Part 2 - Standing (NOW) at Sinai - 10 Speakers, 10 Controversial Ideas - Tikkun Leil - 21 May 2026

Ajouté : 2026-05-23

[00:00:06]Okay, so thank you everyone who is still here.

[00:00:11]We The order of events now is I'm going to announce the winner of the cheesecake competition.

[00:00:19]Those who are not staying for the second part can then rise. Thank you. Is there a handheld microphone?

[00:00:25]>> There was.

[00:00:26]>> There was.

[00:00:27]>> know.

[00:00:28]Could you try and find it because there has been and those who are speaking in the second half, there has been a request unless you're prepared to speak as loudly as I am now to use the handheld microphone, please. So, uh we're going to make the announcement of the cheesecake. If you would then like to leave, please do. If you have a plate, rinse it off and then we have five more speakers who I'm going to introduce.

[00:00:54]The winner of tonight's cheesecake was cheesecake number three, David Harris and the Harris family with a baked Basque cheesecake. It is a night for the Harris family who earlier in the evening, for those who may or may not been here, were awarded the Monte Dr. Montefiore uh Silverberg Bickurim Award, the entire family. I won't ask which award is more salubrious, but David, would you like to say some words?

[00:01:31]I'm just I'm just going to say so that I actually cooked that cake, not my wife, not my children, and I did it during the governance meeting when we were online last night.

[00:01:41]>> you were not paying attention.

[00:01:43]>> me carrying the computer around.

[00:01:45]Um so, thank you very much.

[00:01:48]>> [laughter] >> Win-win night.

[00:01:50]>> Well done.

[00:01:51]>> [applause] >> And thank you to all our participants and to all the judges who who who who who contributed.

[00:02:02]Uh we have five more follow-ons. I would like to thank the the first five speakers.

[00:02:08]Uh truly illuminating and I think this is a a wonderful format. Thank you, Rabbi, for teeing it up and I hope that it becomes an annual an annual event.

[00:02:19]Um the next session will be kicked off by Dr. Nick Darrenfurth.

[00:02:26]Dr. Nick, are you Can you put your hand up? Hi.

[00:02:30]So, Dr. Nick Darrenfurth.

[00:02:35]Thank you.

[00:02:37]Darrenfurth?

[00:02:38]Darrenfurth. Darren Darrenfurth is executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre and one of Australia's leading political commentators.

[00:02:48]He's the author and editor of 12 books, including Mateship, a very Australian history, A Long History of the Australian Labor Party, and Boycotting Israel is wrong with Philip Mendes.

[00:03:00]Nick is an adjunct research fellow at Monash University, where he completed his PhD in Australian history.

[00:03:07]He's also worked as a Labor Party advisor and speech writer, including as secretary of the ALP's National Policy Forum.

[00:03:16]Nick's title today is The Lie We Tell Ourselves Democracy is the Default.

[00:03:22]Thank you, Nick.

[00:03:23]>> [applause] >> Thank you. I'm not sure my my topic is actually that controversial, sadly, um these days. When Rabbi Cunin asked me um if I could speak, I immediately thought about my my late friend of blessed memory, Andrew Casey, who I discovered um Allison knew from her time uh in Sydney. Andrew uh was a a legendary trade unionist, uh member of the Sydney Jewish Committee and Emanuel temp uh Emanuel Synagogue member. He once tried to convince me that the golden calf incident wasn't actually wasn't an act of idolatry, but rather it was the world's first industrial strike against the leader who disappeared for 40 days without consultation.

[00:04:07]Tim, Tim and Andrew, there've been lots of funny stories about Andrew. Tempting as his interpretation may be, I'm going to leave his revisionist Labor Zionist theology to one side.

[00:04:18]Um Shavuot is of course one of Judaism's most important festivals, but it's probably one of the least understood outside of the Jewish world, and I think that's a pity.

[00:04:28]Passover Pesach has the drama of liberation, Yom Kippur has Yom Kippur has the emotional intensity of atonement, but Shavuot can feel particularistic to Jews.

[00:04:40]Torah, revelation Torah, cheesecake.

[00:04:43]Um a very good cheesecake.

[00:04:46]Um Aside from the cheesecake, Shavuot contains one of the most radical political ideas in human history.

[00:04:54]A controversial idea that I'm going to talk about tonight, and I'm going to put to you is this.

[00:04:59]Um democracy is not humanity's default condition.

[00:05:02]In fact, that the belief that democracy is natural, inevitable, or permanent is one of the great lies we tell each other.

[00:05:09]And Shavuot helps explain why.

[00:05:13]What matters at Sinai is not that merely laws are given, it is that the Israelites Israelites consent to them.

[00:05:22]Na'aseh v'nishma.

[00:05:24]We will do and we will hear.

[00:05:26]That line is extraordinary because Sinai is not merely a moment of obedience, it is a covenant.

[00:05:33]A newly liberated people from slavery collectively agree to bind themselves to a system of law, obligation, mutual responsibility.

[00:05:41]It is in political terms revolutionary.

[00:05:44]Remember the world that the Torah emerges into. The ancient world was not democratic. It was imperial, hierarchical, and violent. Power uh flowed downward from kings, emperors, and pharaohs. Ordinary people obeyed.

[00:06:01]And for most of human history, that has remained the norm.

[00:06:05]We flatter ourselves today that democracy is simply where history naturally ends up.

[00:06:09]That freedom naturally expands. That authoritarianism is some kind of historical aberration.

[00:06:18]But the evidence points overwhelmingly in the other direction.

[00:06:25]History bends towards domination, away from democracy, and the historical record is astonishingly accurate on this point.

[00:06:34]Of the roughly 117 billion humans to have ever lived, only the tiniest of tiny minorities were born into anything remotely remotely resembling liberal democracy.

[00:06:46]Maybe 2% of humanity have ever lived in a democracy like we live in in Australia.

[00:06:54]2%. That's about two bi- two two to three billion humans.

[00:07:01]Even today, most hum- most human beings live under some form of autocratic or semi-autocratic rule. We see it globally. Um Hungary, although there was um last month uh saw Viktor Orbán turf from office. Turkey, Russia, Venezuela, India, parts of Africa, large parts of Asia, even within Western democracies, trust is collapsing. Younger people increasingly doubt democratic institutions altogether.

[00:07:28]And the annual Lowy Institute poll on on views on democracy is sobering reading.

[00:07:34]In the US, uh well, the spiritual home of democracy, Trumpism has shown how democratic systems can be hollowed out from within. Elections delegitimized, institutions attacked, political loyalty from both left and right elevated above constitutional norms.

[00:07:50]So, democracy is not normal. It's an outlier. It is historically unusual.

[00:07:56]It may may be that historians in a century or a thousand years from now look back on this period, the 20th century, in particular period from the 1970s until the late 1990s, early 2000s, and say, "Wasn't that a funny experiment the humanity um undertook?"

