The Australian’s Australian of the Year: ‘Bridge-builder’ Jamal Rifi recognised for community, cohesion efforts

Amid Australia’s deteriorating social cohesion and division, ‘bridge-builder’ Jamal Rifi’s steadfast intercommunity and harmony efforts have been recognised with a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year.

Jamal Rifi with daughter Sue and grandchildren Lana and Ahmad on the NSW central coast. Picture: John Feder

Jamal Rifi, a prominent Lebanese Muslim community leader and Sydney doctor, has sought to heal wounds: those of his patients’ at his Belmore practice, those within his own community, and those between communities.

Amid deteriorating social cohesion in Australia since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, bridges between each and all communities have been hard to find, particularly between those especially distraught at the loss of life in the Middle East.

Dr Rifi is nominated for The Australian’s Australian of the Year for 2024 for his service to his community in Canterbury as a local doctor, deradicalisation efforts, support for his fellow Lebanese Australians amid conflict, efforts to help Palestinians – both at home and those in Gaza – and his strong rebuke of hatred targeting each and every community.

But also for his condemnation of fringe, extremist actors from within his community, and for building bridges with members of the Jewish community – most notably through his involvement with Ron Finkel at the Jewish businessman’s Rozana charity, which provides medical equipment for Palestinian hospitals.

Closer to home, he built temporary housing in his Central Coast backyard to welcome and help resettle the Dawwas family, who fled Gaza to Australia amid the war.

Dr Rifi has done all this while returning to near-full-time work at his Belmore practice, and friends of the doctor told The Australian they cannot explain the community leader’s unlimited reserves of energy, or if he ever gets time to sleep.

In Lebanon, he is exiled – slapped with a “baseless” 10-year prison sentence for his involvement with Rozana, which lies at the very heart of what Dr Rifi’s been lauded for: his efforts to bring all peoples and communities together, regardless of faith, for the common good.

Dr Rifi.

It is a second nomination for Dr Rifi, who was The Australian’s Australian of the Year in 2015, when his efforts within the community at the height of the Islamic State played a vital role in quelling communal tensions.

Awarded an Order of Australia medal in 2017, Dr Rifi this year has condemned extremist Islamic figures spewing hatred, called out Hizb ut-Tahrir for saying Australian Muslims shouldn’t engage in democracy, been a stalwart supporter of Sydney’s Palestinian community amid Gaza’s destruction, vocally promoted social harmony at every opportunity, collaborated with Australian Jewish leaders to aid Gazans, and worked with fellow Lebanese Muslim leaders and the federal and state governments when Beirut was bombed in September.

A friend to the entirety of Australia’s “community of communities”, Dr Rifi also has close links with Cambodian diaspora, Australia’s Syrian leaders, and his fellow Lebanese Australians, of each and every faith – frequently looking at practical ways he can aid their causes.

Behind the scenes, he continues to advocate for the return of the Australian woman and children in Syria’s al-Roj camp, among a raft of endeavours close to his heart. A consistent voice of calm and moderation, he has done all this while launching a political movement to campaign for Labor ministers Tony Burke and Jason Clare in their southwest Sydney seats.

When The Australian revealed that legal steps were afoot in Lebanon to end Dr Rifi’s enforced exile, Mr Burke called the doctor an “extraordinary Australian”, NSW Industrial Relations Ministers Sophie Cotsis praised his “tireless work” improving health outcomes for his fellow constituents in her Canterbury seat, and NSW Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib said the community leader was at the “forefront” of any “just cause”.

“Dr Rifi is there at the heart of trying to improve the community and support whoever he can,” Mr Dib said. “If there’s a need for someone to step up, Jamal doesn’t think twice.”