History: lie or accepted myth

By Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM–One of my Jerusalem friends supplied me with another piece of the Jewish mosaic by talking about his youth in Mashhad.

Mashhad is a sizable city and religious center in the northeast of Iran, where the Jewish community was given a choice of conversion or death in the 1830s. Some died in the pogrom that accompanied the decree, some moved away, and most accepted Islam outwardly, but continued to be Jews at home. A century later the Jews of Mashhad began to live more openly. Nonetheless, the Mashhadis I have met carry deeper scars than those traceable to my having to sing Christmas songs and recite the Lord’s Prayer in Fall River.

Israeli Jews from Muslim countries, and their children, tend to be on the hawkish side of the hawk-dove spectrum. Some of this may derive from lower than average levels of income and education, and the populist element in right of center Likud. Some also derives from residual feelings of discrimination, and being forced to leave their homes, typically with few if any possessions. While there are well known intellectuals and politicians from these communities who speak out prominently from the dovish sides of the spectrum, it is not difficult to find individuals willing to talk about family suffering, as well as their distrust of Palestinians and other Muslims.

One should not exaggerate the impact of these communities on Israel. We are not talking about the residents of refugee camps subject to regime incitement for more than six decades. Although Israel’s poor “development towns” continue to have a disproportionate share of “Oriental” Jews (as well as migrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia) Jews tracing their families to the Middle East have moved throughout the country and into every sector of the economy and politics. So many of them have married Israelis whose families came from Europe, North or South America as to render the categories of “Sephardim,” “Oriental,” or “Jews from Asian and African backgrounds” increasingly elusive for social research.

My Mashhadi friend responded to one of my recent notes where I mentioned the Palestinians’ creation of an ownership tale for what has long been described as Rachel’s Tomb. He urged me to write about how the Muslims have created similar fabrications about the importance of Jerusalem. “What do they mean about the third holiest city in Islam? I grew up hearing that Mashhad was one of the holiest cities. Muslims who visit Mashhad call themselves Mashhadi. I’ve never heard of a Muslim who visits Jerusalem giving himself the Arabic name of this city.”

I responded by recalling my own visit to Samarkand. The tour guide described it as the “third most holy city in all of Islam.”

No doubt that Muslims have touched up the status of Jerusalem (al Quds–the Holy City), largely in response to the Jewish presence. However, the story is not a simple one. Jerusalem does figure in the writings associated with Mohamed, and the city was an important focus in the struggle against the Crusaders. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque have been on the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount since the 7th century, and the main shopping street in East Jerusalem carries the name of Salah al Din, the Kurdish warrior who led the fight against Crusaders in the 12th century.

The Muslims never made Jerusalem anything more than a provincial town during the several regimes that ruled until the British conquest in the 20th century. Baghdad, Damascus, Ramla, Nablus, and Gaza were more important. During the 16th century, Jerusalem’s population was less than 5,000. The city was a miserable place with garbage and dead animals in the street, and widespread disease when Europeans and Americans began building churches and hospitals in the 19th century. There has been a Jewish majority since the late 19th century. When the Jordanians controlled the Old City and other neighborhoods from 1948 to 1967, they invested more heavily in Amman. 

Voltaire  said that history is the lie commonly agreed upon. Napoleon softened that to history as accepted myth.

So whatever the truth to the claim that Jerusalem is one of Islam’s holiest cities, or that Rachel Tomb is really Bilal ibn Rabah mosque, there are many who will accept and act on those beliefs. Tour guides in Samarkand and Mashhad will continue with their descriptions. Tempers about Jerusalem and other sites will rise and decline with events. Muslim politicians will incite their followers when they need an issue, or when Jewish politicians are careless in how they make a point about their own claims.

Currently the concern is not so much with historical accuracy, as with the possibility that speeches and stone throwing will develop into something more serious. A resident of Jerusalem should not say that history is unimportant. Only that the details do not depend on what really happened.

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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.

Bishop Williamson summoned to Holocaust denial trial in Germany

PRESS RELEASE (WJC)–A court in Germany has summoned the Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson to attend a trial in April where he is to face charges of incitement for his belittling of the Holocaust, which is a crime in Germany. In comments broadcast on Swedish television in January 2009, Williamson said he believed no more than 300,000 Jews had perished in the Holocaust and that there had been no gas chambers.

The district court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg has set a hearing for 16 April, because Williamson refused to pay a fine of € 12,000 handed down last year. The court has ordered the 69-year-old bishop of the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), to face questioning in person.

Although authorities cannot force him to attend, if Williamson is not represented at the hearing, then the appeal against the fine would be thrown out, a court spokesman said. “Then the fine becomes legally binding,” he said.

Williamson’s remarks were recorded near Regensburg, within the court’s jurisdiction.

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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.

Israel summons Spanish ambassador over anti-Semitism in schools

JERUSALEM (WJC)–Israel lodged a formal complaint with Spain yesterday, charging certain individuals in Spanish schools of promoting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideas among young children. The letter comes after Israel’s ambassador to Spain, Rafi Shotz, recently received dozens of anti-Semitic postcards from Spanish elementary school students.

