"The Left Have Hijacked the Public Discourse" (And How!)

Here's Alan Freedman, vice-president of the Australian Jewish Association, ably and justifiably calling out the unconscionable intolerance of today's Woke Warriors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI38SzSSA4o

Which brings me to this horrible piece of Wokism issued some days ago. To read this vomitous statement from the American Reform Movement is to revisit that equally vomitous slogan of crackpot radicals during the 1960s: "we are all guilty".  It's not so much a call for bridge-building and compassion, which needless to say are admirable objectives, as a one-sided exercise in self-flagellation and group demonisation. 

"Black Lives Matter is Jewish value" the statement declares, going on to castigate "white Jews" for their collusion (more supposed than real), in keeping black Americans down.  It's as if the visible Jewish presence in the Civil Rights era never happened.  It's as if there are no antisemitic or anti-Israel aspects to the organised Black Lives Matter movement.

Of course "Black Lives Matter", along with the lives of every human being on this earth, of whatever hue our skin happens to be.  That's why many of us, Jew and non-Jew, prefer the slogan "All Lives Matter", since all of us are made in the image of our Creator: that is why the concept "All Lives Matter" can be considered a Jewish value.

But try telling that to some of the politically biased bigots both in and outside the Reform movement and you risk being smeared as a racist.  They should know that Judaism is not a racist religion and that Jews who harbour contempt for their fellow human beings are, fortunately, few and far between.

As Rabbi Chaim Ingram of Bondi, the famous beach suburb in Australia, a man known applying sound common sense to socio-political questions andrefusing to be intimidated by leftist and "politically correct" activists has admirably stated, inter alia, in a recent post on his blog:

"....  Judaism is not racist and never has been.

In a very powerful statement to this effect, the Mishna declares: (Snahedrin 4:5): Why was Adam created singly? So that no-one would be able to say to another: My (racial) ancestor was greater than yours!

Our sages in the Midrash (Mekhilta Shemot 20:1) ask rhetorically why the Torah was given in the no-man’s land of a desert and not in the Land of Israel? They answer: so that no nation could complain that they did not have an opportunity to accept it.

A few paragraphs earlier in the same Midrash we are told that indeed, there in the desert, all the nations, one by one, beginning with Edom, Ammon,, Moab, and Ishmael, were explicitly offered the opportunity to accept the Torah. All refused because one or other of the mitsvot they were offered was not to their liking.

Whether or not this Midrash is to be taken literally, the message it conveys is plain: Every nation had potentially an equal opportunity to accept the Torah. Am Yisrael became G-D’s chosen nation not because of any racial superiority but because only they chose to accept the Torah unconditionally (Exodus 24:7). It is the Torah alone upon which Jewish distinctiveness is predicated.

Moreover, any individual of any nation may voluntarily accept the Torah (as indeed Jethro the priest of Midian pioneeringly did) and become Jewish.....  

Let me leave the last word to R’ Aharon haLevi, revered 13th-century author of the famous rabbinic educational treatise on the 613 commandments, Sefer haChinukh (Book of Mitsva Education): If someone …..has set in his heart a firm hatred towards them [here he talks about the progeny of Edom descended from Esau but it is equally applicable to all nations] because they come from a different race, he violates [a] …prohibitive commandment [of the Torah] (Mitsva #563)

Judaism was already avowedly anti-racist millennia before “racism” ever became a word or a concept in the dictionaries of the world’s nations!...."

 And read Rabbi Ingram's well justified strictures regarding the Australian BLM protesters' unconscionable flouting of governmental pleas not to hoild mass rallies during the present coronavirus pandemic, here                                                                                   

An Australian Jewish Spokesman on Double Standards & the Middle East (video)

No leftist nonsense here.

Just plain commonsense.

 Dr David Adler, head of  the Australian Jewish Association, in his latest interview by the Outsiders panel on Sky News.

An Australian Medico's "Cruel Misrepresentation" of the Shoah

Few remarks regarding the Holocaust can be as frightfully disgusting as those made by a senior Australian doctor, Paul Bauert, comparing the plight of (immigration queue-jumping) "asylum seekers" at present detained offshore, and Jews incarcerated in the Auschwitz death camp.

As reported in The Australian newspaper,

'The paediatric representative from Australia’s peak medical body has suggested asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru are in a worse situation than Jews in Auschwitz because people who knew they were going to be gassed by the Nazis “found some sense of relief in knowing what was happening”.

Paul Bauert of the Australian Medical Association [pictured]... said the mental health of detainees in Manus and Nauru had deteriorated because there was no certainty about their future.

