2022 NSW Jewish Board of Deputies President’s Award goes to Vic Alhadeff
Vic Alhadeff spent 17 years steering The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies as its CEO. Yesterday, he became the recipient of the 2022 NSW Jewish Board of Deputies President’s Award.
Former president Robert Goot told the Board’s February plenum: “Vic has dedicated his life’s work to championing human rights, and since at least 1996, has been at the forefront of facilitating and promoting understanding, reconciliation, mutual respect, goodwill and tolerance between community, religious and ethnic groups in NSW, living and breathing the very qualities which are the criteria for this award.”
He added: “Prior to coming to the Board of Deputies, he had prodigious output as a journalist including: campaigning against apartheid in South Africa; campaigning and editorialising for Indigenous rights; campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights – in the process winning the Mardi Gras Non-Gay Media Award; editorialising on the refugee issue, calling for Australia to accept 4000 Kosovar refugees during the Serbia-Croatia war; and so much more.”
NSWJBD president David Ossip, Vic Alhadeff, Robert Goot
Vic Alhadeff left the editorship of the Australian Jewish News in 2004 and remained at the helm of the Board until 2021.
Robert Goot mentioned some highlights of his achievements at the Board relevant to the criteria for this award:
- spearheading a 3-year campaign on behalf of ethnic groups to achieve in 2018, the passage of Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act outlawing incitement to violence on the basis of race, religion, gender and sexual preference;
- advocating successfully for community-wide acceptance of the right of Jewish Australians to identify as LGBTQI+; despite significant opposition from certain quarters;
- being a sought-after expert, commentator and panellist, on a variety of topics and on antisemitism and the holocaust, in particular;
- in 2014, being appointed Chair of Multicultural NSW in recognition of his deep involvement in furthering multicultural and interfaith outcomes. In that capacity, he brought together diverse community leaders, forged breakthrough relationships between estranged groups and brought together communities which had historically been in conflict with each other;
- in 2021, receiving the Premier’s Award from Premier Gladys Berejiklian, for his contribution to civil society; and
- also in 2021, being appointed as a non-executive Director of SBS.
Robert Goot added: “Vic has promoted and advanced the work and reputation of the Board, both within and beyond the Jewish community.
Vic has conducted himself, earning an envious reputation for professionalism, integrity, dedication and passionate commitment to a more resilient and inclusive society. He continues to enjoy his associations amongst so many, throughout the parliament, within community, religious, ethnic groups and civil society in NSW and beyond.
He is rightfully highly respected and a most fitting recipient of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies President’s Award for 2022.”
In accepting the award, Vic Alhadeff made three important points.
He mentioned working with Jeremy Spinak, who died tragically and with four other presidents.
Vic told the plenum: “Soon after Jeremy passed away at a tragically young age, the Board of Deputies conceived of the idea of establishing this annual award and in the name of a Board of Deputies president. The inaugural award was, quite appropriately, presented in Jeremy’s name.
I, therefore, reflect on the heartbreaking genesis of this award – and specifically, on the exceptional individual Jeremy was;
on his unquantifiable, untapped potential, which will never be realised;
on his irreverent sense of humour and very funny imitations of South African and Israeli accents;
on the incredibly incisive mind which he applied to protecting and advancing this organisation and therefore this community;
and indeed, on his bereft young family.
The second dimension of the award which gives me pause relates to the fact that it is presented, as we just heard, in the name of Robert Goot.
I first encountered Robert in the previous century when I was editing the Australian Jewish News.
Robert was actually going to sue me at the time. For various statements which were published in the newspaper for which I may or may not have been responsible.
Fortunately, the lawsuit did not eventuate.
But I quickly came to know Robert as an exceptionally focused, take-no-prisoners communal leader possessed of a brilliant and razor-sharp intellect, as well as an astute – if at times bordering on the wicked – sense of humour, all of which he has applied to the well-being of this community for half a century.
I learned from Robert constantly, I stand in awe of his remarkable contribution to Australian Jewry and indeed to World Jewry.
The third component of the award which I find humbling is that it is given in recognition of commitment to this organisation and to this community – and therefore, by extension, to the Jewish people.
I said at my farewell function as CEO in May 2021 that my personal and professional choices in life have been shaped by my close connection to the Holocaust and to apartheid South Africa – underscored by an indelible memory of finding swastikas smeared on my locker at boarding school in Zimbabwe as a nine-year-old innocent who could not possess the tools to understand the message behind those searing images.”
He said that he has an indelible memory of finding swastikas smeared on his locker at boarding school in Zimbabwe as a nine-year-old innocent who could not possess the tools to understand the message behind those searing images.
Vic stated: “Those transformative influences – simultaneously overt and subliminal – were a constant presence, and a warning light, if you will, of where bigotry can take us – at every moment of every day of the 17 years in which I had the privilege of occupying the CEO’s chair.”
He paid tributes to the staff with whom he worked, listing some of their successful outcomes.
- Strength in relationships across the political, media, education, intercultural, interfaith and NGO sectors;
- The abiding trust of government, opposition and minor parties as a centrist and balanced participant in the debate;
- The passage of Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act after establishing an unprecedented coalition of 34 community organisations, backed up by 200 lobbying meetings and media interviews;
- And all our work underpinned by, and predicated on, respect in the public square for what the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies stood for;
He concluded by saying on receiving the award he said: : “I am deeply honoured to accept it, mindful of its tragic genesis and Jeremy Spinak’s legacy. I am mindful of the fact that it is presented in the name of the peerless Robert Goot. And I am mindful of the fact that notwithstanding what our team achieved in my 17 years in the chair, the task is never complete. And as always, I stand ready to help.”
The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said, “Vic was an outstanding and tireless leader of the Board and our community for 17 years. He set the example for what it means to be a leader of our community and made an outstanding contribution towards promoting a safe, inclusive and cohesive NSW community. Vic is a truly worthy recipient of our President’s Award.
We wish Vic a hearty Mazal Tov and thank him for the remarkable service he has given the Jewish community.”