The postcards bore statements including “Jews kill for money,” “Leave the country to the Palestinians” and “Go somewhere where they will accept you.” A Foreign Ministry official said the handwriting appears typical of children six to nine years old. “Apparently there are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel individuals who get permission to operate within schools,” the official said. “Each time, the embassy has received several dozen postcards from a different school. And it seems as though whoever is doing this is moving from school to school.”

The Foreign Ministry considered summoning Spain’s ambassador to Israel, Alvaro Iranzo, to complain, but ultimately spoke to the envoy by telephone instead. Naor Gilon, the ministry’s deputy director for Europe, called Iranzo yesterday and said “Israel is greatly distressed” by the postcards. The envoy insisted the letters are not part of any Spanish Education Ministry program, but the initiative of private citizens.

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Preceding provided by Worlod Jewish Congress.

Neither roots nor identity will do it

By Rabbi Dow Marmur

 JERUSALEM–There’s almost always more to politics than meets the eye. Hapless observers like myself try to read between the lines but only rarely come closer to the truth. The background to the present Palestinian protests against including the Cave of Machpela in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem in Israel’s heritage list is a case in point.

 Instead of making the customary speech about foreign policy at the annual Herzliya Conference a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu chose to speak about the duty of Israelis to find their roots in the land and the joy of doing it. Though he didn’t say it explicitly, it’s reasonable to assume that he had the whole of the Land of Israel in mind, on both sides of the Green Line. This made it, then, into a very political speech.

Originally, perhaps for tactical reasons, the aforementioned two sites in the West Bank were not included in his list, but probably yielding to pressure from its right-wing coalition members, the government relented. Then all hell broke lose. Palestinians in Hebron have been rioting for days and the unrest has now spread to Jerusalem. Foreign governments, notably the United States, have protested the decision to include the sites. 

 The storm, like so many others, will probably blow over leaving a few more scars. We may be spared the next intifada, at least for a while. But the whole incident was absolutely unnecessary, even President Shimon Peres said so in public. The government could have done what it wanted to do without rubbing it into the eyes of the Palestinians. It needn’t have been explicit about locations, but chose otherwise. Was it a bureaucratic accident or another right-wing plot? 

 As Foreign Minister Lieberman doesn’t seem to have been directly involved, I assume, perhaps in error, that this time it wasn’t an attempt to deliberately provoke Palestinians and annoy others. But there’re underlying issues which should concern us.

As I suggested before, Netanyahu’s speech about hiking instead of foreign policy should probably be seen in the context of the speech he made a few days later to the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency, this time not about Jewish roots but, given the Diaspora context, about Jewish identity.

It seems that politicians have come to realize that as neither religion nor Zionism get much traction nowadays, roots as a prescription for Israelis and identity as a formula for the Diaspora may have been chosen as alternatives. They must know that  commitment to Judaism (as tradition knows it) is weakening among Israelis – they haven’t yet woken up to the quest for “spirituality” that now goes on among them -  and that neither Zionism nor Israel is as central to Diaspora life as it was a generation ago. They’re, therefore, trying to rally the troops with new slogans.

Whereas the call to Jewish identity isn’t likely to lead to riots among Gentiles, the call for seeking roots in part of the Land of Israel that Palestinians consider as their own has done precisely that. Analysts are now asking whether it was all necessary. As the immaturity that seems to be at the heart of much of politics, particularly in Israel, won’t lead to a retraction from the government, we’ll have to learn to live with another “issue.”

I for one won’t be looking at burial sites to find my roots when in Israel, or at others to determine my own identity when in Canada. Wherever I’m in the world I intend to continue to look to God for help and guidance in these confusing and troubling times.  

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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.  He now divides his time between Canada and Israel.

“The Ballad of Emmett Till”: murder of a martyr

By Cynthia Citron

 LOS ANGELES – In September 1955, after a four-day trial, a jury of white men took a little over an hour to acquit the two men who had brutally murdered a 14-year-old black boy in rural Mississippi.  The murder, the trial, and numerous subsequent investigations became part of the compelling history of the Civil Rights Movement, and the 14-year-old Emmett Till became one of its early martyrs.

Since the ‘50s Till’s story has been told in countless newspaper and magazine articles, television plays and documentaries, and even in song.  The newest adaptation is Ifa Bayeza’s dramatic “The Ballad of Emmett Till,” currently having its west coast premiere at The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles.

 Bayeza’s tale begins as a light-hearted (and, unfortunately lightweight) tale of a cocky young boy from Chicago, surrounded by a loving mother and stepfather, a stereotypical wise old grandmother, and a cohort of mischievous friends.  Lorenz Arnell plays Emmett with a brash self-confidence that often borders on the smarmy, while the other four principals in the cast alternate as a multitude of characters, some charming, some superfluous.

Sent for a summer work-holiday to his great-uncle’s farm in Mississippi, Emmett is given a mild word of caution:  be careful around white folks and “never look them in the eye.”  But nobody cautioned him about whistling, and so he offers a complimentary whistle to a pretty young white girl and thus seals his own fate.