[00:08:15]And that is precisely why Sinai matters, cuz Sinai confronts the problem of power directly.

[00:08:21]Um And indeed, one of the most remarkable passages in the Tanakh comes in the book of Samuel. I like quoting my Hebrew namesake. The Israelites demand a king.

[00:08:31]Um the prophet Samuel warns them, "A king will conscript your sons, take your daughters, seize your fields, take tax your produce, turn you into servants."

[00:08:39]In other words, power naturally accumulates, it extracts, it dominates. And indeed, our Jewish tradition is actually deeply skeptical about political power.

[00:08:52]Which is why the Torah never promises that justice will simply emerge naturally. Instead, it commands, "Tzedek tzedek tirdof." Justice justice justice you shall pursue. Pursue is the is the operative word. Actively, deliberately, against the grain of history. That is the political meaning of covenant. At Sinai, legitimacy comes not merely from force, but from consent and obligation.

[00:09:20]Even rulers are bound by law, a radical idea. That idea eventually becomes one of the foundations of democratic civilization itself.

[00:09:30]And at its core, democracy is nothing more nothing less than a secularized version of covenant.

[00:09:36]Power is legitimate only because it is consented to. But like the covenant at Sinai, democracy is not automatic. It must be renewed, defended, and recommitted to by each generation.

[00:09:48]That is why the rabbis insist that every generation spiritually stands again at Sinai. Not because revelation literally repeats itself, but because covenant requires continual consent. And I think that matters enormously right now.

[00:10:04]Because many people today increasingly experience democracy as disappointing, as weak, hypocritical, or ineffective.

[00:10:12]And frankly, sometimes it is.

[00:10:15]Democracies are frustrating, slow, argumentative, messy.

[00:10:20]Whereas strong strong men, and it's generally strong men, promise simplicity. They always do. That is true from Pharaoh to Putin.

[00:10:29]And modern authoritarian authoritarian systems project strength strength through machismo, certainty, and the cult of the leader.

[00:10:38]But if I'm depressing you, um this here's the good news. They also possess deep weaknesses. The economic commentator Noah Smith, I I highly encourage you to read his Substack, always fascinating reading, recently made a really fascinating observation.

[00:10:56]Modern technological technologically adept liberal democracies such as ours reward adaptivity adaptivity and leak um cooperation, legitimacy, and intelligence over brute force alone.

[00:11:12]People fight harder for systems they believe belong to them. They innovate more effectively inside societies built on trust and legitimacy.

[00:11:24]A covenant, in other words.

[00:11:26]Um which brings us to Moshe. Moses is fascinating because he is almost the opposite of the modern strong man. He is hesitant, self-doubting, reluctant, a stutterer.

[00:11:38]Again and again he asks, "Oh God, why me?"

[00:11:43]Yet our tradition presents him as the greatest prophet, not because he dominates, but because he mediates covenants.

[00:11:50]Because he binds a people together around law, obligation, and moral purpose.

[00:11:55]That is the real alternative to authoritarianism, not perfection, not utopia, but the difficult collective labor of building institutions and solidarities capable of resisting humanity's recurring drift back towards domination.

[00:12:13]The modern Jewish philosopher Michael Walzer expressed this beautifully and it appears in our Mishkan T'filah, wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt, that there is a better place, a promised land, that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness.

[00:12:27]That, my friends, is the democratic condition, too.

[00:12:31]There is no final arrival, there is no permanent victory, there is no end of history, only the ongoing work of covenant. And perhaps that is the deepest lesson of Shavuot. Freedom alone is not enough.

[00:12:45]A free people must still decide, "What obligations do we owe each other?

[00:12:50]What authority is legitimate? What kind of society are we trying to build together?" At Sinai, the Jewish people answered through covenant.

[00:12:59]And that remains the democratic task today because democracy is not inevitable and pre- precisely because it is fragile, difficult, and rare.

[00:13:11]Um and precisely because it is fragile, difficult, and rare. As the Jewish people learned at Sinai, justice is not self-executing.

[00:13:20]It is a mitzvah. Thank you.

[00:13:24]>> [applause] >> Just thank you for this.

[00:13:36]>> That looks like something my doctor would not want me to wear. This I I make no I make no promises. The What an insightful talk this evening to bring in the calf trade unionism. You know, when we speak of democracy, we had a talk in the first half on AI when you thought, "Well, that's cutting-edge stuff."

[00:13:54]He made don't democracy a cutting-edge concept for us. It's I'm something we've always got to strive for. So, thank thanks for enlightening us on this. On that, as you know from the first half, Victor and the Rabbi have taken topical extracts from the Torah and for you, Nick, we have from Deuteronomy, "Justice, justice, thou shalt pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land." And from Pirkei Avot, "Be careful in your dealings with the ruling authorities, for they do not befriend a person except for their own needs.

[00:14:29]They seem like friends when it is to their own interest, but they do not stand by a man in the hour of his distress." I like that.

[00:14:37]Thank you.

[00:14:37]>> Thank you very much, enjoy.

[00:14:39]>> [applause] >> Next up, we have Gabe Freud.

[00:14:50]Gabe is the I think I can still say new, the recent CEO of Stand Up and is dedicated to his Jewish education, community organizing, and social change.

[00:15:02]Gabe has led organizations in the not-for-profit sector, driving initiatives in the informal education and community development. He's co-founded AdvoCATE Center for Grassroots Democracy and Shared Society in Akko, worked with global networks such as Hakhel, and most recently served as CEO of Hef Al Hechalutz.

[00:15:23]Gabe is excited to be bringing his experience, vision, and energy to shaping Stand Up's next chapter. And his topic for us this evening is our biggest problem isn't anti-Semitism, but Jewish illiteracy.

[00:15:36]Thank you, Gabe.

[00:15:37]>> [applause] >> Thank you.

[00:15:42]>> have a handheld, so you just get to stand.

[00:15:43]>> All right, no worries. Hi, everyone.

[00:15:44]Good evening.

[00:15:45]I forgot to send in my bio, so they drew that from the Stand Up website. So, I think it applied fairly appropriately here. I was actually here in in this room and in that room a few weeks ago.

[00:15:57]We held a together with Temple Beth Israel an interfaith Shabbat service. I think some of you might have been there.

[00:16:03]And I'm slightly embarrassed to say that this is my second time ever here, the first being the other week at the interfaith Shabbat, but it's a true honor to be have been invited by Rabbi Kanye. So, my topic tonight, as was said, is something along the lines of our biggest existential threat is not anti-Semitism, but Jewish illiteracy.

[00:16:26]And I don't know if that does that sound controversial?

[00:16:30]Somewhat?

[00:16:31]I I I thought it might not, but I'm going to make my case anyway, even if it's not controversial enough.

[00:16:37]But, I think I'll begin with a couple of qualifiers, okay? I think anti-Semitism, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a bad thing.