 “The main reason for the impairment of mental health — as Viktor Frankl the psychiatrist from Auschwitz described very well in his book Man’s Search for Meaning — the main problem that these people have is a lack of meaning, a lack of any end to what is going on, a lack of certainty,” Dr Bauert told Sky News.

 “And this more than anything causes severe mental health damage. Even those who finally knew they were about to be condemned to the gas chamber at least found some sense of relief in knowing what was happening.” ....'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjA7bxH4uRE

He's been shamed into tweeting an apology of sorts for his foul comparison: 

“My comments this morning were intended to reflect the writings of an eminent Jewish psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz. The words I used did not convey the complexity of what he wrote. My deep apologies for causing offence. Auschwitz was a humanitarian disgrace."

In a Sky News interview with Peta Credlin, Peter Wertheim, joint CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), has robustly condemned Bauert's odious remarks, terming them "an offensive dumbing down of history," "extremely cruel to the few Holocaust survivors we have left", and "a cruel misrepresentation of what these people actually went through".

And the ECAJ has not surprisngly and quite justifiably made a formal protest to the Australian Medical Association, terming Bauert's apology on Twitter "inadequate".

As Dr David Adler, president of the non-leftist Australian Jewish Association (AJA), has written:
 :

"I worked for the AMA as Deputy Medical Secretary when it was a quality professional organisation in the past. That’s where I learnt something about policy and advocacy. I put my heart and soul into it and have a sense of gratitude for the experience and contacts gained during my time there. So it is distressing to see the decline of this once prestigious and respected body."

Declares the AJA:

"Trying to conflate an analogy with the Holocaust to support the "Medivac" Bill of Dr Kerryn Phelps is a shameful disgrace.

The Holocaust was a systematic attempt on an industrial scale to exterminate an entire people. Whatever your view of off-shore detention, it is nothing of the sort and to link the two is as ridiculous as it is offensive.

Dr Paul Bauert for the Australian Medical Association (AMA) even suggests that Holocaust victims found some sense of relief in knowing what was happening as they were taken to gas chambers. He is grossly in error - many Holocaust victims were deliberately misled with the gas chambers disguised as shower blocks.. Even the Zyclon B gas was dispersed through shower heads.

AJA President Dr David Adler is formerly AMA Deputy Medical Secretary. He adds "It saddens me to see a once presitigous and highly professional body fracture into an ill informed political activist group. No wonder AMA membership has declined dramatically and only a minority of doctors belong".

We note that Australian security experts have warned that the Medivac Bill would result in people who present risks to others entering Australia.

Would the AMA be comfortable with the restoration of people smuggling and its associated death toll at sea? What of potential victims of those who are a security risk gaining entry? How does it reconcile this with the mission to preserve life?

The AMA stands condemned for using the Holocaust as leverage for a political agenda and meddling in matters of border security."

Aussie Islam Expert: ''I Consider it an Honour to be Vilified and Lied About for Calling Out Antisemitism"

http://www.j-air.com.au/shows/nothing-left/

I blogged here about a nascent and long overdue organisation Down Under, the Australian Jewish Association (AJA), formed by people utterly fed up with the current direction and thrust of communal leadership bodies, such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, hijacked as they evidently have been by the forces of political correctness, which too often results in a softly softly approach to issues that should be tackled head-on.  They pussyfoot when it comes to Islamic Jew-hatred but not when antisemitism (real or imagined) from non-Islamic sources are concerned.

AJA's impressive president Dr David Adler had a fine article about this sorry state of affairs in the March 2017 issue of The Spectator (Australia), focusing on the legislative segment known as 18C, under which in 2011 conservative columnist Andrew Bolt was convicted.of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act.

Inter alia:

'As anyone who has closely followed the 18C debate knows, the major secular Jewish communal bodies, particularly the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) have lobbied vigorously for the retention of 18C & 18D essentially in their current form. They also claimed a consensus in the Jewish community. However, in doing so they have misrepresented Jewish values and interests, and misled the Parliamentary Inquiry.