Incensed by this “insult,” the girl’s brothers forcibly steal Emmett from his great-uncle’s home, determined to teach him a lesson.  According to one of the murderers, who was interviewed by a reporter for Look Magazine after the acquittal, they had only intended to “scare him into line by pistol-whipping him and threatening to throw him off a cliff.”  But they became enraged, they said, when, contrary to their expectations, Till never showed any fear, never appeared to believe that they would actually kill him, and maintained a “defiant attitude” about his “crime.”  Thus, they “had no choice” but to kill him, they said.

None of this part of the story appears in Bayeza’s drama, however.  Instead, the play veers abruptly from idyllic scenes of Till’s carefree boyhood and playful immaturity to the long, harrowing ordeal of his sudden murder in Mississippi.  Performed behind a scrim and in shadowy silhouette, the murder is drawn-out, unconvincing, and oddly, evoking more apathy than empathy.  Perhaps it is the abruptness of the transition from one mood to the other or the unbelievable senselessness of the crime and its punishment, but the play does not sufficiently plumb the depths of its horror and move the audience to the degree its author undoubtedly intended.

Although Emmett Till’s murder provided some timely impetus to the early Civil Rights Movement, it took nearly a decade before the Movement finally gained universal support, following another episode of senseless murder.  That crime involved the killing, again in Mississippi, of three young civil rights workers: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney.

 In “The Ballad of Emmett Till” Bernard Addison, Rico E. Anderson, Adenrele Ojo, and Karen Malina White do a good job with their multiple parts, and Shirley Jo Finney, who took over the direction after the tragic murder of The Fountain’s Ben Bradley, keeps everyone moving in a timely manner.  But the play itself just doesn’t jell.  It is neither an uninhibited paean to the unencumbered life nor a chilling exposition of brutality.  Instead, it is 90 minutes of inchoate and unfulfilled potential.

 “The Ballad of Emmett Till” will continue at The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 through April 3rd.  Call (323) 663-1525 for reservations.

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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World.

If they want “justice” so badly, let us by all means give them justice

 

By Bruce S. Ticker

PHILADELPHIA–Welcome back to America, ambassador. 

Michael Oren, who grew up in northern New Jersey before moving to Israel, experienced firsthand the crude tug-of-war between advocates for Israel and the Arabs.

 The newly-minted Israeli ambassador to the United States was shouted down by a group of Arab students at the University of California, Irvine, on Monday, Feb. 8. The criminal disruption exemplifies – but hardly exceeds – the vicious nature of many recent incidents arising from the Israeli-Arab conflict. You are not in West Orange any more, Michael Oren.

 The debate in America and our Canadian neighbor has been anything but civil discourse. While neither side is pure, the pro-Arab corner can praise itself for employing perhaps 80 percent of the disgusting tactics that characterize the conflict.

 The 11 thugs who were arrested after disrupting Oren’s talk are altar boys compared to some of their compatriots in Manhattan, Toronto, Philadelphia and Miami Beach. They habitually employ tasteless tactics, level broad-based accusations, distort the facts, compare Israel to Nazi Germany, commit low-level criminal offenses and downright lie.

The incident at UCI is appalling, but there have been far worse episodes – some a matter of personal experience. When Oren spoke, intruders had spread out through the audience of 500 and interrupted him 10 times. “Israel is a murderer,” one shouted. “How many Palestinians did you kill?” cried another.

 Oren left the stage after the first four outbursts and returned 20 minutes later to withstand six more verbal assaults before dozens of jeering students stormed out to conduct a demonstration outside, according to The Los Angeles Jewish Journal and other media sources.

 The reception at UCI should have been a cakewalk for the ambassador. Oren grew up in the suburb of West Orange, west of Newark, before moving to Israel, and survived a Syrian ambush in Lebanon in 1982 while serving as a paratrooper. He also served in the two-front war against Hamas and Hezbollah in 2006 and last year’s invasion of Gaza. In between, he wrote two best-selling books, “Six Days of War” and “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East.”

 The hecklers at UCI also face possible disciplinary action, which could include expulsion.

 That same night, in nearby Los Angeles, a small group of demonstrators were escorted out of a room at the UCLA School of Law after they filed into line in front of an Israeli speaker, legal advisor Daniel Taub, and stood in silence with signs taped to their stomachs reading “Turn Your Backs on War Crimes,” the Journal reported. Taub spoke about the Goldstone report.

 The California events reflect a long tradition of offensive conduct. Early in the past decade, activists chose Miami Beach’s Holocaust memorial for an anti-Israel demonstration that afforded comparisons of Israeli tactics to Hitler’s storm troopers.

 Outside Philadelphia’s Israeli consulate, protesters burned an Israeli flag and marched for a mile to Independence Hall, tying up rush-hour traffic. Pro-Arab students at the University of Pennsylvania crafted Israeli-style checkpoints on campus to prevent other students from moving freely between classes, forcing them to discover how the poor Palestinians feel when they must wait at checkpoints on the West Bank.

 They chose Israel anniversary festivals in Boston and San Francisco to gather en masse outside the festival sites and make certain that attendees could hear their taunts. If memory serves, Jews at the Boston site had to pass through a gauntlet of demonstrators to reach the event site.

 These activists have disrupted pro-Israel speakers at other venues, including Benjamin Netanyahu in Canada a few years before he was elected prime minister of Israel last year.