[00:16:45]I'm not into it, and I think it's a serious issue. I think anti-Semitism is a scourge and a blight on our society, on our community, on Australian democracy. And it needs to be taken seriously and contended with seriously.

[00:16:58]So, my argument is not that anti-Semitism is not a serious problem, but that it is not as existential an issue as Jewish illiteracy. And the reason why I think that is I think that the best way we have of contending with anti-Semitism is by strengthening Jewish literacy.

[00:17:18]And I there's a few reasons why I think this. The first of which being we've faced anti-Semitism for millennia. We've seen the worst of anti-Semitism in Europe in the Second World War in the Holocaust. We've experienced genocide and anti-Semitic genocide and we have survived.

[00:17:39]We've survived the worst of anti-Semitism and we'll survive the worst of anti-Semitism in this country, too.

[00:17:44]We'll continue to survive as a people.

[00:17:46]However, the places where we have not survived, where Jewish continuity has been the most compromised, are those places and those times in history where we have forgotten who we are, where the meaning of being Jewish has become empty of content.

[00:18:04]And this is why I think that the biggest existential threat to the Jewish community in this country and the Jewish people worldwide is in fact Jewish illiteracy and I I'll spend just a little bit of time explaining later what I mean by exactly by Jewish literacy.

[00:18:18]But first, just to put a slightly finer point on it, anti-Semitism is an external pressure.

[00:18:24]It's something that we face from our enemies or, you know, occasionally from people who don't purport to be enemies of the Jewish people and don't realize their conduct is anti-Semitic, but in any case, anti-Semitism is an external pressure. It's a threat from the outside, whereas Jewish illiteracy is internal erosion. It's a threat that we face from the inside to the meaning and content of of who we are as a people, as a community.

[00:18:52]And I think as a threat from the inside, it's a more serious threat.

[00:18:57]I think a community with a deep and deep-seated knowledge and confidence and connection to its cultural heritage can withstand enormous external pressure.

[00:19:07]And I think when identity becomes shallow and when we inherit merely labels or institutions as opposed to the content that gave rise to those labels and those institutions, when we inherit perhaps cultural practices without understanding of where they come from and what they mean for us today, when we have slogans instead of learning, eventually the foundations of our peoplehood, of our community, of our sense of Jewishness erodes and dissipates.

[00:19:39]And I think if Judaism becomes only something that we defend from external pressures or we defend from external attack, then when we lose the ability to live and contribute to and and manifest Judaism in our everyday lives, then we lose something incredibly important. We live lose the most important thing to Judaism.

[00:20:02]Now, I'll say a a little caveat. I'm I'm I don't think I'm very Jewishly literate. Okay, it's sort of an embarrassing bugbear which I led me to to do this talk tonight. I feel a deep lack. And I say that having had 14 years of formal Orthodox Jewish education and spent 15 years of my adult life in Israel.

[00:20:25]Uh I still feel not particularly Jewishly literate. So, I'm not saying this from a high horse. Okay.

[00:20:32]Um I think to to further make my case, I want to share a couple of historic anecdotes. The first of which is a fairly well-known story about David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister and perhaps most important historical political leader.

[00:20:47]Uh and a visit that David Ben-Gurion pays to the Chazon Ish, who was a rabbi born in Europe, moved to Israel in 1933.

[00:20:56]He was an ultra-Orthodox, a Litvish, so non-Hasidic, Haredi man, and an early leader of the Haredi community in Israel. And Ben-Gurion, they were a tiny community at the time, not you know, the scale that we see today, but Ben-Gurion needed the Chazon Ish as the leader of the Haredim, he needed him on side to be able to politically maneuver against the revisionists.

[00:21:18]And so, he paid a little visit in 1952 to the Chazon Ish.

[00:21:23]And he asked him a question, something along the lines of, you know, how are we going to make this work in this country together? You need us, we need you. Uh we obviously have very different perspectives on what it means to be Jewish. How do we make it work? The Chazon Ish told him a story. He referred to a Talmudic passage, which perhaps appropriately or ironically or tellingly, I don't know where exactly in the Talmud it came from. Um but it's a story which you might have heard about two camels passing each other in a narrow mountain pass. Have you heard this one before? So, there there's this tractate in the Talmud where the rabbis ask the questions if two, I believe it's Beit Chorin, I think is the town, but Rabbi maybe you can fact check me later. So, that if two two camels are passing each other or approaching each other in a narrow mountain pass, one's going up the mountain, so down the mountain, the other one's going up, what what do they do? Who yields? Which camel yields?

[00:22:19]Because there isn't room if if they both try and pass each other, they'll topple off the mountain.

[00:22:24]And uh the Chazon Ish says what the Talmud says about this is that the camel that is laden, the camel that has, you know, is carrying freight on its back, that one continues its path and it's the unladen camel that has to yield to that which is laden. Now, Ben-Gurion being much more Jewishly literate than I am, um instantly understood what he meant because this was a metaphor, of course.

[00:22:48]He was saying that Orthodox Jewry, ultra-Orthodox Jewry is like the the laden camel. They're the camel that are bearing the whole weight, the cultural treasures of our people on their back, and the empty camel or the unladen camel, the secular camel in this case, is the one that should yield to the camel that is bearing the whole weight of our history and peoplehood and culture on its humps.

[00:23:13]Now, I don't think it's a really appropriate metaphor and I I certainly don't think that the secular Zionist, you know, who gave birth to the state of Israel in in most ways were an empty camel, but I think it's an interesting image for us to consider.

[00:23:30]Because I I feel like it is a question worth asking. Are we an unladen camel or a laden camel?

[00:23:37]And I think we need to load up our camel with as much content, with as much of our cultural heritage and treasures as possible if we want to deal with the existential threats of anti-Semitism and this question about where are we going as a people and where does our future lie?

[00:23:53]So, for me a word about what Jewish literacy means. I don't think Jewish literacy means Orthodox observance or any other kind of observance necessarily, but I think it means some combination of knowing our stories and our history, knowing where we came from.

[00:24:07]I think it means engaging in Jewish ethics, familiarity with Hebrew as the holy and national tongue of the Jewish people, understanding Jewish argument and debate, connection to ritual and ceremony, connection to peoplehood, and understanding where we came from and what are we trying to contribute to the world.

[00:24:28]I think Judaism has not survived because we agree on everything, but I think it has survived because we've stayed in conversation with our civilization over millennia.

[00:24:40]And I think this is something that we need to ensure that we can and the next generation can continue to do. That will do more to ensure our survival than all other efforts that we make to combat anti-Semitism as important as they may be.

[00:24:54]Do I have more time or is that it?

[00:24:56]Two minutes? All right. I'll tell uh a two quick anecdotes.

[00:25:02]Forgive me, but I'm a I'm a Haboob boy, okay? Didn't go to Netzer.

[00:25:06]Um and so, I'm going to tell you two anecdotes from sort of my unique perspective or learning.

