Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

​וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב יַֽעֲקֹ֔ב בְּאֶ֖רֶץ מְגוּרֵ֣י אָבִ֑יו בְּאֶ֖רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן

Jacob lived in the land where his father had lived, the Land of Canaan.

This verse introduces the sidra of Vayeshev.  On the surface it seems very straightforward, easy to translate and understand.  But as usual, it is not so simple.  The first phrase is clear enough – וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב יַֽעֲקֹ֔ב And Jacob lived.  The Hebrew verb ישב (Yashav) is found many times throughout Tanakh and means to live or dwell.  It is also the root of the word Yeshiva – a place of study where people sit for hours immersed in ancient biblical and rabbinic texts.  So the verb contains an element of permanence – it is used when a person has established a settled life-style – they have built for themselves a home, which can be considered safe, secure and enduring.  But then the verse informs the reader that where Jacob lived was the same country where his father, Isaac had lived and yet a different verb is used in the second clause בְּאֶ֖רֶץ מְגוּרֵ֣י אָבִ֑יו.  The verb used here is גור (Gur) which implies sojourning, rather than dwelling; in other words living with insecurity, living with less certainty, living as an outsider.

In fact related to this verb is the Hebrew word for a ‘convert’, for a גֵר (Ger) though officially welcomed into the family of the Jewish people with open arms, may feel at times slightly insecure, less confidant than born-Jews, fearing that the welcome into Judaism is not entirely sincere.  Although I would argue that the convert’s fears are groundless, sadly there have been occasions when converts are looked down upon by bigoted Jews and as a rabbi I have to admit that there are some laws within halakha that relegate a convert to an inferior status – for example a female convert is never allowed to marry a cohen, a member of the priestly caste.  So it is that most English bibles translate the two verbs differently.  For example the New International Version of the Bible reads: “Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed”, while the Revised Standard Version translates the verse: “Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s sojourning.”  The most literal is the original King James Version of the Bible which states rather directly, “And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger.”

Not feeling entirely at home is a shocking thing – it leads to anxiety and fear.  There is nothing worse than someone going through life feeling as if they don’t really belong.

So it was that I awoke on Friday, December 6 to the most shocking news that in Melbourne, the Adass Israel Synagogue had been subject to a fire that the police were investigating and feared had been caused deliberately.  This attack took place in the same week that a group of protesters in Sydney targeted The Great Synagogue which was holding an event to celebrate the work of the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), the oldest university in Israel and one that has produced at least three Nobel Laureates in Chemistry.  Outside, the protest group Stop the War of Palestine led chants of ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ and held up a slogan calling for the eradication of the State of Israel.

Sky News reported that when police arrived on the scene, the Synagogue was in lockdown with those inside unable to leave.  Adding insult to injury, two Jewish men who unfurled Israeli flags, were warned by the police that their actions were deemed provocative and that they would be charged for causing a breach of the peace if they did not move on.  The police on the night were questioned if the anti-Israel demonstration was a legal (i.e. authorised) gathering and the police officer in charge claimed it was, although the following day, that information, according to Sky News, was contradicted by the NSW Police Force who admitted that the protest was unauthorised.

A member of my own family attended this meeting and has informed me that the instructions given to those attending by those in charge of security was to leave The Great Synagogue, in groups of ten and conceal any item being worn or carried that could identify one as a Jew.  When I heard this, I simply wondered why the NSW Police did not step forward to protect the members of our Jewish community as they were exiting the synagogue.  To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there is ‘something rotten in the state of New South Wales!’

My dear friend, Rabbi Yossi Friedman was inside the synagogue to lead the prayers for Israel, the IDF and the hostages still held in Gaza.  “We gathered in peace,” he posted on Instagram, “to celebrate the amazing achievements of Israel and the Technion in particular, in tech and innovation.  Achievements, I add, that have benefitted not only Israel but the entire world!  Inside the very iPhones of those protestors is technology that has come out of the Technion.  Yet those protestors are ignorant of this and choose to ignore it.  They only know of hate and come to disrupt and scream.  When will the world (and our government) WAKE UP and see??”

A case could be made, that the more anti-Israel our current Australian government has shown itself to be, the more anti-Semitism has spread like a cancer throughout our land.  In an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald on December 4, 2024, Matthew Knott wrote: “Labor’s relationship with Israel has sunk to new lows, with the nation’s peak Jewish group declaring Australia’s longstanding bipartisan support for Israel has essentially vanished after the Albanese government ditched a two-decades-old stance on the two-state solution.”  Knott included in his article quotes from both sides of the divide.  The first was most telling: “Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni praised the government for aligning our nation with the overwhelming majority of the world in standing up for Palestinian justice and human rights, and accountability for Israel.  He called on the government to go further by imposing sanctions on Israel and a two-way arms embargo.”

By contrast, wrote Knott, “Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, blasted the government for voting in favour of a resolution he called woefully one-sided.  By promising the Palestinians everything they want without imposing any obligations on them whatsoever, this resolution is simply a recipe for further conflict, not peace.”  Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler was also quoted in the article, making the point that “These resolutions won’t bring about peace all they do is reward terrorism.”