 Several months ago, Jewish students at York University in Toronto were chased by dissidents to the campus Hillel office, and these ruffians surrounded the place and would not let them leave. In Berkeley, Calif., pro-Arab supporters vandalized a site associated with Jewish students. Did I mention my personal experiences? I’ll summarize:

 At Times Square last year, I was part of a small counter-protest after more than 700 protesters against the Gaza war had formed. The 30 of us were kept a block away, yet a few hundred of them surged to the corner across from us taunting and shouting at us. “Shame on you!” a chorus screamed at one point. A few held aloft some shoes, as did the Iraqi who tossed his shoes at President Bush, and someone tossed a few small objects across the street at us.

 At a government office, a senior manager tacked up a poster on a bulletin board that depicted a Palestinian flag accompanied by the words, “There will be no peace until there is justice.” She posted a similar sign two days later. Jewish employees, myself included, regarded these signs as anti-Israel and filed complaints with an anti-discrimination agency. The agency rebuffed us, contending that this was a free-speech issue even though she knowingly created a hostile environment.

 What to do? Above all, press law enforcement authorities to swiftly enforce the law when these goons so much as jaywalk. As noted above, colleges and employers should impose disciplinary action and victims should inquire about complaints with anti-discrimination agencies. Offenders who are not citizens should be referred to immigration.

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Bruce S. Ticker is a freelance journalist in Philadelphia. He can be reached at Bticker@comcast.net.

Ontario province condemns Israel Apartheid Week

 

 

PRESS RELEASE (WJC)–The legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario has condemned ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ which is taking place in Universities around the world. All 30 members of the 107-seat provincial legislature who were present on February 25 voted for the resolution that denounced the campus event which began on 01 March at universities and colleges in 35 cities around the world. Israel Apartheid Week events and speakers are scheduled at several university campuses across Ontario.

The Israeli Apartheid Week incites “hatred against Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights, and the use of the word ‘apartheid’ in this context diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa,” Conservative legislator Peter Shurman told Shalom Life, a Toronto-based Jewish Web site.

“If you’re going to label Israel as apartheid, then you are also calling Canada apartheid and you are attacking Canadian values,” he said. “The use of the phrase ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I’m not certain it doesn’t actually cross over that line.”

Jewish students across Canada have launched several campaigns to counter Israel Apartheid Week. Meanwhile, York University in Toronto canceled a pro-Israel event that had been scheduled for Feb. 22, citing “security” concerns. One of the speakers was to have been conservative U.S. scholar Daniel Pipes,  who spoke at York in 2003 amid threats of violence. 

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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress

The Jews Down Under–Roundup of Australian Jewish News

 

Compiled by Garry Fabian

Community pays tribute to Michael Danby 
 
NELBOURNE,  24 February -  MP Michael Danby showed his pulling power, gathering the entire Jewish community’– from Adass rabbis to Progressive parents, from Melbourne and Sydney– under the same roof.
 
More than 400 people attended a function at the St Kilda Town Hall on February 15 to pay tribute to Danby’s work in the electorate for more than 11 years.
 
Joining them was Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, plus a gaggle of senior government figures including Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services Bill Shorten and NSW Supreme Court Justice Stephen Rothman.
 
They paid tribute to the MP’ss efforts in securing millions of dollars worth of government funding for Jewish school safety.
 
Shorten introduced the Deputy PM, who also serves as Education Minister, beginning his speech with a well-pronounced “shalom chaverim”.
 
Gillard was received with a standing ovation and spoke passionately in support of a strong education system. 
 
“There is nothing more important we can do as a community than make sure every child goes to a great school,” she said.
 
She praised Jewish schools, saying if the government could “bottle” what they have, Australian schools would be stronger and fairer.
 
It was a cause taken up by Danby in his speech. “I hope, rather than just basking in the glory of myself, this is a process for all Australian schools to emulate: the success of Jewish schools.”
 
Justice Rothman explained the genesis of Danby’s work lobbying for funding for security for Jewish schools.
 
It began in 2000, when the Olympics in Sydney and the raging Second Intifada saw unprecedented security needs at NSW Jewish schools. At the time, the community was spending $4 million every year keeping a few thousand students safe.
 
It took years, but Danby’s persistent lobbying paid off, and by 2007 it was an ALP electionpromise to spend $20 million of taxpayer money securing schools. That promise was kept and already more than $5 million has been dished out to Jewish schools with more to come.
 
The co-chair of the Australian Council of Jewish Schools extolled some of Danby’s other contributions: his work, motivated by his family’s background, to stop both sides of politics using the term “illegal immigrant” and
his strong Jewish identity, “his badge of honour”.
 
The event was organised by Victoria’s Jewish school community, and included a tribute to the late Australian Council of Jewish Schools co-chair, Ian Rockman.
 
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Remembering the Dunera Boys 
 
CANBERRA,  24 February  – A black and white image shows a group of men, well dressed in suits, brandishing big smiles as they huddle together in a small hall. Dated 1963, the photograph captures the first reunion of the wartime internees who arrived in Sydney on the military transport ship Dunera.
 
It’s a far cry from their entry to Australia two decades earlier, when more than 2500 German, Austrian and Italian internees, who were to become known as the Dunera Boys, arrived from Britain.
 
