New leadership for Victoria’s Jewish community
At the Jewish Community Council of Victoria AGM, Jennifer Huppert completed her second term as JCCV President with the leadership of Australia’s largest Jewish community passing on to Dr Andre Oboler.
Dr Andre Oboler
Jenifer Huppert was thanked for her six years of service leading the Victorian Jewish community.
While more familiar in his capacity as CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, Dr Oboler been a member of the JCCV Executive and one of Victoria’s Councillors on the Executive Council of Australian Jewry throughout the last 6 years.
He also serves on the Australian Government’s delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and recently served as the Intercultural Adviser for the Independent Inquiry into antisemitism as Brighton Secondary. In taking up the JCCV Presidency he stepped off the board of the North Eastern Jewish Centre.
Dr Oboler has a wealth of experience in community leadership. A graduate of Mount Scopus, he was active in the school’s outreach program, leadership programs, multimedia crews and the school radio. He completed an honours degree in Computer Science at Monash, serving as a madrich with Hineni through his first year of university. Moving to the UK for his PhD at Lancaster University, he became President of the Jewish Society on campus, then National Secretary of the Union of Jewish Student, the UK’s equivalent of AUJS, and served as a Deputy on Board of Deputies of British Jews.
During his time in the UK, he worked to combat the UK Academic Boycott of Israel, cooperating closely with the Israeli Embassy in London. He was selected by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to participate in the Young Jewish Diplomatic Seminar Series and completed the program during the Second Lebanon War. He was selected as a Legacy Heritage Fellow, a year-long fellowship for future leaders, and completed the program along with Rabbi Elhanan Miller, now Rabbi of the ACT Jewish Community.
Dr Oboler is mostly known for his work combating online antisemitism. He served as Director of the Community Internet Engagement Program at the Zionist Federation of Australia, then as CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute. He provided international leadership on online antisemitism serving for nine years as a co-chair of the Israeli Government led Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. He continues to provide this international expertise within IHRA. Later this week he is presenting on the topic of online hate for the United Nations.
Outside the Jewish community, Dr Oboler has been heavily involved in the IEEE which with over 420,000 engineering and technology professionals as members is the world’s largest technical professional organisation dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. He serves on their global public policy committee and within the IEEE Computer Society he serves as the global chair of geographic activities, overseeing over 560 local chapters across 154 countries.
J-Wire wishes Dr Oboler and the new JCCV Executive well as they take over the reins of leadership.