[00:25:12]The first is about a man called Wellesley Aaron, who was a British Jew in London in 1929. He'd actually previously made aliyah, but was sent back to to London to sort of galvanize the the youth around the idea of Zionism. And in his wanderings around East London, he came across a community that he felt was withering away, that knew nothing about their about their Jewish heritage.

[00:25:36]And so, his response to this was to publish an essay on the history of the Jewish people. And he felt that that, you know, we're talking about 1929, London in 1929, the first uh sounds of fascism are starting to to rear their heads throughout Europe. We know things aren't great for the Jews in England, certainly not in continental Europe. And he decides that the most important thing that he can do in terms of working with the youth is to teach them the history of the Jewish people.

[00:26:06]The second story might be one that you might be more familiar with, is from the Warsaw Ghetto.

[00:26:11]And the leaders of the uprising, before they embarked on their armed uprizing against the Nazis, they began organizing the community. We're talking about people, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years younger than me, who were leading these efforts. And before they smuggled a single weapon into the ghetto, before they started thinking about any kind of military strategy to fight the Nazis, the leaders of these youth movements in the ghetto decided, again, to publish a book, a book that they called Pine and Kovura, which in Yiddish means suffering and heroism. And this book that they published with their one I don't even know what call one that like printing machine that they'd smuggled into the ghetto and and hid from the Nazis, they decided to publish a book about the history of the trials and triumphs of the Jewish people. They felt that that was the most important act of resistance in which they could engage.

[00:27:09]Now, I think at a time when we are concerned heavily with our defense as a community with combating anti-Semitism, with fighting anti-Semitism in the courtroom, in government chambers, and and boardrooms, I think that in a similar way to the Warsaw Ghetto uprisers, our most significant act of defense or resistance will be in teaching the next generation the cultural treasures that we have inherited and that we bear some sort of responsibility for passing on.

[00:27:39]And now, in my work as the CEO of Stand Up, I think a lot about what kind of Jewish identity and Jewish learning we're giving the next generation.

[00:27:49]And I think about my own kids, who are 8 and 4 years old, and what sort of world they'll grow up into, and what sort of Jewish community they'll grow up into.

[00:27:58]I think about kids in high school who for the past several years, their primary experiences of what it means to be Jewish in this country revolve around October 7th and the attack in Bondi and the Royal Commission and the atmosphere of hatred and isolation and betrayal from large parts of society. I think if we don't give them something else to latch onto, something to inspire them, something to fill them with hope and meaning and understanding about what it means to be Jews in the world today, then we're at much greater threat existentially than if we merely deal with anti-Semitism in a combative way.

[00:28:39]That is my semi-controversial topic.

[00:28:41]Thank you for listening.

[00:28:42]>> [applause] [cheering] >> Gabe, thanks for joining us again for the second time. Yeah. It won't be the last.

[00:28:55]>> not. Uh what I love, the part that you you you explained what you meant by Jewish literacy, and it wasn't just the study of Torah, however important that is, it's understanding our heritage and understanding our Jewish values. And I feel that in your role with Stand Up, the values that you uh progress, uh of inclusion, uh of equality, uh of openness, and an open an open Jewish heart, uh mirrors uh our our progressive movement. And and to that end, I expect we will be seeing a lot of you. Uh the Torah portions that we have are Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day, impress them upon your children. Deuteronomy.

[00:29:38]And from Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said, Where there is no Torah, there is no right conduct. Where there is no right conduct, there is no Torah.

[00:29:50]Where there is no wisdom, there is no fear of God. When there is no fear of God, there is no wisdom.

[00:29:56]Where there is no understanding, there is no knowledge. Where there is no knowledge, there's no understanding.

[00:30:01]Where there is no sustenance, there is no Torah. And when there is no Torah, there is no sustenance.

[00:30:08]Other than cheesecake.

[00:30:10]Thank you very >> That was in brackets afterwards.

[00:30:12]>> Thank you. Thank you.

[00:30:14]>> [applause] >> Peter Kohn will be joining us next.

[00:30:23]Uh Peter's been a lifelong member of the progressive Jewish community in Melbourne, growing up at Bentleigh, now Etz Chaim, and joining TBI many years ago.

[00:30:34]Until 2025, uh as senior journalist with the Australian Jewish News, Peter spent 43 years uh associated with Australian Jewish news and began reporting for the newspaper in the United States in 1982.

[00:30:49]He's the author of two novels. Rachel's Chance is the story of his family's experience as Jewish refugees in Shanghai during World War II.

[00:30:59]And A View from a Sandcastle is based on his own story growing up in Melbourne suburbia during 1960s and 70s.

[00:31:07]Peter observes the one constant factor about news is that it never stops. And with today's online services, the latest developments are just a tap or click away.

[00:31:17]And with that, Peter's controversial address is advocacy journalism, spin and lies. Who can you trust?

[00:31:27]>> [applause] >> All right. Thank you, everyone. And um Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you, Sol.

[00:31:43]And friends and guests. And hug sameach.

[00:31:47]And um I hope you enjoyed the cheesecake. And David Harris, I'm going to get that secret recipe.

[00:31:56]Advocacy journalism, uh spin, lies, who can you trust?

[00:32:04]I recently interviewed the Aussie Jewish satirist, John Safran.

[00:32:10]And we talked about free speech versus protected speech and some of the issues that Mark Dreyfus raised earlier tonight.

[00:32:19]And inevitably, our conversation got around to the health of Australia's media in 2026.

[00:32:27]John made the point that today it's a free-for-all.

[00:32:32]When he was on Triple J radio in the early 2000s doing Sunday night Saffron together with the late great Father Bob Maguire, he ruffled some feathers.

[00:32:44]But the only way people could complain back then would be to write to the ABC, possibly on their fax machine.

[00:32:52]So, today the material's less likely to be on radio, TV, or in any of the old style media.

[00:33:01]It's far more likely to be online, on a website with instant access to a comment section.

[00:33:10]And as we know, the comments can be ill-considered and impulsive, and at worst, they can be baseless, false, and toxic.

[00:33:21]And it's here that anti-Israel activists have the upper hand.

[00:33:26]They've captured much of social media and many young minds.

[00:33:32]And the performance of media in removing untruthful and libelous material isn't great.

[00:33:39]That was one of the findings of research done this year by the Online Hate Prevention Institute, which I'm sure a lot of you have heard of, run by well-known Jewish community figure Dr. Andre Oboler.

[00:33:57]Then there are the bloggers.

[00:33:59]Online blogging often amounts to little more than publishing without any qualifications to do so.

[00:34:08]Let me ask you, would you see a doctor who hasn't got a medical qualification?

[00:34:14]Would you be okay if the pilot of an airliner on which you plan to take your next flight never went to flight school?

[00:34:22]Journalists are no different. They're trained both in formal media courses and in the early years of their career at their first media workplace.

[00:34:33]But qualified journalists are only one part of the legacy media picture.