The photograph is among the items that are being exhibited at the National Library in Canberra in a special collection-in-focus exhibition marking the 70th anniversary year of the arrival of the Dunera Boys and their contribution to Australia.
 
Many of the internees were of Jewish heritage and had escaped to Britain from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, only to be interned as enemy aliens in camps in Britain in mid-1940, and then transferred to camps in rural Australia.
 
For Dunera Boys like Melbourne-based Erwin Lamm, the exhibition is chance to reflect on their momentous journey to freedom and the hardships along the way. 
 
“It changed our lives completely,” Mr Lamm, 89, reflects. “It brought us to Australia, which in a way was a blessing. Certainly we haven’t forgotten it. It’s good it’s being brought to public notice again.”
 
But marking the seven decades since the Dunera arrived in Australia has also conjured up some harrowing memories for Mr Lamm, who lost his family during the Holocaust. 

“It was very unpleasant, unjust, [there was] no sense to say we should be interned,  but at the same time, bearing in mind what happened in the rest of the world, to our people and my parents and so forth, we dont complain about it because it” s minor to what happened over there.”

 Mr Lamm recalls being among a group of some 200 Jewish interns who overcame many challenges in order to maintain their Jewish traditions. 

“We tried to stick to kashrut. The group kept Shabbat and had kosher food. So whatever difficulties and circumstances we found in our lives, we had to keep to our culture and our way of life and wait until good times came again.”

Good times did indeed come for Mr Lamm. Now with a large family– he has two children, six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and another one on the way– Mr Lamm says despite the unpleasant journey, he is proud to call Australia home. 
 
“I am happy to be in Australia now,” he enthuses. “I’m happy that I met my wife here and that I have a wonderful family who follow on the same traditions my parents would have wanted us to keep.”
 
Mr Lamm has donated a photo to the exhibition, which will be among the many objects that celebrate the Dunera Boys’ significant contribution to Australian society.
 
Most of the items in the exhibition are drawn from the National Library’s growing collection of prints, drawings, manuscripts, newspapers, books and music. Visitors will have the opportunity to hear excerpts from unique oral histories recorded by some of the 850 internees who chose to stay in Australia. Much of the material has never been exhibited before.
 
The Dunera Boys: Seventy Years On is showing at the Visitor Centre, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
 
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Maccabi International games launched 
 
SYDNEY,  25 February – The Maccabi Australia International Games (MAIGs) have been launched in Sydney with a special function and a fireworks display over Darling Harbour.
 
The games will be held from December 26 to January 2, 2011 in Sydney.
 
At the function on February 14 there were speeches from Maccabi Australia president Harry Procel, 2010 MAIGs chairman Jeff Houseman and 2006 MAIGs chief executive Karen Grega.
 
The 170-strong crowd, which was well supported by Maccabi NSW?s clubs, and included the president of US Maccabi Ron Carter and his wife Talia, was entertained throughout the night. 
 
“It was about getting out to the community, letting them know we’ve got the games, the venues, the social,” Houseman said. 
 
“The thrust now is to get the Australian team together and it’s extremely important we [also] work with the countries very closely so that they’ll compete in the majority of the sports that are up there. I’m reasonably confident we’ll
have 800-1000 ­athletes [both] internationally and Australian.”
 
Houseman hopes to have a firmer indication of numbers by the end of March, with a March 31 deadline for countries to get their first entry forms in signalling priority sports.
 
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Aussie Research may clear organ transplant Halacha 
 
MELBOURNE,  25 February - An  Australian campaigner is hoping more Jewish Australians will register as organ donors now that new research may have found a way of circumventing halachic restrictions.
 
Dr Ronnie Goldberg, a dentist, and enthusiastic advocate for organ donation, is thrilled about the latest milestone in world-beating Australian medical research.
 
It enables vital body organs to be harvested for transplants as late as several hours after life-support systems have been switched off and cardiac death, the final stage of mortality, has occurred.
 
The new procedure “which so far applies to lungs and kidneys but may eventually be relevant for other body parts” does not require intervention at the earlier “brain dead” stage, said Dr Goldberg.
 
It skirts the prickly halachic issue of whetherbrain death constitutes actual death. The “brain death” definition is broadly accepted in the mainstream Orthodox Jewish community, but is still queried in ultra-Orthodox circles, which
claim that as long as the heart is pumping, life remains.
 
Dr Goldberg, who chairs the Have A Heart Project through the Rotary Club of Williamstown, said he became an avid supporter of organ donation some years ago after learning that in 2003, 140 Australians died waiting for a lifesaving organ. 
 
“That figure included 20 children,” he said.
 
The Rotarian added that Australia has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the developed world.
 
The Donations after Cardiac Death (DCD) research is spearheaded by Professor Greg Snell, the medical head of the lung transplant service at Melbourne’s The Alfred hospital.
 
In 2009, Prof Snell reported 24 DCD donor kidney transplants performed in Victoria.
 
Reporting to Rotary of Williamstown, which has so far raised more than $250,000 for the research, Prof Snell said the unit hopes to take the research to an upcoming conference of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation in Chicago.
 
Dr Goldberg hopes the Australian organ removal method will eventually be adopted in Israel.
 
