In the month of March, 2004

In March 2004, Michael Striegold tested for the Gift of Life, an organisation he had never heard, at a community function in San Francisco. In the same month 12,000 kms across the Pacific, Michael Faust is Sydney learned that he had an aggressive form of leukaemia for which was their no cure. The only hope for survival was finding a matching stem cell donor. Streigold gave Faust the Gift of Life and is in Sydney to attend Faust’s wedding. Read more

Danby calls Q&A “a setup”

Federal Labor MP Michael Danby  has lashed out at ABC-TV’s choice of panellists on tonight’s Q&A calling it a set-up. He has written to ABC Managing Director Mark Scott pointing out that once again the ABC  was presenting a panel whose members hold strong views on Israel and “the Jewish lobby” on a Jewish festival without a strong representation of opposing opinion. Read more

Golden Dawn in Australia

The NSW Greek community has expressed its concern in an statement issued by the Australian Hellenic Council [NSW]  following Channel 9’s Sixty Minutes program during which a member of the Greek far-right group Golden Dawn  admitted the party had established branches in Sydney and Melbourne. Read more

Dayenu – Enough Already…writes Michael Kuttner

One of the amazing characteristics inherent in the Israeli approach to life is the refusal to be cowed by threats, implied or overt, and to live life to the full at every opportunity. Read more

JCA: Campaign on its way

Sydney’s Jewish Communal Appeal has held its 2014 campaign launch event for hosts, key stakeholders and community leaders. Read more

Jewish Leaders Down Under not intimidated…writes Isi Leibler

Former Australian Labor Party Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has released a 500 page book titled “Diary of a Foreign Minister” depicting his activities in office from March 2012 to September 2013. It includes a vicious attack on the Jewish communal leadership, charging it with disproportionate influence on government. The criticism is reminiscent of the notorious Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer book on the Jewish lobby in America. Read more

Remembering Hungary

This year’s NSW Yom Hashoah ceremonies will honour the Jews of Hungary and other European centres who were deported in 1944. Read more

From Breaking the Silence

Jamie Hyams and Adam Shapiro of The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council have claimed on these pages that allegations aired on the ABC 4 Corners Program “Stone Cold Justice” were “old – some going back to incidents that were alleged to have occurred almost a decade ago.”

Specifically, Hyams and Shapiro were referring to the story of an array of settler attacks on Palestinian children in 2005 that led IDF soldiers to escort the children to their school in the village of at-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills.

Why is this bite different from all other bites?…asks Tami Sussman

If the thought of giving up bread, pasta, muesli and Tim Tams for a bit over a week makes you want to pluck your eyebrows off, then have no fear – you are experiencing a normal response to an anticipatory thought of Passover. Read more

Watching YouTube

The Online Hate Prevention Institute has launched a new initiative inviting the community members to register for access to an online system which will lodge complaints of hate content on YouTube. Read more

Carr Sickness…writes Jack Chrapot

Tonight, we sit down to read about the liberation of the Jews from slavery back in the days of the Pharaohs. When we finally get through the part about our deliverance from Egypt, we eat because after all, who can reflect about this long history of overcoming evil and nasty tyrants on an empty stomach? Read more

Pesach in Townsville

An innocent game of  frisbee has brought Jake Altholz’s parents from the USA to the north Queensland city of Townsville where they will Seder tonight with members of the tiny local Jewish community. Jake was badly injured in a car accident last month and parents Reed and Elyse were at his bedside as he fought to recover from serious injury. Read more

No green light for hate speech

The NSW Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Communities has said that Victor Dominello, the Liberal Minister for the portfolio, had “disappointed” the Harmony Dinner held in Sydney by failing tp speak out against the proposed moves by the Federal Liberal government to water down the Racial Discrimination Act. Read more

Overprotective or loving? Daughters reflect on Jewish mothers in new anthology

Rachel Ament noticed that she and her friends often shared humorous anecdotes that were typically variations on a theme: overprotective, worrying Jewish mothers who smothered them with love. Read more

88% say “No” to changing the Race Discrimination Act

Today’s Nielsen poll showing 88% of respondents disagree with the contention that it should be lawful to offend, insult or humiliate a person on the basis of race is further evidence that changes to the Racial Discrimination Act are unwarranted and unwanted, said Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane. Read more

Chag Sameach from the Prime Minister

Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia sends a Pesach message to J-Wire readers…. Read more

Overseas news alert – 3 killed in Jewish community centres in Kansas

USA Today reports that at least three people are dead after a gunman went on a rampage at a Jewish Community Centre and retirement home in Kansas. As he was led away by police the alleged gunman yelled “Heil Hitler” Read more

Palestine – Historical Amnesia Causes Kerry’s Downfall…writes David Singer

John Kerry was well on the way to becoming another impotent and failed Secretary of State in November last year – as predicted in my article “Palestine – Kerry Destined For Political Scrapheap”: Read more

Like Father, Like Son…a movie review by Roz Tarszisz

Are the ties of blood stronger than that of parental love?  A heartbreaking dilemma explores the bonds that define a family in modern Japan. Read more

Bob Carr – AIJAC has its say…and Danby watches the 7:30 Report

What we think

Thirty one multicultural and religious communities in Victoria have responded to the opportunity offered by Attorney-General Senator George Brandis and the Federal Government  to comment on the  proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA). Read more

NZ luminary passes away

Mike Nathan, an outstanding leader of the New Zealand Jewish community has passed away at the age of 67. Read more

Julia Gillard makes a surprise appearance

The iconic Jerusalem Theatre was the venue for Keren Malki’s third Rainbow of Music annual concert. Tickets had already been completely sold out by the previous week…but for the more than 450 people in the audience, a highlight of the performance was the opening speech delivered by surprise visitor, former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard. Read more

In the eyes of the beholder

A poster in which the eye may be tricked into believing that New Zealand’s Prime Minister is a Nazi  posing in front of a flag in which the swastika has been replaced by a dollar sign is being distributed in Wellington and offered for sale on the internet. Read more

Harvard students make time for Arafat, but not for Harvard terror victims…writes Stephen Flatow

The controversy over the Harvard University students who recently posed, smiling, at Yasser Arafat’s grave sent a shot of pain through every one of us who has lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks that Arafat and his allies have waged over the years. Read more

Yom HaZikaron: Israeli families discuss what it means to lose a soldier, a son, a sibling

Some 22,000 Israeli soldiers have died since the establishment of the Jewish state, including 40 soldiers between March 2013 and March 2014, according to the Israel Defense Forces…writes Maayan Jaffe. Read more

My unpleasant evening with ‘Breaking the Silence’…writes Hen Mazzig

I recently attended a disturbing lecture at Washington University in St. Louis. It was co-sponsored by St. Louis Hillel at Washington University and J Street U. The speaker, a former Israeli soldier with the group “Breaking the Silence” (BtS), misrepresented and demonized the Israel Defense Forces, Israel, and Israeli policy. Read more

The fight against BDS

In a keynote speech in London, World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S. Lauder on Monday called on Jewish community and organizational leaders to step up the battle against the anti-Israel Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement, saying that this was perhaps the most important thing they would ever do. Read more

Bob Carr: A reader’s thoughts

I don’t think that the self opinionated, arrogant Bob Carr should get away without a suitable reply both to his appearance on the 7.30 program on the ABC last night as well as his chapter about the “ IsraeliLobby “ also called ( by him ) the” Falafel Lobby”, in his book. Read more

Fire and Ice…writes Rabbi Michoel Gourarie

In the Pesach Hagadah  we read the story of the ten plagues that punished the Egyptians. Read more

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