[00:34:39]Established journalism has always been a corporate business undertaking.

[00:34:45]Newspaper publishing evolved in the 19th and 20th century as a manufacturing industry. Newsprint and ink were transformed into newspapers. Huge batches of newspapers were distributed far and wide in trucks. It required heavy investment and deep pockets.

[00:35:07]And in small markets like Australia, it created an elite media core, nowadays the News Corp nine newspapers virtual duopoly.

[00:35:18]Similarly, television and radio news required expensive investment in resources such as cameras and sound equipment and also in the training of reporters.

[00:35:29]But here we're talking about the old media.

[00:35:33]The baby boomer generation will remember growing up with the one TV in the house, sitting with their family in a semi-circle around the TV set, which was like some kind of a electronic fireside hearth. What was seen and heard on the TV could be discussed and weighed up with others in the room.

[00:35:55]But the change from the fireside hearth experience that baby boomers remember has been dramatic.

[00:36:02]Today, every household has many screens on phones, tablets, laptops. There's Alexa on the kitchen counter, and most people react one-on-one with their screens, unfiltered by their uh communication with other people.

[00:36:21]And now, another important point, research shows that most people under 30 don't even get their news from the so-called legacy media.

[00:36:32]I once had a chat with a media consultant who'd done some rebranding work for the ABC for the TV news bulletins, and I mentioned to him my own personal experience. Every evening I'd call up the 7:00 p.m. ABC news bulletin on my iView phone app, and using Chromecast I'd project it to my TV screen. Now, I thought that sounded pretty cool.

[00:36:59]But, the consultant, who was a lot younger than me, looked at me pitifully, and he responded, "Oh, you're the one who does that."

[00:37:09]So, what I was doing may have had touches of the 2020s about it, but I was basically practicing my habit of watching the nightly news, which is a custom that has its origins deep in the last century.

[00:37:23]The fact is that young people generally don't consume legacy media. Newspapers, certainly not in printed form, and or or on TV or radio.

[00:37:35]They look online to stream their music, and they look online to social media platforms for their news.

[00:37:43]The danger isn't in social media platforms relaying content from established news outlets, although there's a lot of controversy controversy about whether the social media giants should be paying a fair share for redistributing that content, and what that fair share might look like in dollars.

[00:38:03]The real danger is irresponsible actors who use the extremely low entry point provided by social media platforms to spread their ignorant and their sometimes toxic messages.

[00:38:17]If they had to invest millions of dollars like the big newspaper or media companies into resources, just like the legacy media do, you'd never even hear of them. But, because it's so easy and cost-free to set yourself up online, all you need is the keyboard and the camera in your phone and little else. Um we almost have a plague of these so-called bloggers.

[00:38:43]Um now, um none of none of this, of course, is new.

[00:38:48]Um uh uh not all of this is new content uh and it's not all falsely false or badly inten- intentioned, [clears throat] but a lot of it is.

[00:38:59]And these days it's even worse because of um what Dr. Kenald was saying earlier about AI and the deepfake images and people telling you things that are pure creation and we even have um people being created who are totally false people. They're like Hollywood's getting very upset about actors who have been a total confection. Uh they're they're not even human beings.

[00:39:29]Now, some of this stuff is actually encouraged by the platforms and it's called ragebait.

[00:39:35]Its intention is to stir up angry responses and increase the volume of subscribers. And with today's algorithms, this material is segmented and customized so that it deliberately finds its most incendiary targets. So, for example, if you're leftwards inclined politically, expect a flood of right-wing material. And vice versa if you're conservatively inclined.

[00:40:03]It's designed to maximize your blood pressure and lure you into responding.

[00:40:09]And if your online activity suggests that you're a supporter of Israel, expect a tsunami of anti-Israel material.

[00:40:17]Now, some people might call this the democratization of the media.

[00:40:23]The The end of the old top-down mass media of the 20th and early 21st century.

[00:40:30]But to me, it feels less like democratization and more like anarchy.

[00:40:36]It has polarized society. Opinions are no longer nuanced. We have truckloads of information, but we're desperately short of wisdom. And today on Shavuot, we think of wisdom, we think of Torah.

[00:40:53]The so-called culture wars are a head-butting exercise, a scenario of dueling megaphones rather than an intelligent considered debate or discussion. That's the new media. But meanwhile, the legacy media these days are hardly a shining example, either.

[00:41:10]When I trained as a journalist, it was drummed into us that we had to be objective. Just the facts, ma'am. Nobody was interested in a journalist's political views. Leave your opinions at the door. Your job is to report the facts and only the facts. Opinions were kept for the opinion pages of the newspaper.

[00:41:30]Today, sadly, there's a fashion on both sides of the ideological spectrum for an increasing number of journalists to see themselves in heroic terms, saving the nation or the world for their impassioned cause. So, they skew their reporting, hanging the facts around a prefabricated ideological structure.

[00:41:52]And when their school and university experiences have convinced them that Israel is a colonial settler nation rather than the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people, that's the cause they'll pursue through their skewed reporting.

[00:42:08]Decades ago, it was a favorite topic at dinners and in bars to muse about this newspaper or that one. Was it more supportive of the right or the left?

[00:42:18]We're not sure. We suspect. Today, there's no guesswork. A 10-year-old child can look at copies of both the major daily newspapers serving Melbourne and tell you instantly which side of politics the publishers support. And I find one does it more emphatically than the other, but I'll leave you to guess about which one I mean.

[00:42:42]Advocacy journalism isn't new. It was around in the 1930s.

[00:42:47]After World War II, the philosophy of objectivity in news reporting became holy writ in newsrooms. And it was a good philosophy. Sadly, it's faded away.

[00:42:58]And for the legacy media, you have to understand it's not just a matter of the publishers' personal, political, or ideological convictions. These silos are deeply integrated into the marketing of these newspapers. Far from challenging you to think about factual information, newspaper reporting sends out a spin which confirms the biases you already have. It makes you more comfy in your comfort zone, so you'll be happily subscribing to that newspaper.

[00:43:27]Imagine what would happen to sales, for example, of The Age if, say, Andrew Bolt was hired to write for them. Or imagine what would happen to sales of the Herald Sun if, say, Nikki Savva or Laura Tingle were hired. Readership would drop off, and then with it, so would advertising.

[00:43:46]The very survival of these newspapers is at stake because newspaper publishing is on razor-thin margins and in survival mode these days.

[00:43:56]The diversity and number of newspapers in Australia is on a steep decline. Look at the cancellation of all those suburban papers that we used to love that were put in our letter boxes and kept us informed of what happened in our streets, in our neighborhoods, in our suburbs. Most of them gone.

[00:44:15]We see ever-tightening budgets and fewer journalists spending time doing diligent investigative reporting.

[00:44:22]So, these newspapers feel they have to cling to their branding in order to keep attracting enough advertising to keep going.