Talks are underway with Israeli medical ethicist Rabbi Dr Avraham Steinberg of Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, a halachic authority on transplants.
 
Orthodox rabbinical opinion in Australia rejects any unwarranted interference with a corpse before burial, but pikuach nefesh, the act of saving a life, takes priority.
 
The debate emerges over what constitutes death, but the ability to harvest organs well after cardiac death may allay these halachic concerns.
 
Rabbi Fred Morgan, senior rabbi of Temple Beth Israel, said that for the purpose of harvesting organs, Progressive rabbis generally agree death takes place at the brain death phase.
 
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Australia-Israel Alliance rocked by alleged passport fraud 
 
CANBERRA, 25 February – The close alliance between Australia and Israel is on shaky ground after Foreign Minister Stephen Smith confronted Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem over the alleged fraudulent use of Australian passports by Israeli secret agents.
 
In a statement to Federal Parliament on Thursday morning (February 25), Smith confirmed that the passports of three Australians ­ Joshua Bruce, Adam Korman and Nicole McCabe ­ had been found in Dubai.
 
He said there has not been any evidence that these Australian citizens were involved in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas.
 
Smith said an investigation is being undertaken by the Australian Federal Police and local security agencies to determine whether the three passports were tampered with and used fraudulently. 
 
“I made it clear to the ambassador that the Australian Government regards this as a matter of the gravest concern,” Smith told Parliament. “I underlined to Ambassador Rotem that Australia expected the Israeli Government, its officials and its agencies, to cooperate fully and transparently with the Australian Federal Police investigation into this matter.”
 
In a media conference on Thursday, Smith said he had a five-to-six minute conversation with Rotem that morning. 
 
“If we did not receive that cooperation [from Israel] we would potentially draw adverse conclusions from that,” Smith said.
 
Israel has not confirmed or denied its involvement in the assassination of al-Mabhouh.
 
Smith said if an investigation by the Australian Federal Police and security agencies find Israel implicated in the passport fraud, the close alliance between the countries would be in serious jeopardy. 
 
“Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend,” he said.
 
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Mary McKillop’s Jewish Connection 
 
MELBOURNE,  25 February – Trevor Cohen is elated that Mary MacKillop has been canonised. A famous forebear of his had a big impact on the life of Australia’s first saint.
 
The Melbourne history buff, a former president of the Australian Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), Victoria , has researched the life of his great-great-great uncle, Emanuel Solomon, one of 19th century Adelaide’s most colourful characters.
 
Solomon, a London-born hawker, was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1818 for possession of stolen property. After his emancipation, he became a successful businessman and a colourful member of South Australia’s fledgling Jewish community.
 
Solomon married three times and entered South Australia’s parliament.
 
The philanthropist was drawn to MacKillop’s extensive charitable work, and twice took action to help her and her order.
 
Solomon first met the Melbourne-born nun in Adelaide in 1868, when he rescued her order from overcrowded rented premises after they vacated their convent to make room for a visiting Dominican order.
 
Three years later, after a dispute over education practices with Bishop Laurence Sheil, MacKillop was excommunicated for insubordination, and she and the other nuns were evicted from their convent.
 
Cohen said that when the sisters had nowhere to go, Solomon came to their rescue again, providing a house, rent-free, for as long as they required.
 
A letter from MacKillop to a mentor reveals her gratitude to Solomon, and she later wrote that “the kindness shown by the Jewish community has been remarkable”.
 
In 1883, the church expelled MacKillop and her order from Adelaide, and they re-established themselves in Sydney.
 
The historian has addressed the present-day descendants of the Sisters of St Joseph “MacKillop’s order” at its North Sydney convent, where a nun?s dormitory has been named Solomon Terrace.
 
Cohen, whose paper on Solomon was published by the AJHS, believes his ancestor’s philanthropy sprung from the suffering he had endured as a convict. 
 
“Upon Emanuel’s death in 1873, there is no mention of his convict past in his obituary.” 
 
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Maccabi mourn loss of Ian Gray 
 
SYDNEY,  25 February – Maccabi New South Wales (NSW) is slowly coming to grips with the sudden passing of Ian Gray, as the club reflects on the former Socceroos’ legacy, while trying to fill the “irreplaceable” void that he leaves behind. 
 
“This hit like a tsunami through Maccabi,” said Youth Development League (YDL) chairman Jon Marcuson, who knew “Iggy” for all of his 15-year involvement with the club. 
 
“He was such a great coach, a good bloke. Such a loss.” 
 
All Maccabi soccer clubs cancelled training for the week out of respect, and a minute’s silence was held and black armbands worn at the YDL intra-club trials on Sunday.
 
Each team, from juniors to the club’s most senior masters, held their own gatherings through the week, and both Maccabi and the Jewish schools organised counsellors for the kids.
 
There has been a genuine outpouring of grief and shock for Gray, who was found dead in his Sydney apartment on February 15. A “RIP Iggy” Facebook page has been flooded with eulogies from its 557 members, with its creator, under-15 YDL player Ryan Miller, writing: “We all love you and miss you. You were not only our coach; you were our
brother and mentor. You were always so happy and never in a bad mood. You were always the first to make a joke and always the quickest to make a comeback. Life will never be the same without you.”