It is blatantly untrue that there is a consensus of support for 18C within the Jewish community. Simply reading the various Jewish publications would demonstrate this is a hotly contested subject. Various submissions were made and supported by numerous members of the Jewish community who oppose 18C. 
[Emphasis added here and below]

Prominent members of the Jewish community have published articles in support of free speech and the repeal of s.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act or amendment by deleting the criteria of ‘insult’ and ‘offend’. The Rabbinical Council of NSW has publicly made statements on 18C possibly inhibiting rabbis speaking out on moral issues if such speech may insult or offend someone. The Australian Jewish News reported this in April 2014 in an article titled ‘NSW Rabbis clash with leaders over 18C’. Leading Jewish barrister Geoffrey Bloch, in an article published in the online Jewish journal J-Wire, argues for repeal of 18C. He cites a prominent international Jewish expert, Prof. Michael Berenbaum who was involved in establishing the renowned Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Even in the case of Holocaust deniers, he argues, it is far preferable that they not be silenced, but rather be discredited and have their anti-Semitism publicly exposed.As recently as 1 December, 2016 owner and publisher of the Australian Jewish News, Robert Magid, wrote ‘When Jews act to restrict freedom of speech they undermine their argument against people like Jake Lynch and his cohort, who prevented supporters of Israel from presenting their point of view at Sydney University’. In other words, it is a dangerous two-edged sword. Magid has also published views in specific opposition to 18C in this magazine.

....It is argued by some Jewish secular bodies that 18C is needed to deal with anti-Semitism. There is not a single place on earth where this has actually worked. These laws have never solved the problem of anti-Semitism or reversed the trend of anti-Semitic incidents. We only need to look to Europe where there is now the most anti-Semitism since WWII. Many European countries have laws like 18C, some go further. The evidence is the reverse. The ECAJ, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents in Australia, reported an increase of approximately 10 per cent from 2015 to 2016 despite the presence of 18C. France in addition to 18C-type laws has had a law for over 20 years to address a specific form of anti-Semitism, namely Holocaust denial. However, there is now more Holocaust denial across France than when the law was introduced!

Further, 18C is very rarely used by the Jewish communal bodies which argue for retention – since 2010 there has been only one case litigated. 18C has never been used against anti-Semitic Islamic hate preachers. Both ECAJ and AIJAC were provided with the video of Hizb ut-Tahrir cleric Ismail al-Wahwah’s infamous racist and hateful tirade calling Jews ‘the most evil creature of Allah’ who have ‘corrupted the world’ and will ‘pay for blood with blood’. He called for the death of Jews, and declared ‘Who will set the world free from the Children of Israel so that the world will be able to say that it has rid itself of this hidden evil? This mission will be accomplished by none but you, O Muslims… The ember of jihad against the Jews will continue to burn.’ No 18C complaint was filed.

 .... Of course, legislation like 18C does not directly prevent citizens from reporting suspicious activity to police. However, it does contribute to a general environment of inhibition of certain speech. What 18C does is to unreasonably constrain free speech in a manner inconsistent with Jewish theology, academic development and values. There is no evidence that 18C is an effective tool in changing a trend of anti-Semitism (there are much more effective tools) and such a law risks serious adverse consequences.'

The footage of Ismail al-Wawwah mentioned above was shown by Dr Adler at the Melbourne launch of the AJA last Sunday, at which Dr Adler and local Anglican clergymen the Rev Dr Mark Durie, rightly billed as a "world-renowned" scholar of Islam, gave the 200 or more people present glimpses into the nature of Islamic antisemitism past and present.

Dr Adler prefaced his talk with the explanation that he was speaking only about "a minority" of Muslims. Dr Durie concentrated on Islamic religious texts, ably demonstrating the deeply entrenched Jew-hatred to be found in them and refuting the rose-coloured view of, for example, historian Professor Bernard Lewis.

Neither speaker preached hatred against Muslims.  The only hatred, fascism and incitement was in the Islamic anti-Jewish statements they quoted.

Without any knowledge of what Drs Adler and Durie were going to say, the following prejudiced demand was issued by certain far left and wet naive Jews in Melbourne:

'We, the undersigned, wish to protest in the strongest terms the Beth Weizmann Jewish Community Centre booking of an event titled 'The Threat of Islam to Jews' by 'Nothing Left' and 'Australian Jewish Association.'

We call on Beth Weizmann Centre to immediately cancel the booking. We call on all other Jewish community spaces to refuse bookings of far-right conspiracy theorists that bring racism, bigotry and hate into our communities.

We believe that not only are talks like this a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of people of the Muslim faith in our community, but a direct threat to Jews also. Hatred and racism of all forms will only continue to foment as long as Islamophobia is fostered. We are all in this together.

As Jews we remember where this hate takes us. There is no place for racist hate in Beth Weizmann or anywhere in our community.'

Since the event, far left Jews have been at it again, with many of them, males and a certain female alike, ranting and raving online in language involving much use of the F and C words that does them no credit.