[00:44:30]In a decade from now, the few newspapers we know will be online only. But by then, a lot more people will simply be gleaning their news from social media and from random bloggers.

[00:44:44]This can only increase the degree of polarization that we see in the world today.

[00:44:51]Thank you.

[00:44:53]>> [applause] >> Peter, thank you very much for putting to words what I think we have all observed over many years from the times where we nostalgically remember sitting around that single television at home to what we find ourselves immersed in now.

[00:45:14]And thank you for your time being a stalwart for integrity in journalism.

[00:45:19]With that, the words that we have are from Exodus. You must not carry false rumors. You shall not join hands with the choir with the guilty to act as a malicious world witness. Distance yourself from falsehood.

[00:45:38]From Proverbs, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

[00:45:42]And from the Talmud, the seal of the holy one is truth.

[00:45:47]Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Tony.

[00:45:49]>> [applause] >> Coming up now someone who needs no introduction, but I do have it here, so I will share with you the introduction of our own senior rabbi, Allison Konyot, who was raised in a secular Jewish home in Los Angeles, California, which explains the accent.

[00:46:10]After university, she studied in Israel, New York, and Los Angeles across Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform institutions, and ultimately ordained as a Reform rabbi in 1998.

[00:46:22]Throughout her career, Rabbi Konyot has served three progressive Jewish synagogues in Australia, as well as worked in a range of non-denominational Jewish organizations, including Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara Hillel, and the Emanuel School in Sydney.

[00:46:39]Rabbi Konyot is our senior rabbi and the chair of the ARC, the Assembly of Rabbis and Cantors for the Progressive Movement across Australia and New Zealand, and seeks to nurture the soul, strengthen Jewish community as a whole, and help build a more compassionate and harmonious society.

[00:46:58]And our rabbi's topic for the evening the Jewish movements.

[00:47:03]The Jewish labels, are they helping us or hurting us?

[00:47:07]Thank you.

[00:47:08]>> [applause] >> There is a Jewish story of unknown origin about a rabbi who dreamt he was standing at the gates of heaven. He saw Jews arriving from every corner of the world. Some dressed in black hats, some in colorful knitted kippot, some with prayer books tucked under their arms, and some who barely knew the prayers at all.

[00:47:34]The rabbi asked the angel guarding the gate, "How will you decide who belongs here?"

[00:47:40]The angel replied, "We don't ask, 'Are you Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, or Secular?' We ask only, 'Did you live with Torah, compassion, humility, and love of your fellow Jews?'"

[00:47:53]The rabbi woke unsettled because while movements and labels may help us organize Jewish life here on earth, the heavenly domain may work differently.

[00:48:05]So tonight, I want to explore how we came to be in this way of separating or distinguished by movements and labels that was not always the case.

[00:48:16]Many of us are dedicated to our movement or our synagogue like we are to our footy teams. Whether they're winning or losing, having stronger or weaker players or rabbis, we stand by them no matter what.

[00:48:31]Tonight, I wanted to title my presentation progressive Judaism is dead just to embrace the idea of controversy, but I was told that as the head of the progressive movement in our region and the largest progressive Jewish synagogue in Victoria, that might not be a good look.

[00:48:51]So instead, I ask are our Jewish labels helping or hurting us?

[00:48:56]The names we give ourselves, Orthodox, progressive, reform, conservative, Masorti, reconstructionist, renewal, traditional, secular, cultural, just Jewish, are they strengthening Jewish life or fragmenting it? The answer, I suspect, is a little bit of both.

[00:49:16]From our very origins, from Sinai itself, our tradition acknowledged the dichotomy of unity and diversity within the Jewish people.

[00:49:25]At Sinai, the Torah describes the people gathering together in their separate tribes at the foot of the mountain before revelation.

[00:49:34]The rabbinic commentator Rashi noticed something unusual in the Torah which said, "Vayakhan sham Yisrael neged ha'ar." Israel encamped there opposite the mountain.

[00:49:44]Rashi pointed out that this verse uses the singular form, "Vayakhan", meaning encamped, rather than the plural.

[00:49:51]From this he teaches that despite sitting with their separate tribes, the Jewish people are "k'isha'at b'lev echad". They are like one person with one heart. Not one opinion, not one ideology, not one identical expression of Judaism, one heart. That distinction matters profoundly.

[00:50:14]Judaism has never truly demanded uniformity. In fact, the rabbis preserve minority opinions in the Talmud, acknowledged as part of our oral tradition, diverse interpretations of the Torah. The Talmud also at times specifies that despite the diversity of opinion, the halakha, or Jewish law, agrees with a particular rabbi.

[00:50:36]So, we learn that there is a time and a place for disagreement and diverse opinion, and a time and a place for uniform action.

[00:50:46]The ideal at Sinai was not sameness, but shared belonging.

[00:50:52]So, what happens when we don't feel we belong? What happens when our differences are too great that we no longer feel a part of the community or the tradition? Do we walk away? Or do we find others who share our desire to connect in a different way?

[00:51:09]Herein lies the origins of the Jewish movements. For most of Jewish history, there were no formal movements. Jews differ differed in custom, philosophy, and geography. Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, rationalist, mystical, but they largely saw themselves as part of one covenantal people. They were not fussed or exposed to such differences. They belonged to the Jewish community that was closest to them until the onset of the Enlightenment. Once the Jews were let out of their ghettos and given access to the larger non-Jewish society surrounding them, they were exposed to different people, ideas, music, and so forth. Their assumed norms were challenged for the first time, and they had the freedom to challenge, experiment, reject, and reinvent their Judaism.

[00:52:00]As we well know, in the 19th century Germany, Reform Judaism was born, seeking to modernize Jewish practice so Jews could integrate into European society while retaining their Jewish identity.

[00:52:14]Later, in response to the early reformers, Neo-Orthodoxy arose, insisting that traditional Judaism could engage with modern culture without surrendering halakhic commitment. Please note, Reform Judaism came first.

[00:52:30]In the mid-19th century, Conservative Judaism advocated a positive historical Judaism, adhering to the middle path, committed to a traditional halakhic approach while allowing space for historical development and adaptation.

[00:52:45]Each movement movement arose not out of a rebellion alone, but out of love for the Jewish for Jewish continuity in a way that made sense to them.

[00:52:54]Each asks the same question: How can Jews survive and flourish in the modern world?

[00:53:01]Each of these movements were born from anxiety about Jewish survival and from passionate commitments to Jewish future.

[00:53:10]Whereas Reform, Orthodoxy, and Conservative Judaism differ in their religious approach and practices, in the 20th century America, the Jewish Reconstructionist movement understood Judaism more as a civilization than a religion, arguing that Judaism has always been a way of life rather than a structure of beliefs.

[00:53:30]Also in 20th century America, the Jewish Renewal movement shifted the focus from a Jewish society and civilization to individual spiritual renewal and personal growth through innovative and creative Jewish rituals and practices.

[00:53:47]The development of these movements over the past few centuries reflects differing ideologies and approaches to Jewish life and practice, fulfilling different communal and individual needs, expectations, and unfulfilled yearnings.

[00:54:01]The development of these movements allowed individual Jews to find like-minded Jews, defining ourselves by our differences, we're not like them, rather than by our similarities or what we have in common. Yet, we all still had the same goal, to connect meaningfully with our God, our Jewish tradition, and our people.

[00:54:21]Now, in our world today, we inhabit a very different landscape. Increasingly, and especially among younger Jews, denominational labels carry less meaning. For the past few decades, American Jewry has shown a decline in denominational identification, where a growing number of Jews are identifying as just Jewish. Not Orthodox, not Reform, not Conservative, just Jewish.

[00:54:46]In our most recent Gen 17 Australian Jewish community survey, the largest stream to self-identify was traditional, with a growing non-religious or secular streams. In other words, there is the same move away from movement identification.

[00:55:03]What we are witnessing is a broader post-modern shift away from institutional labeling and a shift towards personalized identity formation.

[00:55:14]When I first arrived in Melbourne, I couldn't understand how so many people and families had children at different Jewish schools. I learned that it wasn't about ideology, but about the best fit for their child. Now, there are more people who are choosing not to belong to synagogues, but rather to attend different synagogues or Jewish events based on what's on, who's leading, and who's attending.

[00:55:38]Nowadays, people curate their identity the way they curate their Spotify lists.

[00:55:43]A little meditation, a beta tradition, social justice values, Friday night dinners, high holidays, a lecture, film, or concert, perhaps spirituality without obligation and fees.

[00:55:56]Sociologists call this pick-and-choose approach the this the pick-and-choose approach to religion and community.

[00:56:04]In some ways, this reflects freedom and openness. In other ways, it reflects fragmentation and a loss of shared language.

[00:56:13]The Midrash teaches that when God spoke at Sinai, the divine voice fragmented into many voices and many languages, so that every person could receive Torah in a way that they could understand. The Midrash envisioned the voice of God split into 70 languages. Everyone heard it in their own way. Perhaps that's why our tradition teaches Shiva Panim La'Torah, there are 70 faces of Torah.

[00:56:37]Torah has many facets, many interpretations, many authentic pathways into meaning and engaging in Judaism.

[00:56:45]But what happens if we can't understand each other's language or interpretation?

[00:56:49]The Talmud says, "Eilu v'eilu divrei Elohim Chaim." These and these are the words of the living God. Judaism always understood that holiness can emerge through multiple perspectives held in sacred tension.

[00:57:02]Our tradition explains that these Shiva Panim, these 70 faces of Torah, as being part of a single prism reflecting different lights.

[00:57:10]In our efforts to distinguish ourselves from one another, sometimes we've forgotten that idea.

[00:57:16]In our post-modern efforts to construct our Jewish identity, we also sometimes forget this idea. So, how labels can hurt, and I'm going to do this quickly.

[00:57:25]This is the crux, but I had to build it.

[00:57:27]Sometimes, our Jewish labels can be harmful and pit us against one another.

[00:57:31]They can be fences that harden into walls. Sometimes we stop seeing fellow Jews as and only see categories. We ask, are they frum enough? Are they Zionist enough? Are they traditional enough? Are they open-minded enough? The labels intended to organize community can become tools of exclusion.

[00:57:52]I'll skip that. On the flip side, there are genuine benefits to movements and labels. Labels create communities of practice. They help people find spiritual homes where values and ritual expectations are shared.

[00:58:06]As progressive Jews entering a progressive synagogue, we may feel immediate comfort and the sense of belonging in hearing familiar music, reading English, and seeing all genders being accepted.

[00:58:17]An Orthodox Jew may find deep meaning in the hum of traditional davening and the comfort in the predictable halakhic structure.

[00:58:25]A secular cultural Jew may connect through Jewish music, literature, and social activism. Movements also preserve intellectual diversity. Without denominational diversity, Judaism may not have adapted successfully to modernity at all. Jews may have simply given up on Judaism if it couldn't adapt to the changing world.

[00:58:48]If denominational if denom You say that word three times fast. If denominational labels help us deepen Jewish life, they are valuable. If they become identity prisons, they become dangerous.

[00:59:02]Perhaps the challenge for us is learning the difference between unity and uniformity. Uniformity says we must all believe the same things and do it the same way. Unity says we belong to one another even when we disagree.

[00:59:16]The challenge is ensuring that diversity does not become divisiveness. So, how can I go to Shir Hadash if I'm a progressive Jew? How can people set foot in TVI if they're an Orthodox Jew.

[00:59:28]Loyalty to a footy team is different than loyalty to a Jewish team.

[00:59:34]If we get back to our roots and the origin of this day is Matan Torah tenu, the time of the giving of our Torah, the ideal at Sinai was not sameness but shared belonging.

[00:59:46]I firmly believe that there is no such thing as progressive Judaism. That's my controversial radical thing. There is no such thing as Orthodox Judaism or Conservative Judaism. There is simply Judaism and we all have our different approaches, different ways of hearing it, understanding it and practicing it.

[01:00:04]One prism, prison, prism, different lights.

[01:00:09]This is perhaps the deepest meaning and this is my last point. The challenge is not to erase difference, the challenge is to prevent difference from becoming division. We don't need everyone to understand things the same way, we just need to remember that we're still Am Echad, one person. So, I ask you tonight, do you think that we as Jews have evolved beyond the needs for denominations? Do connect Do these denominations connect or divide us?

[01:00:36]Are these denominational distinctions preserving Judaism and the Jewish people or have this initial need morphed into something more self-serving or divisive?

[01:00:48]We remember on Shavuot that our covenant began with unanimity, not with unanimity but with solidarity. We stood at Sinai, Orthodox and skeptical, mystical and rational, observant and searching, traditional and questioning, all before the same mountain. Ke'isha Echad Belev Echad, like one people with one heart.

[01:01:14]>> [applause] >> I didn't give myself a quote.

[01:01:22]Thank you, You didn't make yourself a quote. Cuz I said so many of them. There is a cheesecake, and it would be reductive of me to quote Torah back to you. So, instead, I will quote Ferris Bueller. Excellent.

[01:01:40]Who, when talking about not specifically Orthodox Judaism progressive Judaism and conservative Judaism, said, "In my opinion, a person should not believe in any ism. He should believe in himself, or one might say ourselves as Jews."

[01:01:56]I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in the Beatles. I just believe in me." Good point. After all, he was the walrus. And I'll leave you with that.

[01:02:05]Thank you, Rabbi.

[01:02:06]>> Thank [applause] Finally for the evening, we are thrilled to present Daniel Agion. Daniel has been incredibly busy for the last year, last month, and even today he was somewhere and is just able to join us following from where he's just been. Daniel Agion KC is the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the roof body and voice of the Australian Jewish community.

