Tag: Keshet Australia

JCCV working to improve inclusion and reduce mental health tragedies for our LGBTI community members

[Note: this Mental Health Forum was convened as an emergency response to the ABS Postal Survey on Same-Sex Marriage*]

JCCV working to improve inclusion and reduce mental health tragedies for our LGBTI community members

 

Last night, about 40 community members, organizational leaders, mental health experts and service providers, including at least seven Orthodox Rabbis, attended a very informative and moving Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) LGBTI Mental Health Forum.

The Forum heard from speakers and panelists from SANE Australia, Headspace, Jewish Care Victoria, Keshet Australia, the Rabbinical Council of Victoria and Hatzolah. Community members and professionals also shared relevant anecdotes and personal stories.

JCCV President, Jennifer Huppert stated, “It is most important at this time while the community is enduring a divisive and emotionally damaging same sex marriage debate, that we focus on respect, inclusion and avoiding creative havoc with the mental health of vulnerable members of our community, in particular our LGBTI youth.”

Apart from sharing the terrible statistics for mental health problems and suicide rates for the LGBTI community, and especially our youth, speakers described many of the problems faced:

  • Lack of support
  • Discrimination
  • Homophobia, biphobia and transphobia
  • Isolation and alienation
  • Exclusion
  • Bullying
  • Public abuse
  • Physical abuse
  • Loss of family and community connections

Which all can lead to self-harm, depression, and worse.

Young LGBTI youth face a FIVE times higher risk of suicide compared to non-LGBTI youth.

Rabbi Daniel Rabin, President of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria spoke about inclusion and the need for Rabbis and other community leaders to be welcoming. 

Rabbi Rabin stated, “We are all members of the community, like letters in a Torah scroll. If one is missing, the whole is invalidated.”

“As one of my LGBTI congregants with young children said to me, ‘What make me comfortable to attend the Synagogue and its activities is because I don’t feel judged when I participate”

Speakers spoke about the importance of family and community support, and issues of coming out.

Medical practitioner and mental health advocate Dr Dov Degen stated, “I hope for a future where we won’t have to come out as gay or straight.  We will just be able to say, “I am me”, and that will be enough.”

Orthodox Psychologist Zipporah Oliver OAM aligned the discussion with Orthodox Jewish values and said that we should remember to focus on:
– Saving a life and minimizing harm
– Loving a fellow Jew
– Chessed – Kindness

The panel of speakers highlighted steps that families and community leaders needed to take to improve mental health outcomes and prevent serious damage, included:
– Be welcoming:
– Accept difference
– Support the vulnerable and those struggling
– Refer to appropriate service providers
– Don’t be judgemental
– Provide an inclusive environment
– Must name and address mental health problems
– Must have the conversations
– Must be careful in your language and display understanding and empathy.

JCCV Mental Health Forum - Sep 25 2017
L-R: Marilyn Kraner (Jewish Care), Kirsten Cleland (Headspace), Dr Dov Degen (medical practitioner and mental health advocate), Jack Heath (CEO SANE Australia), Jennifer Huppert (JCCV President)

* At the time the web address for the postal survey was marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au

JCCV Plenum votes in favour of admitting Keshet as an affiliate

On Monday evening (Aug 3 2015) the Jewish Community Council of Victoria voted on the admission of Keshet Australia as an affiliate member.  The well-attended meeting, held at the Blake Street Hebrew Congregation, was orderly, efficient and respectful.

Photos from the evening (below).  Permission is granted for use (with accompanying credit to “Aleph Melbourne/Michael Barnett”) for supportive promotion of the event.

Additional media coverage here and here.

A packed JCCV Plenum meeting
Rarely is a JCCV Plenum meeting packed to capacity.  PHOTO: Michael Barnett.

JCCV Plenum votes for Keshet
The ‘Yes’ vote.  PHOTO: Michael Barnett.

JCCV admits Keshet
(L-R) Alan Samuel, Philip Bliss, Jonathan Barnett, Jennifer Huppert, Mark Cherny, Jonathan Cohen.  PHOTO: Michael Barnett.

Media Release – JCCV, Keshet and Social Inclusion | JCCV

[JCCV media release; DOC file]

Major Milestones In Social Inclusion For The Jewish Community

04 August 2015

The Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) Plenum on Monday night had a near record attendance of affiliate organisations, community leaders and interested community members to participate in two milestone events.

In a landmark decision, the JCCV Plenum voted to support the affiliation of Keshet Australia Inc, the JCCV’s first LGBT affiliate. Jonathan Barnett, President of Keshet spoke about the mental health and exclusion problems faced by Jews of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity, and Keshet’s role in combatting these.

Jennifer Huppert, JCCV President, stated, “This is the first time that a LGBT organisation has joined a Jewish community roof body in Australia and one of the few around the world.  Rarely has this happened in faith based communities anywhere in the world.”

This is a concrete step in our advancement of full social inclusion for every member of the Jewish community, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.  The discussions within our affiliates before the vote were important, as they raised awareness of the issues faced by some members of our community, and the importance of embracing diversity.  The vote was a comprehensive victory for inclusion and a strong statement by the Jewish community against homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and intersex exclusion.”

David Marlow, JCCV Executive Director stated, “This vote may not change the world, but will change the way many in our community feel about the world.”

The JCCV Plenum also voted to support the adoption of the new JCCV Social Inclusion Disability Policy, aimed at reducing stigma and improving inclusion and access to community based services and activities for members of the Jewish community with a disability.  The Policy was introduced by JCCV executive member Doron Abramovici, who said that “The JCCV has a proud record of advocating for inclusion all members of our community and today we extend this history with 2 motions”. David Southwick MP, Chair of the Social Inclusion Leadership Committee (SILC) was one of a number of people who spoke in support of the policy.

Bialik College urges the community to support Keshet

Last Friday, July 31 2015, the Principal of Bialik College, Jeremy Stowe-Lindner, issued this letter urging the community to support the application of Keshet Australia to become an affiliate member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria at the plenum meeting on Monday August 3.

 

31 July 2015

Shalom Kehilla,

Rarely do I write to our Bialik community to pass comment on events beyond the College, but such is the situation at the moment with regards the inclusion of members of our community that I feel obligated to write.

It is with horror that we turned on our computers this morning and opened our newspapers to learn of the knife attack at the Gay Pride event in Jerusalem. The attack appears to have been perpetrated by a member of our own community and this makes the situation all the more shocking.

The Jewish people are a mosaic of difference. Whether we are Orthodox or Progressive, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, practising or non-practising, gay or straight we are all members of klal Yisrael, the people of Israel.

The rainbow spectrum of our community, and I use the term ‘rainbow’ deliberately, is something that we should celebrate. The idea of inclusion of those whose lifestyles are different to what may be seen as mainstream, but contribute positively to the community without impinging on the freedom of others, is a fundamental tenet of modern liberal Jewish values.

As the Jewish Community Council of Victoria debates on Monday whether to include Keshet, a group representing Jews who may not identify as heterosexual, I would like to express my personal view as Principal of a cross-communal pluralist Jewish school that the inclusion of such members of the community in our institutions should not be a matter of debate but simply a matter of fact.

Having just commemorated Tisha B’Av, the date when so many calamities have befallen the Jewish people and when we bemoan ‘baseless hatred’, now is the time to come together as a community and make a positive stand for inclusion.

Shabbat Shalom,

Jeremy Stowe-Lindner
Principal