One of the far leftists, who demonstrated outside the location of the talk that finally went ahead on Sunday, and hastily rejected an invitation to come out of the biting evening chill and join the audience, has started an online petition (as with the previously-mentioned one I'm not linking to it because there is only a limited amount of oxygen I want to give these misguided people, who just will not accept that the meeting, at which they were not present, was anything but a hate fest).

This petition insults and misrepresents Dr Durie, beginning:

"The signatories to this letter come from many different political orientations, but this is a shameful moment in the history of the Melbourne Jewish community that demands a united response.

Several hundred people attended a meeting organised by the so-called ‘Australian Jewish Association’ at South Caulfield Hebrew Congregation on Sunday night, 11 September 2017 turned up to hear Mark Durie. He is not a specialist in Islam or contemporary problems in the Muslim world, but an Anglican priest, linguist and autodidact. He argues for a literalist interpretation of Islam and Islamic culture and history to demonstrate the inherent violence and intolerance of Islam, and by implication, the treachery of all Muslims.This is Islamophobia...

 This is not a free speech issue. Durie and the Jewish right can say or publish what they want when they want. But feeding ill-informed garbage to people who have deep anxieties, as we all do, about terrorism is another matter and should not receive institutional support from a synagogue...."

 "Wonder if this talk has contravened Section 18C of the racial discrimination act" is one of my favourite comments by a signatory, highlighting as it does the sheer prejudice, hypocrisy and irony of condemning an event of which the signatory has no personal knowledge.

Also of that ilk is this comment by a former president of a (non-Orthodox) Melbourne synagogue who was also, unless I need the immediate services of an optician, not at the AJA event, and of whom I would have expected a fairer approach on those very grounds:

"While the wording may not be accurate (bigotry might have been a better word), I absolutely support the intent of this petition."

But the best comment of all? That comes from Mark Durie himself:

"I consider it an honour to be vilified and lied about for calling out antisemitism"

Skoyach!, Dr Durie.  Kol Hakavod, sir.

(UPDATED) In Melbourne, "'The Threat of Islam to Jews' is Going Ahead and We Have to ... Tell Them to F*ck Off"

Under the presidency of Sydney medico Dr David Adler, a new Jewish communal organisation calling itself the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) has been set up "by a team including senior community members of standing in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia" unhappy at what the pervasive drift towards political correctness in the Jewish communal leadership:

'You can expect it to be more direct and outspoken on matters of principle rather than cowed by “political correctness”. AJA will speak out clearly on security issues, sources of anti-Semitism, other external threats and advocacy involving Israel,' its website avers.

Its mission statement here begins:

"The mission of AJA is to be a membership based representative organisation for the Jewish community in Australia based on genuine authentic Jewish and conservative Australian democratic values.

The AJA welcomes members from the Jewish community who support this mission.

To be guided by authentic Jewish values means having regard in policy formulation to principles of Torah. This imposes no requirement on how members conduct their lives. The organisation will welcome members of all levels of observance.

To be guided by conservative Australian democratic values means prioritising policies which support individual freedoms, self-determination, human rights, security and respect for rule of law."

Regarding Israel, it breaks ranks with the official communal leadership's position:

"Support Israel as the only nation-state and the cultural and religious home of the Jewish people. Support the right of Jews to live in security and peace in their traditional ancient biblical homeland"

continuing in the relevant clause:

"Jerusalem is the eternal undivided capital of Israel and the entire city including the Temple Mount should be administered by Israeli authorities.

The land of Israel includes the biblical Jewish homelands of Judea and Samaria.

Support policies and initiatives to further develop and strengthen the relationship between Australia and Israel."

The AJA was scheduled to be launched in Melbourne tomorrow (Sunday, 10 September) at the Beth Weizmann Community Centre, with the distinguished Anglican scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie as guest speaker.  But when it became known to Zionism Victoria, the body that administers Beth Weizmann, that the theme of the evening would be "The Threat of Islam to Jews" the longstanding booking was cancelled.

The current issue of the Australian Jewish News (AJN; 8 September) quotes Beth Weizmann chairperson Ben Tatarka thus:

"Having just become aware of he details of the event, which had been booked as a 'public speaker', and after due consideration, we have decided that we are not prepared to have the Jewish Community Centre of Melbourne used for or associated with an event that, on its face, seeks to foment fear and hatred."

The same paper reports Dr Adler's reaction:

"It would have been expected that instead of reacting to erroneous information, that the management of Beth Weizmann would have made contact with us, the organizers, to find out the truth.

As soon as possible we gave them additional information for consideration because they had made false assumptions and we informed them that the talk, or similar ones, had been presented in NSW Parliament in March this year and at Limmud New Zealand last month."