[01:02:38]From '21 to '23, he served as the president of the Jewish the JCCV, Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the roof representative body of Victorian Jewish community, and a member of Maccabi Australia's committee of review into member protection matters previously.

[01:02:53]Professionally, Daniel is a barrister and King's Counsel. Previously received the Ron Merkel KC Award from the Victorian Bar for his pro bono advice and advocacy in respect of homelessness and elder law.

[01:03:06]Daniel and his family are proud members of TBI, and his three children have attended King David School. And the title of Daniel's address tonight is, "Have We Lost Jewish Pride?"

[01:03:18]>> [applause] >> Um I've just come from speaking at uh South Caulfield shul, where obviously I didn't use an iPad.

[01:03:34]Have we lost Jewish pride?

[01:03:37]Perhaps a better title is have we lost Jewish joy?

[01:03:41]Have we lost the ability to come together joyfully?

[01:03:47]When I first became president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria in 2021, it was during COVID.

[01:03:55]As we came out of that period, the preeminent question was how to get people back into shuls and to attend community events and public gatherings.

[01:04:07]In 2023, my final year as JCCV president, I worked towards the social planning office.

[01:04:17]We would look at the community demographics, analyze need, and act as a focal point for community discussion.

[01:04:25]Should we combat uh or should we uh should we look uh look towards support of our community, which was an aging community.

[01:04:35]Should we combat assimilation? Should we look at youth outreach?

[01:04:41]Should our institutions follow the community as it moved south towards Moorabbin and Aspendale and east towards Murrumbeena and Oakleigh?

[01:04:51]That was the plan.

[01:04:52]And my successor at Philip Ajack was on board with it.

[01:04:56]We had an eager incoming executive and potential funders. It was all ready to go.

[01:05:02]I thought that as incoming national president of the ECAJ, I would be doing similar work at the federal level, encouraging and coordinating similar efforts across the country.

[01:05:18]Then 7 October happened.

[01:05:21]My national role as ECAJ president commenced less than 2 months later in late November 2023.

[01:05:30]The consequences of 7 October and its impact upon Jewish life in Australia have continued unabated since.

[01:05:41]In November 2023, when my presidency commenced, the ECAJ had six staff.

[01:05:48]Now it has 16 staff and by the end of the calendar year, it will have 18.

[01:05:54]That growth has solely been driven by the continuing impact of 7 October and its aftermath upon Australian Jews.

[01:06:04]Now, unlike in COVID times, we can gather in person and we do.

[01:06:10]But often, we gather for a different reason entirely than the reasons we wanted to gather back then.

[01:06:18]Now, we gather to talk about anti-Semitism, to commiserate and share our thoughts on the latest outrage against Jews or Israel or worse still, an attack upon Jews or even worse, an attack upon Australian Jews.

[01:06:39]I can assure you that if the Jewish community puts on an event to discuss anti-Semitism, tickets will be sold out well in advance and the venue will be packed.

[01:06:52]The hottest topic of discussion at the moment is the Royal Commission.

[01:06:58]I spoke on it at South Caulfield Shule earlier tonight.

[01:07:02]And my ECAJ colleagues are speaking on the same topic tonight at shuls across the country.

[01:07:09]At the Royal Commission, ECAJ's co-CEO, Alex Ryvchin, gave evidence 2 and 1/2 weeks ago that Australian Jews had asked him whether it was time to leave Australia.

[01:07:24]He said that he would stay and fight to the end to preserve the Jewish way of life in Australia.

[01:07:33]But even that was not enough for one letter writer in this week's Australian Jewish News.

[01:07:40]In a heartfelt plea, she chastised Alex and said that he should call upon the community to leave.

[01:07:48]Leadership, she contended, meant departing these shores.

[01:07:56]I do not for a moment agree with the letter writer.

[01:07:59]I do, however, understand her position and I recognize the feelings of fear and self-preservation that drive it.

[01:08:09]We know why it is this way.

[01:08:13]But does it need to be this way?

[01:08:16]My controversial idea, then, is perhaps not so controversial at all.

[01:08:23]It is that we must not be defined or constrained by those who hate us.

[01:08:30]We must not gather in fear, circle the wagons, and murmur amongst ourselves.

[01:08:38]The Jewish topic du jour cannot be how big the conflagration is and which way the wind is blowing.

[01:08:46]Clearly, modern anti-Semitism must be discussed.

[01:08:50]And in fairness, the Royal Commission events being held at various shuls tonight are more in the nature of information sessions.

[01:08:57]But anti-Semitism must not be the only topic of discussion.

[01:09:04]I was both pleased and proud to see that it was not the case in the topics chosen for discussion by the speakers at TBI tonight.

[01:09:15]In the UK, our colleagues today commence a Jewish culture month.

[01:09:21]It will be massive and will involve events and activities across the country.

[01:09:27]It has the support of public institutions such as the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, and the V&A.

[01:09:35]The tagline is delightful.

[01:09:38]Less oy, more joy.

[01:09:42]And indeed, I'm wearing a kippah tonight that has that slogan, less oy, more joy.

[01:09:50]It is designed to showcase Jews and Judaism to the British people.

[01:09:56]To use their description, it is an accessible, vibrant, and proudly public celebration of Jewish life in the UK.

[01:10:08]It is in this vein that I contend that we must prioritize the good things in Judaism that bring us together.

[01:10:16]Our observances, our cultural heritage, our shiurim, our tradition of debate and discussion.

[01:10:26]Tonight must not be the exception to the Australian Jewish experience of the last 2 and 1/2 years.

[01:10:33]We have to find our way back to Jewish joyfulness.

[01:10:38]Once we have done so, then, and only then, can we say that we are proud to be Jewish.

[01:10:47]I for one refuse to measure my Jewishness by how hard I fight back.

[01:10:53]I choose to measure it by how tall I stand.

[01:10:58]I invite you to stand tall with me on that journey.

[01:11:04]>> [applause and cheering] >> Daniel, thank you so very much for bringing uh this to a wonderful conclusion and for everything that you do for our community uh across Australia. Uh the words that that from the Torah that we have for you are Now then, from Exodus. Now then, if you will listen to me and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the people.

[01:11:40]You shall shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

[01:11:45]From Deuteronomy, O happy Israel, who is like you, a people delivered by God.

[01:11:52]Enjoy the cheesecake, share it with your family in good health, and thank you very much.

[01:11:57]>> [applause] >> It's late in the evening. I thank every Thank you everyone for being here for our journey. Uh I would like to thank David Jones uh for spearheading the evening, Lily in the kitchen, uh Rabbi for bringing us together as always and inspiring us to be here.

[01:12:22]Uh Acknowledge again the Harris family who won the Bikkurim award earlier. To all our speakers this evening, thank you very much. A lovely safe journey home everyone. If you want to stay up and continue studying till midnight, there's a lot of content online. I put that to you.

[01:12:43]I'm going to sleep. Good evening.

[01:12:46]>> [applause]