Dr Colin Rubenstein addresses a minyan for the late Jeremy Jones AM

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Dr Colin Rubenstein, Executive Director at the Australia /Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has addressed a minyan for the late Jeremy Jones held at Sydney’s Mizrachi Synagogue.

Jeremy Jones AM

J-Wire published the address in its entirety.

Dr Colin Rubenstein:

“I’m honoured to be speaking here this evening as Jeremy’s colleague and friend for 35-plus years.

For starters, all of us at AIJAC  are utterly devastated by the passing of our beloved and widely admired and respected colleague Jeremy Jones AM.

Jeremy has been an essential and irreplaceable part of AIJAC for some three and a half decades and a leading light of the Australian Jewish community for even longer.

There has been an outpouring of sorrow and disbelief around the world at Jeremy’s untimely passing – from Federal and state Parliaments and leaders, from the U.S., UK, Israel, Indonesia, religious leaders, Federal Police and many more – but also a flood of amazing tributes applauding his remarkable qualities, personal and professional. I have to tell you they are all true.

Jeremy was one of a kind, unique in his impact on the Jewish world and on Australia’s evolving tolerant, multicultural, inclusive society –  an impact that has been profound and will be enduring.

It is impossible in a short comment to capture the breadth and quality of his varied contributions, but let me at least attempt a few snapshots from my interactions with him over those 35 years.

He was our community’s one-man intelligence agency, who knew almost every person of importance in Australian politics, religious communities, the media and other areas of public life – and was almost universally liked and certainly respected. His interfaith work, and personal warmth, also won him hundreds of friends, admirers and colleagues overseas.

My big coup was to recruit Jeremy to head AIJAC’s new Sydney office in the late 1980s.

How did that happen?  A little bit of history may be in order here. I was a mere academic at Latrobe University from 1969 to 1975 and then Monash University from 1976 to 1998.

Of course, we are about to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 which saw the beginning of Israel no longer being perceived as little David but starting to be depicted, falsely of course, as assuming the characteristics of Goliath- a transition which was particularly obvious on campus at both staff and student levels.

The need for action to support Israel as well as historical truth was obvious, and I was involved with others in establishing on campus in 1977 Academics for Peace in the Middle East.  In that role, my ties with the Australia Israel Publications, established in 1974 with Sam Lipski at the helm, started to grow, but then Sam moved on in the early ‘80s. In short, it turned out, especially at the time of and after the June 1982 Lebanon War, that a young researcher there, Michael Danby, mobilised me, especially to do a lot of media and, subsequently, much more. I became the Editorial Chairman in that year until my full-time role as Executive Director commenced in 1999.

But I saw almost immediately the need for an office in Sydney as well and, with the support of the late Col Goldstein and Sir Frank Lowy, we were in a position to do that very quickly.

And so, who could I turn to? Well, there was already this young fellow making his mark in AUJS, on campus, in the Labour Friends of Israel, as Research Director of the NSW Board of Directors, in his varied ECAJ roles – and so he was the man. Happily, he accepted our offer, first serving in AIP, which became AIJAC in 1993, with the incorporation of the Australian Institute of Jewish Affairs – an area in which Jeremy excelled.

Jeremy has been the dynamo, the brain and heart of the office and of AIJAC, nationally and internationally.  He ran our Sydney operations 24/7 with extraordinary effectiveness and dedication, and he attracted top-flight researchers, advocates and colleagues whom he mentored and guided through the years, so many of whom have continued to make important contributions to the Jewish world and Israel.

And not least of all, I am pleased to say his daughter Galit in the last year or two, has shown she is a chip off the old block, working in our Sydney office and demonstrating so many of the skills and commitments that Jeremy has clearly passed on to his family.

Until his last days, Jeremy remained active and a valued contributor. He even submitted on Monday a detailed report on his many and varied AIJAC activities over the last quarter for our forthcoming Directors’ meeting.

He steered that office with distinction and determination right up until his passing. AIJAC is proud to have helped facilitate Jeremy’s ability over those years to assume numerous other public service roles across the wider Jewish community, multi-faith and multicultural Australia, in our national public life, and even the international arena – to the benefit of everyone who had the pleasure of working with him.

Among other roles, he served for many years as Vice-President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the peak representative body of the Australian Jewish community, before being elected ECAJ President repeatedly between 2001 and 2004.

As we know, Jeremy was at the forefront in exposing and fighting antisemitism, racial hatred and bigotry in all its forms. He was the community’s main chronicler of statistics on antisemitism for more than two decades – particularly through his invaluable annual antisemitism reports – and a main voice formulating policy responses to it. As an Australian delegate to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), he was one of the group of experts who helped formulate IHRA’s now widely-used working definition of antisemitism. He also was the plaintiff in two landmark court cases which established that antisemitism was covered by Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and that Holocaust denial was a violation of that act. He was always measured, thoughtful, constructive and responsible in his approach to these vexed issues and more broadly in promoting interfaith understanding and cooperation.

Jeremy was the founder of the first Jewish-Christian dialogue group in Sydney and remained a leading light of inter-faith dialogue, both in Australia and globally, throughout his life. I should also highlight his long-standing solidarity with indigenous Australia, typified by his indigenous patterned ties and kipot.

Jeremy always brought an extraordinary level of knowledge and insight about Judaism, public life in Australia, philosophy and morality, and human nature into his work. He also had a personal warmth, a kindness for those in need, an eagerness to teach and debate, and a wicked wit, all of which will be profoundly missed by everyone who worked with or knew him.
I must also make reference to his outstanding contribution in the broader Australia, Asia and Israel set of relationships. In particular, his work on Jewish-Muslim dialogue led to Jeremy playing a unique role in Indonesia – where he spoke widely to Muslim groups about Judaism and through AIJAC’s well-known Rambam Study Visit Program for over 20 years, he was able to bring many groups of Muslim religious, media and academic leaders to Israel. Some of you may have seen the amazing tribute from Dr Nur Munir, a gifted academic at the University of Indonesia with close links to the major Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) religious organisation, a small body of 95 million members, extolling the virtues of Jeremy, his precious friend.  Indeed, between us, we have been able to take the cream of Indonesia’s mainstream religious leadership, media elite and political thinkers to Israel and when relations are ultimately upgraded between Israel and Indonesia, it will be another important dimension of Jeremy’s legacy.

One final brief but major point.  Jeremy attended the infamous UN Durban Conference over 20 years ago as a member of the Australian Government delegation.  He was witness to the vicious anti-Israel behaviour and outcome of that gathering, which have percolated into so many UN bodies ever since, including its Human Rights Council, UNESCO and so on.  He understood the challenge, he alerted us all to it and fought it vigorously with determination ever since.

To conclude, these snapshots hardly do justice to the rich tapestry of Jeremy’s professional and personal life, his varied contributions in addressing contemporary challenges and his creative efforts to help foster a better, more harmonious world.

We at AIJAC are very proud of the immense legacy of service to the Australian Jewish community, and to Australian society and beyond , that Jeremy leaves behind. It is a legacy built up through decades of hard work, dedication, integrity and inspirational leadership, which will continue to have a positive and enduring impact and continue to be a source of comfort for all his loving family.

MAY HIS MEMORY ALWAYS BE A BLESSING.”