 Maccabi NSW has also been flooded with reflections, which will be put in hard copy and given to Gray’s family, with another copy to be kept at Maccabi headquarters. YDL’s end-of-year trophies will also be re-named in his honour.
 
Senior club president Jon Pillemer said: “What are the lessons that he taught us that left an indelible mark on our lives.” 
 
“He was a good person before he was a good footballer”–the hallmark of the guy was he treated everyone the same, whether you were the star or the sub– he taught our kids valuable lessons, not just on the football field. 
 
But the reality set in when Maccabi’s teams returned to the field this week. Not only was Gray the “sounding board” for Marcuson and Pillemer’s “first port of call”, he coached the under-15s, AA1s, AA2s and Grand Masters.
 
Calls have been put out to contacts to find senior coaches, while Gray’s assistant, Laurence Braude, will take the mantle of the under-15s, to the delight of the young squad.
 
Media reports have painted a salacious picture of Gray’s final hours. Twenty-two-year-old escort Sherryn Marie Davis of Richmond, NSW, has been charged with manslaughter, theft and supplying a prohibited drug. But the expected turnout of hundreds of mourners at the Salvation Army Church, where six Maccabi juniors will be ushers, will help ensure he is remembered for what he brought to Maccabi and football at large.
 
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Another birthday for Australia’s oldest Jew 
 
MELBOURNE,  26 February – Mary Rothstein, who is believed to be Australia’s oldest Jew and possibly the world’s oldest Jew, will celebrate her 109th birthday on Saturday.
 
Born in Russia on February 27, 1901, Mrs Rothstein could possibly hold the international title of oldest Jew, following the death earlier this month of Switzerland’s Rosa Rein, a few weeks shy of her 113th birthday.
 
A high-care resident at Jewish Care, Mrs Rothstein is active and coherent, enjoying regular bingo and word games and participating in many of the activities on offer at Gary Smorgon House, where she recently moved from the Smorgon Nursing Home.
 
Twice a grandmother and six times a great-grandmother, Mrs Rothstein knows all her family by name and remembers the months of their birthdays.
 
Daughter Ruth Cavallaro credits her mother’s longevity to her active life, said that her “mother ” was always on the go [and] loved to keep herself busy.
 
And a busy life she has had. At the age of two, Mrs Rothstein moved to London with her parents and four siblings. In 1935, she married  “the love of [her] life” Joe Rothstein, giving birth to her daughter Ruth in 1936.
 
The family remained in England during the war, where Mrs Rothstein ran her own millinery business making hats for the royal family, before migrating to Australia in 1958.
 
Maintaining her ties to fashion, Mrs Rothstein worked at Myer, where she admits to lying about her age “only the once” in order to continue working beyond the then mandatory retirement age of 65.
 
When asked her secret to her long life on her 106th birthday, the kosher-eating, non-drinking, non-smoking great-grandmother was uncertain.”I can’t understand why I’ve lived so long. It doesn’t seem possible,” she said.
 
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Rabbi Telsner rejects Yeshiva petition 
 
MELBOURNE,  25 February – Yeshiva Centre dayan Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Telsner has rejected a petition asking for a controversial sign to be removed from Chabad’s central synagogue.
 
In response, petition organisers have proposed to take the matter to a higher authority for a ruling, citing Lubavitch headquarters in New York as potential mediators.
 
For 18 years, a large sign with the words of the prayer Yechi has been hanging at the back of the Yeshivah synagogue. But following the ostracising of a group known as the “Moshiach Men” from the Chabad community, synagogue members petitioned to have the sign removed.
 
They argued it was divisive and gave oxygen to those fringe members who believe the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the messiah.
 
Responding to the petition last week, Rabbi Telsner said the sign would remain in the Hotham Street shul, in line with a ruling by the late head of the Yeshivah Centre, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner. 
 
“I see no reason to change the status quo and am upholding Rabbi Groner”s psak [ruling] in relation to this matter,” he wrote in a letter to Yeshivah congregants.
 
But many members have responded angrily. Community stalwart Emmanuel Althaus said Rabbi Telsner had selectively quoted Rabbi Groner’s ruling.
 
Rabbi Groner’s full ruling, he explained, also banned the shouting out of the Yechi prayer– a practice that continues to this day, despite leaving many members feeling uncomfortable.
 
Althaus said with Rabbi Telsner’s inaction, the matter has just been swept under the carpet. 
 
“This issue, irrespective of the individuals involved, is going to keep on bubbling, it has not been resolved,” he said, criticising the lack of accountability and transparency within the Yeshivah.
 
Menachem Vorchheimer, one of the petition’s organisers, has proposed the matter be escalated and referred to Merkos, the Lubavitch headquarters, in New York. 
 
“It is apparent that legacy issues and conflict of interest present a roadblock standing in the way of Rabbi Telsner making an objective decision based on current circumstances and with respect to the future of Yeshivah,” Vorchheimer said.  “We have respectfully made our views clear in this regard.” 
 
The Melbourne businessman argued that if not resolved by Merkos, the issue could cause “further irreparable damage to Chabad Lubavitch in Melbourne and elsewhere.”
 
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Australia changes Israel vote at UN 
 
CANBERRA,  1 March – Australia has softened its traditionally staunch support for Israel in the United Nations but denied this was linked to tensions over Israel’s apparent use of forged Australian passports in an assassination in Dubai.
 
At a vote on Saturday (Melbourne time) in the UN General Assembly – where it has been one of Israel’s strongest supporters – Australia abstained from a resolution demanding that Israel and the Hamas authorities in Gaza investigate possible war crimes during Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008.
 
Three months ago, Australia voted against a similar resolution which sought to endorse the Goldstone Report – a UN-sponsored paper that said there was evidence Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes.
 
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday the change was not related to the passport scandal and that Australia abstained because the latest resolution did not specifically endorse the report.
 
”Our vote on the resolution was neither determined nor influenced by recent events,” he said.
 
”The Australian government always considers United Nations resolutions on a case-by-case basis and on their merits. Australia abstained on this resolution because, unlike previous resolutions, it did not endorse the Goldstone Report.”
 
But a source in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stated there was no doubt the abstention was intended as a sign to Israel not to take Australian support for its actions for granted.
 
”A number of things made it easier for us to switch our vote,” the source said.
 
”But there is no question that the debacle surrounding our passports being used in Dubai helped to make up the government’s mind to abstain. The final decision was taken late on Friday, Australian time, a few hours before the vote.
 
”Our pattern in the past has been to vote with the United States when it comes to Israel, to show as much support for Israel as possible.
 
”We were also aware that the UK’s decision to vote in favour of the resolution was influenced by the fact that so many of their citizens had been caught up in the Dubai assassination.”
 
Privately, Israeli officials expressed little concern at the result of the vote.
 
Six other countries also changed their votes, including Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Some countries, such as Britain, France and New Zealand, shifted from abstention to supporting the resolution.
 
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop yesterday accused the government of downgrading its support for Israel as part of its campaign to win a UN Security Council seat.
 
”I don’t understand the government’s change of heart,” she told The Age yesterday.
 
”The Coalition’s position has been consistent. Having voted against the Goldstone Report, we would continue to vote against it ? Since coming to office the government has weakened Australia’s long-held position of supporting Israel at the United Nations,” Ms Bishop said.
 
Mr Smith last week summoned the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, over the apparent use of three forged Australian passports by Israeli spies in the assassination of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.
 
Mr Smith warned that if Israel was behind the forgeries ”Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend”.
 
Israel has refused to confirm or deny involvement in the assassination. The Israeli embassy in Canberra would not comment yesterday on the passport scandal or Australia’s UN vote.
 
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has described himself as a lifelong supporter of Israel, indicated on Saturday he did not believe Israel’s response to the incident was acceptable.
 
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has been far more reluctant to reprimand Israel and demanded that the government should wait for ”the full facts.”

The Rudd government has shifted Australia’s position on three other UN votes on the Middle East, including moves to oppose Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and to support Palestinian self-determination.
 
But Mr Smith has been fiercely critical of the Goldstone Report, saying it lacked balance, was excessively focused on Israeli actions and paid insufficient attention to Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
 
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Community leaders issue sobering Purim warning 
 
MELBOURNE, 26 February – With Purim approaching, community leaders have once again issued a warning to parents and children about the dangers of alcohol abuse.
 
The sobering reminder is particularly pertinent with the eve of the festival this year falling on a Saturday. 
 
“With the approach of Purim, we are very concerned to ensure that everyone in our community–be it parents, schools, rabbis or community leaders do their utmost to ensure the youth appreciate the dangers of under-age
drinking, said John Searle, president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria. 
 
“” The responsibility, I think, is shared by all those groups to not only give the right message, but to also set the right example by their actions.” 
 
President of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) Rabbi Yaakov Glasman issued a firm statement to member rabbis, urging affiliates to address the matter in their weekly sermons. The RCV statement referred to the notion of
celebrating Purim by excessive drinking as “unfounded.” 
 
“The RCV wishes to  make it abundantly clear to all members of the Jewish community, particularly Jewish teenagers and young adults, that excessive alcohol consumption, which can lead to endangering one’s life or the life of others, as
well as the possibility of the chilul Hashem [desecration of God?s name] often associated with intoxication, is unequivocally prohibited at all times according to halachah, including on Purim,” the statement read. 
 
“We strongly caution adults and youth leaders against the misguided practice of supplying alcohol to minors with the belief that this somehow constitutes the mitzvah of spreading joy during the festival of Purim. 
 
Brad Hampel, event planner and organiser of the annual “” Puzza” Purim party for Jewish high-school students, stressed he is doing all he can to ensure a safe party for youngsters. 
 
“We are taking all possible measures to provide a fun, safe environment for all attending,” Hampel said. “The onus is on parents to ensure their children are not drinking prior to arriving. They should drop their children off and watch them walk into the party, and then pick them up again at the end of the night.”
“We have zero tolerance for alcohol and drugs.”

 
Hampel said all partygoers will be searched and screened by a metal detector upon arrival. Anyone intoxicated will be turned away and once inside, students will not be allowed out and back in again. About 1000 are expected to attend, with the proceeds of the event to be donated to the March of the Living program.