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A view from the Australian Jewish News - 1
October 2004
1
October 2004
Community
leaders combat hate on the internet
The spreading of
hate on the internet was the subject of a meeting this week between
NSW Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Premier on
Citizenship, John Hatzistergos, and representatives of Australia's
Jewish community.
Executive Council
of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) president Jeremy Jones and executive
officer Josh Landis and NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president
David Knoll discussed online racism with the minister, including
methods for preventing access to websites which promote hate.
Hatzistergos has
called on the Federal Government to blockwebsites which incite
racial and other forms of hatred.
This follows the
introduction of the Crimes Legislation Amendment
(telecommunications offences and other measures) bill which passed
in the Senate on August 30. The bill makes provisions for jail
sentences for those who post violent material on the web.
In 2002 the ECAJ
too Dr Fredrick Toben, the Adelaide Holocaust revisionist to the
Federal Court over material on his website. In July 2003 the court
ordered Toben to remove antisemitic material from the site.
Hatzistergos said
the NSW Government would refer hate on the internet for
consideration at the next Standing Committee of Immigration and
Multicultural Affairs meeting scheduled for November 12 in Hobart.
To report a
website, contact NSW Jewish Board of Deputies on (02) 9360 1600.
Israeli ‘spies’ released from New
Zealand jail
HENRY BENJAMIN
TWO Israeli citizens, openly declared
as Mossad spies by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, were
released from prison in Auckland on Wednesday.
Eli Cara, 51, and Uriel Kelman, 30, had served the statutory two
months of a six-month sentence for fraudulently attempting to obtain
a New Zealand passport. They were expected to leave New Zealand
within hours of their release to return to Israel.
Cara and Kelman were arrested in Auckland in April and appeared in
the Auckland High Court in July. After changing their pleas to guilty
they were sentenced to jail on July 15.
The pair was also fined $NZ50,000 ($A45,000) to be donated to the
Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand because they used the birth
certificate of a cerebral palsy sufferer for the false passport
application.
Just before dawn on Wednesday, Cara and Kelman walked out of Mount
Eden prison into the hands of waiting New Zealand immigration
officials.
Death
threats to PM Sharon
JERUSALEM — An Israeli rabbi said last week he would be
willing to hold a mystical ceremony supposed to lead to the death of
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Yosef Dayan, from the West Bank settlement of Pesagot, said that if
asked he would hold a “pulsa denura” ceremony against the Israeli
leader, who is planning to withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers
from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements next year.
Dayan held a similar ceremony before the 1995 assassination of prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Meanwhile, Sharon has received death threats over his planned
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
Israeli police said they were investigating threatening calls
received at the Jerusalem office that is co-ordinating the plan to
withdraw the settlers.
[Barry Chamish, are
you listening? - FT]
Pastrami
wins vote from Kerry’s brother
Uriel Heilman
NEW YORK — In a ritual well known to Jewish New Yorkers,
Senator John Kerry’s campaign participated in the tradition of coming
to a kosher deli.
The presidential candidate was busy campaigning in Florida, so his
Jewish brother Cameron was dispatched to eat the obligatory
smoked-meat sandwich on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“I had the pastrami,” Kerry said when asked about his menu selection.
By contrast, the Jewish journalists who joined Kerry for lunch
ordered very non-Jewish-looking avocado wraps, chicken salads and
tuna fish.
The stop at Noah’s Ark deli on Grand Avenue was sandwiched between a
series of Jewish meetings for the candidate’s brother, who has become
a key adviser to the campaign’s outreach to Jews.
Jews,
Muslims forge closer ties
Alana Rosenbaum
AUSTRALIAN Jewish and Muslims leaders last week launched a
groundbreaking program designed to forge closer links between the two
communities.
In the lead-up to the to the signing of a memorandum of understanding
promoting mutual tolerance and respect, B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation
Commission (ADC) chairman
Dr Paul Gardner acknowledged the fraught global relations between the
two religions.
“These early years of the 21st century are not a golden age for
Jewish and Muslim relationships. If we scan the world news each day
we can easily find reasons why relationships between our two
communities are distant, distrustful and even fearful,” said Dr
Gardner.
“But it is important, I think, to recognise that most of the trouble
spots are elsewhere.”
Patch
accuses Turnbull of avoiding the Jewish question
Melissa Singer
LABOR candidate for Wentworth David Patch has accused his
Liberal opponent Malcolm Turnbull of dodging criticism from the
Jewish community following a Liberal Party preference slip-up last
week.
A debate scheduled to take place at the Hakoah Club in Bondi on
Monday night (September 27) was cancelled last week, with organisers
citing “a fellow candidate being unable to attend” as the reason.
A letter obtained by the AJN which was sent to the other candidates
states: “As the Hakoah Club is unaffiliated to any political party we
believe it would be inappropriate to hold an evening without all
three Wentworth candidates.”
Patch, who claims he was not responsible for the cancellation and
said was looking forward to addressing the Jewish community, said
Turnbull was “deliberately refusing to talk to the Jewish community”.
“This is because he thinks he would have been publicly shamed because
he initially gave his preferences to the CEC [Citizens’ Electoral
Council],” Patch told the AJN. “[He was] prepared to put tactics
ahead of principles.”
An Orthodox student
in Bnai Brack, Israel's second largest religious city, takes part in
the ritual of kapparot (atonement) just before Yom Kippur. A chicken
is swung around three times while a prayer is recited in the hope
that all sins are transferred to the fowl. The chicken is then
slaughtered and usually donated to a needy family.
How
can such scape-goating, sorry, scape-chickening mentality be
overcome through reason and understanding? It cannot because
superstition is part of our human make-up.
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