Executive Council of Australian Jewry smacks down anti-Israel Jewish ‘micro group’

Australia’s peak body for the Jewish community has taken aim for the first time at a new ‘micro’, anti-Israel Jewish group after it characterised the Executive Council of Australian Jewry as ‘right-wing’.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion. Picture: David Geraghty

Australia’s peak body for the Jewish community has taken aim for the first time at a new “micro”, anti-Israel Jewish group after it characterised the Executive Council of Australian Jewry as “right-wing”.

A petition titled “The Jewish Council of Australia Does Not Represent Me” was also launched a week ago by a Melbourne-based grassroots “Jewish Activist Network” called J-United and has ­almost 7000 signatories, with many concerned the name was misleading.

“The Jewish community in Australia is rich in diversity, encompassing a wide range of opinions, beliefs, and values,” the petition reads. “(The Jewish Council of Australia)’s recent public statements have caused concern among many of us, as they do not align with our views or the ­values we hold dear.”

In a letter to the committee secretary Sophie Dunstone on Tuesday, ECAJ’s president Daniel Aghion and co-CEOs Peter Wertheim AM and Alex Ryvchin took umbrage at the “mischaracterisation” of the peak body as “right-wing”, saying “despite the use of the words ‘Jewish’ and ‘Council’ in its name” the Jewish Council of Australia “has no claim whatsoever to represent the Jewish community”.

The self-appointed Jewish Council of Australia characterises itself as an “independent expert Jewish voice opposing anti-­Semitism and racism”. It has criticised the appointment of ECAJ’s immediate past president Jillian Segal as the new anti-Semitism envoy, supported the pro-Palestine campus protest movement, and called for sanctions on Israel.

ECAJ co-chief executives Peter Wertheim, left, and Alex Ryvchin. Picture: John Feder

During the Senate committee hearing into right-wing extremist movements in Australia on June 17, the Jewish Council of Australia’s co-chief executive Max Kaiser said their organisation was a “progressive perspective counter” to “right-wing Zionist groups in this country, including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry”.

ECAJ responded on Tuesday: “The Jewish Council of Australia thus appears to be a micro-group which represents only a thin sliver of opinion on the far-left margins of the Australian Jewish community.”

“No Jewish schools, places of worship, hospitals, aged-care facilities, youth groups, student organisations, sporting clubs, cultural groups, organisations for women, or for ex-servicemen and women, or Holocaust survivors, or other communal organisations come under its aegis, formally or informally,” it wrote, while ECAJ says it has “200 organisations under its umbrella” including schools and places of worship.

Mr Kaiser told The Australian it was a false premise that “the Jewish Council purports to represent all Jews”.

“We have stated in almost every interview that we are not representative. Our view is that no single person or organisation can speak on behalf of all Jews in Australia. The false claims by many Jewish organisations that all Jews support Israel is part of the reason we came into existence.”

Jewish Council of Australia executive officer Sarah Schwartz.

ECAJ sought to “amend the record” in its letter to the Senate committee, saying: “It follows that the claim by the Jewish Council of Australia that the ECAJ is ‘right-wing’ is not only false but also reveals an astonishing ignorance of the way the Jewish community is organised, and a remoteness from its central concerns.”

The Jewish Council of Australia is led by human rights lawyer Sarah Schwartz and historian and author of Jewish Antifascism and the False Promise of Settler Colonialism Mr Kaiser. Its advisory committee includes Israel critic and Jewish journalist Antony Loewenstein, employment lawyer Josh Bornstein, and Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler.

The group notes its 760 signatories – of whom 174 are anonymous – are “united in our opposition to Israel’s continued policies aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life”.