confronting problem drinking in both the Jewish and larger communities. I am confident that she will be a great asset.”

Nonetheless the challenge is a formidable one, according to Sverdlin.”This project has four main goals, namely: To tackle underage drinking by utilising a collaborative approach involving community organisations, schools, synagogues and health services; To reduce levels of underage drinking occurring in the Victorian Jewish community; To increase awareness among parents and the general community of the harmful effects of underage drinking and its risks; to develop a long term educational campaign that will be embedded in the curricula of the Jewish day schools.”

She added: “Our committee members are not so naïve as to believe that we will find a comprehensive solution for problem drinking. However we are hopeful that this project will at least result in positive changes to attitudes about drinking andhence to individual lives. That wouldn’t be a bad outcome.”

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A Milestone for Shul

SYDNEY – Nearly 80 years ago, at the tender age of six, Maurice “Morrie” Stein began attending services at Newtown Synagogue with his family.

Today, the 85-year-old is the shul’s oldest living congregant and arguably one of its most revered. He attends services every Friday night and is always quick to reminisce about the past, or share his opinion on everything from prayer tunes to current shul fashion.

On Sunday November 8 he was a guest speaker at the shul’s 90th anniversary celebrations.

Also speaking was Reverend Benjamin Skolnick, who served as Newtown’s rabbi from 1957 to 1969.

“The occasion is a celebration of the individuals who have built and sustained the synagogue over so many years,” said the shul’s vice-president, Lachlan Menzies.

“In that way, it will also be an opportunity for the new generations to be inspired to continue in their footsteps.”

It all started more than a century ago when Newtown residents Abram and Naomi Solomon invited some friends into their home on Georgina Street to form a minyan.

As Jewish migrants poured into the area in Sydney’s Western Suburbs, the numbers quickly grew. Soon land was purchased to build a shul onthe same street where it all began, with the first stones of Newtown Synagogue laid in 1918.

All this time later, one of the city’s oldest shuls, which continues to thrive, will give a nod to its past.

To celebrate the anniversary, a historical display featuring items from a bygone era was held in the hall and included a framed photographof the foundation stone-laying ceremony, a gold key presented to the president on the day of consecration in 1919, and a burnt Bible rescued from the 1992 arson attack that nearly destroyed the shul building.

“We’ve been blessed to carry through to this day,” said shul president Brian Littler, who still remembers the tough times when the shul struggled to regroup after the arson attack and spent nearly a year displaced while the building was being restored.

These days, he said, the shul is prospering.

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Is this the final chapter in the Zentai saga?

CANBERRA–Alleged war criminal living in Perth faces extradition to Hungary
after a decision by the Federal Government.

Relatives of Charles Zentai, 88, who is accused of war crimes dating back to 1944, had been hoping Canberra would try to overturn a Federal court ruling for his extradition.

But Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor confirmed that the Government would not intervene.

Subject to any legal challenge, Hungarian authorities have two months to arrange the extradition of Zentai, who has spent the past three weeks in jail in Perth awaiting a decision.

O’Connor said the decision to approve extradition was not an indication of Zentai’s
guilt or innocence. ”It was about deciding whether or not Mr Zentai should be surrendered to Hungary in accordance with Australia’s extradition legislation and its international obligations,” O’Connor said.

Zentai’s son, Ernie Steiner, said the decision was disgraceful. ”My father is an innocent man but people just don’t seem to want to accept that,” he said after visiting his father in jail.

Hungary has been trying to extradite Zentai since 2005, alleging that in 1944 in Budapest when he was in the Hungarian Army, he helped bash a Jewish youth to death.

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Michael Danby Calls for refugee review

CANBERRA – Jewish Federal member of Parliament, Michael Danby has called on
Australia to lead the way in a review of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Danby, the MP for Melbourne Ports and chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, spoke to a reunion of Dunera boys at the weekend.

He told the Dunera passengers — German and Austrian refugees in Britain who were classed as enemy aliens and sent to Australia on a ship and then interned under adverse conditions in 1942 — and their descendants, that lessons from the Holocaust and afterwards should be applied today.

Danby said that at the time, the Refugee Convention had helped to resettle people
displaced after World War II, but its usefulness had expired.

“My view is that the 1951 Refugee Convention is seriously out-of-date, and that we need a new international treaty covering the treatment ofasylum seekers and refugees,” Danby said.

“I would like to see Australia take an initiative in starting a new international conversation about how international refugee law might be clarified and brought up-to-date.”

He added that no-one in 1951 could have predicted a time when millions would be displaced due to civil wars, dictatorships, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and natural disasters.

“The circumstances the world is facing today are not the same as those of the 1930s, but there are enough parallels to make us aware of the moral imperatives that we face, and of the possible consequences of a failure to act with courage and compassion,” he said.

Danby said he had “great confidence” in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, but called on the Jewish community — particularly those with experience as refugees — “to make our voices heard on the side of reason and justice, and against xenophobia and political opportunism”.

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Status Quo on ritual slaughter

CANBERRA – Federal and state agriculture ministers have agreed that current
ritual slaughter practices could continue.

Ritual slaughter, including shechitah — slaughtering meat for kosher consumption– was under review by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Animal welfare groups had expressed concerns about the humanity of shechitah,

which, unlike general slaughtering, does not permit animals to be stunned unconscious before slaughter.

The Executive Council of Australia Jewry (ECAJ) and the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA) petitioned Agriculture Minister Tony Burke to maintain the status quo.

That status quo saw shochets (ritual slaughterers) exempt from stunning cattle and lambs before killing them with a knife, in line with halachah.

Jewish representatives held a meeting with Burke’s chief of staff before the ministers’ meeting earlier this month to stake the community’s claim.

Any change to slaughter regulations or moves to withdraw the Jewish community’s exemption would have jeopardised both local consumption and meat export, according to ECAJ president Robert Goot.

Goot called the result of the ministers’ meeting a “great outcome”.

“It is very gratifying,” he said. “For the ECAJ and ORA – which have been making submissions [on this topic] for more than a year — this is very satisfying.”

Meanwhile, a statement from Burke’s office declared it was the role of all governments to “promote the most humane practices, within the spectrum of faiths in Australia”.

Moreover, it was noted that the Primary Industries Standing Committee would continue to consult with religious organisations, meat processors, regulators and animal welfare groups.

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Visible Jewish presence at Parliament of World Religions

MELBOURNE – There will be three presentations at the Parliament oft fhe World’s Religions, under the umbrella of B’nai B’rith

Fri Dec 4, 11.30 – 1, The Anti-Defamation will present on “Strangers in a Strange Land” as part of a multifaith presentation.

Tuesday Dec 8, 11.30 – 1, B’nai B’rith Environment Group in conjunction with the Jewish EcologicalCoalition and a Buddhist group will be part of a presentation on
“Perspectives on Sustainability: Buddhist and Jewish Perspectives”.

Wed Dec 9, 9.30 – 11.00 B’nai B’rith Courage to Care will present on “Listening to the Messages of the Holocaust Survivors”.

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Fabian is Australia bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World