Dr Adler went on to tell the AJN that an alternative venue had since been found, and at first he was unwilling to disclose it, being loath to

"attract the aggressive and irrational group who, without information and based on false assumptions, went off the rail." 

(That new venue hired was the Goldenberger Hall of the Mizrachi Synagogue on Balaclava Road in the heart of the Shtetl on the Yarra's "Golden Mile"; the Mizrachi Synagogue itself, the AJN noted, had not endorsed the event.)

Immediately, the name of the new venue was made known, the Jewish far-left anti-Israel movement sprang into attack mode:

(The above group loves to note that it's coming to you from "The occupied lands of the Kulin nation, Melbourne, Australia"; curiously, however, it shows no sign of preparedness to evacuate those lands.)

(The CSG is the Community Security Group.)

An urgent call to action went out from one Israel-bashing Jewish lefty to his cohorts:

'This is not a drill. You are needed.'The Threat of Islam to Jews' is going ahead and we have to turn up to tell them to fuck off.

You can expect a superchilled affair with a stack of Jewy tunes. But you need to come: to take responsibility for this in our community, to not be silent in the face of hate.

Invite your friends. Now.' [Emphasis added]

Suggestions for "Jewy tunes" with which to serenade try to shame and intimidate members of the Jewish community attending the Adler/Durie event quickly came:

By invoking the heroic Bundists and other resisters and martyrs, these "Jews Against Fascism" are, of course, implying that all who are wary of and warn of the dangers of Islamist antisemitism are comparable to Tsarist antisemites and informers and to the bestial Nazis, which, needless to say, is as ludicrous as it is obscene. 

Unfortunately, the totalitarian Left have succeeded in getting the event cancelled for a second time.

Claim and counter-claim continue to fly, as this is something of a "breaking story," with one commenter on the Facebook page of the outraged "Nothing Left" (closely linked with the AJA and the event) writing that it was cancelled owing to fears of reprisal attacks on the Mizrachi-associated Yavneh kindergarten:

"This event was cancelled because of protests from Yavneh parents who didn't want you turning our children's kindergarten into an increased risk of terror attack. It had nothing to do with politics....

You're the ones running talks about the threat they pose to Jews. As you well know, they have targeted Jewish institutions and places they perceive as insulting their prophet. It's a terrible problem that we as a community have to deal with. Why would you increase the risk of my children's kindergarten? Do it in your own home so Islamic extremists can target you."

Meanwhile one Jew who had intended to turn up to protest the event jibes:

"Nothing Left , that [the cancellation] is the best news I have had all week. You may want to check the mirror for fascist, threaten, intimidate. Not afraid of you. Disgusted is more the word that comes to mind."

And another Jewish leftist, a university academic, makes the breath-taking assertion:

"Jews have nothing to fear from Islam. Only from terrorists who kill more of their own people."

(Clearly, he could benefit from listening to Islam-expert Dr Durie on what's been going on in Europe!)

An apt retort to the leftists from a Nothing Left spokesman:

"I find it kind of ironic one of the main Jewish fascists behind the shutting down of free speech [by other Jews] is a member of a Jewish Palestinian activist group [presumably the Australian Jewish Democratic Society] affiliated with JCCV [Jewish Community Council of Victoria] and only recently some members of this same group demonstrated on behalf of Arabs in Israel outside the very offices of Beth Weizmann and these are the types B[eth] W[eizmann] Board have aligned them selves with , Crazy world we live in"

Though happy as Larry (pardon the pun) one of the activists centrally involved in the campaign to cancel the meetings has proved rather modest:

Not so modest, the Jews Against Fascism (but not Islamofascism), displaying their customarily elegant, erudite turn of phrase:

Incidentally, on leftwing hypocrisy and Islamofascism/da Joos/Zionism see two good articles here and here

UPDATE

I'm delighted to add that the launch of the AJA, and the meeting as planned, went ahead as scheduled on Sunday evening,  at another location.  Congratulations to the organisers on a terrific turnout, despite very short notice, with the venue filled to capacity.  All praise to the management of the alternative location for refusing to be intimidated by the far left and the lily-livered. Dr David Adler and the Rev. Dr Mark Durie provided disturbing evidence of the antisemitism that pervades the Quran, the Sura and the hadiths and which informs Islamic attitudes to this day.  Neither speaker indulged in any "hate speech".  The only examples of hate speech came in the examples they quoted. 

It's said that a leftist infiltrator or two were present (tasked with subsequently exposing the "hate speech" they hoped to hear from the speakers) deliberately sitting quietly so not to attract attention.

These Jewish fascists had sought in vain yesterday to get the event cancelled for a third time: