Battle over who speaks for the Jewish community

As the war in Gaza threatens to escalate into a broader confrontation between Israel and Hamas’ state sponsor Iran, a fierce battle is raging within Australia’s Jewish community over identity, their relationship to Israel, antisemitism and who speaks to their concerns.

Since it formed in February, the Jewish Council of Australia – a small, self-appointed group of Jewish intellectuals who accuse Israel of genocide and support the pro-Palestinian protest movement – has emerged as a disruptive and increasingly prominent voice on the war.

In response, leaders of established Jewish representative bodies and prominent Jewish figures – all supportive of Israel – accuse the group of adopting a name that misleads people about who they are and the extent to which they represent Australian Jews.

Lawyer Mark Leibler, a director of the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and former president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, is scathing of the nascent group, describing it in a series of tweets as a ‘‘Jew hater’s council’’, which speaks for antisemitic Jews.

‘‘Their name is clearly misleading,’’ Leibler told The Age.

‘‘Anyone who looks at what they call themselves would imagine they are representative of the Jewish community and of course, they are not.

‘‘They represent a tiny minority within the Jewish community of dissident Jews. The way they go about their business is to mislead media organisations into thinking they represent a widespread cross-section of the Jewish community.’’

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion, while refusing to refer to the Jewish Council of Australia by name, said his organisation was the peak body for about 200 Jewish groups.

‘‘Over the years, micro groups comprised of a handful of individuals from the far margins of the political spectrum have come and gone,’’ he said. ‘‘They often use names that conceal their true nature as fringe and unrepresentative.’’

Journalist and author Michael Gawenda – a former editor-inchief of The Age – urged journalists to be clear about the group when reporting its public statements.

‘‘I am not saying they shouldn’t be quoted but it should be clear who they represent and that they are not a mainstream Jewish organisation,’’ he said.

‘‘In some reporting, the Jewish Council of Australia is given equivalence to the [Executive Council of Australian Jewry]. That is just nonsense.’’

The executive officers of the Jewish Council of Australia, human rights lawyer Sarah Schwartz, author and historian Max Kaiser and public policy expert Elizabeth Strakosch, rejected accusations that their organisation’s name was misleading and said the group has been transparent about its structure and aims.

Schwartz said that the council never claimed to be a representative body or to speak for all Jews.

‘‘That was really important because we take issue with the fact that so many so-called Jewish representatives claim to speak on behalf of the entire Jewish community,’’ she said.

Schwartz said the council was named, in part, to acknowledge its resonance with a historic, leftwing Australian Jewish organisation – the Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism. ‘‘We are a council of experts on racism and antisemitism.’’

Strakosch said criticisms of the council followed an established pattern of Jewish organisations labelling anyone opposed to Israel’s actions as not legitimate or a self-hating Jew.

‘‘The criticisms we have received – being called the Jew hater’s council, being told we should just go and join Hamas, being told we are antisemitic – those things are not about how we are presenting ourselves,’’ she said. ‘‘They are about the things that we say.’’

The council describes itself as a diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers formed in response to the rise in racism and antisemitism.

Beyond the three executive officers, the membership of the council is not publicly disclosed, although it publishes the membership of a separate advisory committee that includes publisher Louise Adler and lawyer Josh Bornstein.

Schwartz said the council received no funding and its members were unpaid. The council is in the process of registering its organisation as an incorporated, not-for-profit association.

The council’s purpose was made clear in its first newsletter, when it declared its support for Palestinian freedom and justice. ‘‘We came together in the midst of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza because of the abject failures of our so-called Jewish representative organisations to recognise the growing number of Jews who support an immediate ceasefire and Palestinian human rights,’’ Strakosch wrote.

One of the council’s principal aims is to reframe the debate about antisemitism by ‘‘disentangling’’ Jewishness from the state of Israel.

More contentiously, the council appears to blame Israel – rather than Hamas or the broader pro-Palestinian movement – for the circumstances confronting Australian Jews.

‘‘The actions of the Israeli state right now are certainly not making Jews in Israel any safer and they are not making Jews in Australia any safer,’’ Kaiser said. ‘‘In fact, it would do a significant amount of good in reducing antisemitism and reducing racism if there was no longer an occupation in Israel/ Palestine and there was a just solution there.’’

These arguments are not abstract. On Friday, a group of Jewish women met with Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan at the Caulfield South synagogue where Shabbat prayers were last year disrupted by violent clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and police.

They recounted examples of hatred and harassment they had experienced since the start of the war in Gaza, which has led to the deaths of an estimated 34,000 Palestinians after Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks in Israel.

On the same day, the Melbourne Law School building where Schwartz lectures was plastered with anti-Israel stickers with a red cross through the Star of David.

Adler said she was impressed by the seriousness of the predominantly young scholars and lawyers who make up the council and were doing important work.

‘‘This war is not good for the Jews,’’ she said. ‘‘It is not good for Israel, it is certainly not good for the Jewish diaspora. It is a disaster and a tragedy, and I wish people who are part of the Jewish establishment would come out and say that.’’

Josh Bornstein, a workplace law expert who supports strong protections for free speech and against racism, said Jewish organisations had for too long sought to suppress debate within the Jewish community about Israel, Palestine and Gaza.

‘‘One of the key methods of suppressing legitimate political expression has been to deploy false accusations of antisemitism,’’ he said. ‘‘The council is determined to expose the deception that is involved when those who criticise Israel’s treatment of Palestinians are labelled ‘antisemitic’.’’

Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University associate professor David Slucki described the Jewish Council of Australia as an ‘‘extension of the spectrum of Jewish political thought’’ well established in the US and Israel.

‘‘I know there is a lot of strong feeling against them, but if you situate them within modern Jewish history, it is not so different to have Jewish groups who have an array of political positions with regard to Jewish sovereignty and statehood. That is just part of the Jewish story.’’

Whether the Jewish Council of Australia’s views about Israel reflect a tiny number or sizeable minority of Australia’s 89,000 Jews is open to debate.

Aghion said support for Israel has never been more passionate. ‘‘We are united and determined, and we stand with Israel during one of the most challenging times we have faced as a community,’’ he said.

Slucki said surveys conducted before October 7 indicated about 30 per cent of Jews in Australia did not identify as Zionists and the impact of the war in Gaza was yet to be reflected in any studies.