I can’t say I know Louise Adler. It’s true we shared a couple of casual lunches with her and her husband (well-known comedian Max Gillies) at a mutual friend’s home a number of years ago. I don’t recall Adler expressing views on Zionism at the time, at least none that raised any concerns for me.
From her role as chair of the Methodist Ladies’ College school council, in which she presided over the controversial dismissal of a much-loved principal, to her resignation as chief executive of Melbourne University Publishing, “powerhouse” Adler – as her genuflecting fellow media types label her – is never far from controversy.
She comes and goes from her public roles often with lots of airtime and a fair amount of indignation at the unfair treatment that has been meted out to her.
For the past three years Adler has been the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week. She has curated controversial programs that feature hardline Palestinian advocates with little or no voices of moderation, let alone pro-Israel voices. In response to criticism of her choice of speakers – which resulted in the loss of major corporate sponsorship – Adler simply blamed these former supporters for suppressing discussion.
In recent times, Adler has become a darling of the anti-Zionists in the rarefied, cultural world in which she inhabits. This is a world that prides itself on its espousal of liberal ideals, freedom of speech, commitment to the rights of the individual, social justice and self-determination for all except, it seems, when it comes to Jews.
It is an extraordinary thing. The child of Holocaust survivors, who herself spent time living in Israel, is so desperately and unashamedly a vitriolic voice against Jewish peoplehood, self-determination and statehood. She passionately decries the “influence” of those nefarious Jewish community organisations and leaders who dare represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of our Jewish community, labelling them as Zionists who “leap into social media, reproduce the easily accessible form of letter of protest and send it to whoever you deem responsive/open to bullying/likely to be cowed into mouthing platitudes”.
These endearing, choice words appear in the opening paragraph of Adler’s review of a book by Palestinian poet Mohammed el-Kurd, published last month in The Age.
El-Kurd may well be a fine poet and writer, and his story of living in East Jerusalem is not an easy one. But in one poem el-Kurd compares Israelis to Nazis, dismisses the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, and accuses Israelis of harvesting organs from Palestinians and having an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood”. Of course nowhere in Adler’s rather fawning piece on el-Kurd’s latest book does this appear. Rather, the reader is presented with el-Kurd’s (and, by endorsement, Adler’s) distorted definitions of Zionism, Jews and the Holocaust.
As if spoiling my weekend reading wasn’t enough (yes, I know I am among the last of the Jewish readers of The Age, which I admit has indeed long become unreadable), I also caught up on an article published in the same week in The Australian Financial Review, in which Adler opines philanthropy’s evil influence in the world of the creative arts (read those who are “cultural warriors” motivated by “splashy nights out, places to be seen and opportunities to wield influence”).
Those “opportunistic groups”, according to Adler, know “how lobbying works – a timely phone call, sensationalist backgrounding by well-resourced smear shops …”. So not only are Jews withdrawing financial support for the arts, they’re peddling their influence to control the agenda within these institutions.
One has to ask whether she’s describing the Australian media or Der Sturmer? Indeed, nowhere does Adler mention the boycott of Israeli (and Jewish) artists that is occurring around the world. Nor that Jews have supported the arts community in this country with extraordinary passion, far out of proportion to our numbers.
If Jews have withdrawn their support in some of these areas, it is because they’ve seen the disgraceful hijacking of arts organisations and performances by those with an agenda that promotes hatred, that’s divisive, ill-informed and threatening to the very livelihoods of those who have made their careers in it – all because they’re proud of their Jewish heritage and identify with Israel.
Like so many of the unfortunate number of self-loathing Jews who have felt the need to express their dislike of Israel post October 7, Adler inhabits an extraordinarily dystopian universe, one in which a sense of morality has not only been turned on its head but has all but disappeared.
Adler takes pride in her liberal voice, yet she cannot bring herself to unequivocally condemn the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Rather, she would prefer her audience does so in the context of “remembering the previous 75 years”.
The complete distortion of the Holocaust is disturbing. According to Adler – and those she chooses to align herself with – it’s apparently acceptable to describe Zionism and Zionists as perpetrating a Holocaust in Gaza. The flip side is that Jews’ fear of “Free Palestine” as leading to another Holocaust is, in the words of el-Kurd, “at best apophenia and at worst their own deliberate distortion”. As if the genocidal intent of Hamas and its cronies – captured in its own words, documents uncovered and grotesque videos – did not speak for itself.
I’ve occasionally wondered how I would react if I were to arrive at lunch at our mutual friend’s again – in this post-October 7 world – and find Adler seated at the same table. I don’t think there would be much to say. Like the overwhelming majority of Jews across the world, I have chosen to stand with my community, to commit to Jewish peoplehood and nationhood, and to reject the haters and distorters who would deny us these ideals. Adler unfortunately, has not.
Mark Joel is a philanthropy consultant and has held leadership positions in Melbourne’s Jewish community.
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