JCCV: "Jewish Community Council of Victoria" or "Jewish Cowards Collective of Victoria" ?

The JCCV has been asked politely and respectfully to take a proactive stance against homophobia and related forms of hate and vilification in the Jewish Community of Victoria and around Australia.

On Saturday August 1 2009 Nir Katz (26) and Liz Troubishi (17) were shot dead in a gay community centre in Tel Aviv, Israel. At least 15 other people were injured in the attack. On visiting the centre after the shooting, the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Binyamin Netanyahu spoke out publicly against hatred and intolerance and said everyone deserved respect.^[1]

Does the JCCV have the strength of leadership to take the same stance as the Prime Minister of Israel or is it just a collective of cowards pandering to 'the moral majority' and scared to speak out for fear of 'splitting the community'? Do they actually care about the most vulnerable people in the community who don't have a voice and who are frequently spat on and treated like lepers and common criminals?

It's time for the leaders to start leading and stop following.

[1] "Tel Aviv gay attack bears marks of terrorism"

19 August 2009

Mr John Searle
President
Jewish Community Council of Victoria

Dear John

There is an all too uncomfortable, somewhat sinister, undercurrent of intolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people within certain sections of the Australian Jewish community. This has been evidenced by individuals and organisations publishing hateful and vilifying material against GLBT people on local web sites and in letters to the Australian Jewish News in recent weeks and at various stages over the last decade.

Events in Israel over recent years (2006 Jerusalem gay pride parade and 2009 Tel Aviv gay centre shooting) have brought home just how vulnerable GLBT people are and the easy targets they make. Whilst such events may not necessarily be hate crimes targeted at GLBT people, it is not a far stretch to see how such an outcome could eventuate.

It is incumbent on the leaders of the Jewish community at all levels to counter this intolerance, both real and perceived, distance itself from it and supplant it with a coordinated, on-going nation-wide anti-homophobia/transphobia strategy. This strategy will have three aims initially: 1) educate the Australian Jewish community about GLBT people and culture in a positive light; 2) identify and remove the language of hate and intolerance targetting GLBT people; 3) promote positive Jewish GLBT role models into the core fabric of the community. The Jewish community will have the full support of all Jewish GLBT organisations in Australia, along with organisations from and supporting the wider GLBT community, in setting up and implementing the strategy.

The ramifications of neglecting to achieve any one part of this in a timely and effective fashion are such that there will be further alienation and suffering (including depression, rejection by family and suicide) of GLBT individuals within the community and that GLBT individuals and organisations will continue to be the targets of hatred and intolerance from within the community.

For millenia the Jewish people have been the targets of hate and know all too painfully what the outcome of such hatred is. On August 14 2009 Laurance Splitter wrote the following:

"There is a particular poignancy to attacks from so-called religious Jews on gays. That whacko who referred to the "dreck" now living in Israel - specifically Israeli gays, lesbians, and anyone else who does not live according to his interpretation of God's will - might be reminded that it was just such a categorization (labelling fellow human beings as non persons) which allowed the Nazis and their many sympathisers to murder both Jews and homosexuals. I hold no hope for him or his peers, but we must continue to push for an education system which discourages young people from resorting to this kind of deadly categorization."

This needs no explanation. I am more optimistic than Laurance however, and I seek your assistance to prove him wrong.

I look forward to a positive response and cooperative outcome from the Jewish community. I hope that together we can bring this to life.

Sincerely,

Michael Barnett
Aleph Melbourne

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20 Aug 2009

PS. I would like the JCCV to take heed of the words of Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, as he visited the gay youth centre in Tel Aviv after the shooting:

"We are all created in God's image. We all have fundamental rights, the first of which is to be treated with respect by others and give [them] the same respect," he said.

"Anyone who has suffered from baseless hatred, as an individual or in a group, knows how painful and unacceptable it is. This is something we must uproot from society as much as possible," he added. "I think Israeli society has made progress toward tolerance, and I hope and feel certain that we can make further progress."

As you can see, the Prime Minister of Israel gets the message. I hope it doesn't take a similar tragedy in Australia for the leaders of our community to take a stand against the intolerance and hatred I refer to that you are yet to acknowledge.