A Mezuzah for Josh
July 25, 2019 by J-Wire Newsdesk
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Josh Burns MP was accused of not being a proud Jew by another Jewish candidate running for the same seat of the highly Jewishly populated seat of McNamara in Melbourne because he didn’t have a Mezuzah on the doorpost of his office.
Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann and Josh Burns
The community leaders and Rabbis spoke out in defence of the Mount Scopus graduate who recently became the youngest Jewish member of parliament.
Josh extended an invite to his long term friend and Rabbi the Ark Centre Gabi Kaltmann to join him in Canberra for his induction speech and to affix a mezuzah on his office door.
Accompanied by about 60 well-wishers and fellow MPs, Josh and Rabbi Gabi attached the Mezuzah.
Rabbi Gabi explained the importance of the Mezuzah and how it symbolizes faith in G-d’s protection.
With cheers of L’chaim to Josh
and a small simcha dance of Siman Tov, the youngest MP in Parliament stands in good stead to continue being a strong community leader while undertaking his important role in Canberra.
Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann told J-Wire: “It was a true honour representing the Ark community at Parliament House in Canberra to affix the office Mezzuzah of my good friend Josh Burns, the new Member for Macnamara. Josh is one of a small but significant cohort of Jewish members of Parliament from all sides of politics that do a fantastic job in representing our community in the House.”
20 years ago Michael Danby was saying he was the only Jewish Federal MP now Josh Burns is the youngest of a significant number of MP’s in Canberra. Despite being part of a small population of about 80,000 in Australian Jewish MPs are on a per capita basis higher in number than other religious minorities like Muslims and Buddhists in parliament.