In an article published on the same day in the AFR, Andrew Tillett quoted Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who accused the Albanese government of abandoning Israel and the US and sacrificing the wellbeing of the local Jewish community because it was “chasing Greens votes” with its UN vote switch.  Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the government’s Israel policy “will only please terrorists and autocratic states who initiated the barbaric attacks of 7 October 2023”.

The real question is whether or not there is a direct relationship between the Labor government’s anti-Israel stance and the spread of anti-Semitism throughout Australia in the past year.  Jewish Liberal MP Julian Leeser says antisemitism “has been off the charts”.  He most certainly considers that some of the blame rests with the government.  He claims that the Albanese government has been focused on managing the domestic political fallout of the Middle East conflict, fearing the loss of voters to anti-Israel Greens and western Sydney Islamists.  Leeser added: “Antisemitism is a cancer on the culture of Australia.  This is not the country we know and love, and it’s been a failure of leadership not to be unequivocal in condemning antisemitism.”

I consider that Leeser comes with some credibility – firstly he is a Jewish Australian, but secondly when faced with the dilemma of supporting his party’s position on The Voice or following his conscience – he did the latter and resigned.  Now he is calling upon members of Cabinet who have always supported Israel, but have had their voices drowned out by the anti-Israel elements in government – to resign.  He has addressed these comments in particular to Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

Another leading figure who has accused the government of weakness is Jillian Segal.  Appointed by the Prime Minister as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in Australia, many saw her appointment as a cynical political move motivated primarily to demonstrate to the embattled Jews of Australia that the government is with them, when in fact that hardly seems to be the case.  Segal said that “Jews are dismayed by the surge in hatred since October 7 and the lack of leadership by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.”  Incidentally there were similar accusations of ‘playing politics’ with the Jewish community when the Prime Minister, some months ago, sought a meeting with the rabbis of Australia which in the event took place in The Central Synagogue, Sydney.  It appeared to many people that this was simply a photo opportunity for the PM to show that ‘some of his best friends are rabbis’.  Giving with one hand and taking away much more with the other seems to be his style.

What this means to Jews living in Australia is summed up by Melbourne school teacher Sharonne Blum, who says that she no longer feels like she belongs in many parts of Melbourne.  “I used to go out to Collingwood or Brunswick or Fitzroy more often for dinner, I am now reluctant to do that.”  The sad reality is that the government’s stance, which patronises the Jewish community and has only rarely criticised extremist elements in the Muslim community, has left the Jews feeling completely abandoned.

For those following Australian politics, none of this should come as a surprise.  To use a biblical expression the writing was on the wall twenty years ago when Barry Cohen, a proud Jew and former ALP minister wrote the following in 2004.

But gradually, Labor’s Left and more extremist elements, such as the Greens and Democrats, became increasingly shrill in their denunciation of Israel.  I found out what Israel was up against when representing Australia at Inter-Parliamentary Union conferences from 1973 until 1981.  Created to foster peace and democracy, the union was dominated by communist dictatorships, Third World “democracies” and the 22 Arab countries.  Every IPU conference devoted a major part of its sessions to denouncing Israel.  It was a mirror image of the UN, whose obsession with Israel was aptly illustrated by Israeli ambassador Abba Eban when he said: “If a resolution was put before the UN that the earth was flat and that Israel caused it, 145 would vote for it, five against with 45 abstentions.”  That trend has infected the ALP.  The handful of pro-Palestinian supporters has grown steadily as the party has become dominated by the education mafia; former public servants and party union apparatchiks. 

I’m sick of the calumny heaped on Israel – most of which is a pack of lies.  I’m sick of Labor leaders making all the right noises to Jewish audiences while an increasing number of backbenchers launch diatribes at Israel.  When the likes of Labor MP Tanya Plibersek rise in the House of Representatives and call Ariel Sharon “a war criminal” and Israel a “rogue state”, or Opposition whip Janice Crosio makes the absurd claim that Israeli forces had destroyed Bethlehem, Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, I want to hear more than stony silence from those in the Labor Party who say they support Israel.  Some do.  Most don’t.

There will be some who will argue that I am exaggerating; that the evidence is sparse; that this is typical Jewish paranoia.  Not at all.  It came from the horses’ mouths, and the head horses at that.  Before the Iraq war one of the most senior NSW right-wing MPs told me: “I understand and support Israel’s position, but in my group, I’m the only one.”  Soon after, I told a Labor legend: “Anti-Semitism is now rampant in the Labor Party.”  I expected a vigorous denial.  His response confirmed my worst fear: “I know,” he said.

If Cohen felt this about Labor twenty years ago, one can only imagine how much it has worsened in the intervening years.  During these two decades the Left has conspired with the Arab cause to delegitimise Israel, to denigrate its achievements, to denounce its existence and to deny it the right of every other country to defend its own population.

This scenario is of course not unique to Australia – it seems in today’s world wherever left wing politicians assume power, the first cause they attend to is destabilising their country’s relationship with Israel and as a consequence with its own Jewish population.  As an example, in the United Kingdom, travellers returning from Israel are faced with a board set up by the Metropolitan Police which informs the returnees that if they have witnessed any terrorist incident, war crimes or crimes against humanity they can report this to the UK Counter Terrorism Command.  This beggars belief, as Melanie Phillips pointed out there is no similar airport notice by the Metropolitan Police covering Syria or Gaza, the perpetrators of tens of thousands of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  This notice is only for those disembarking from Israel, which is not only innocent of such things, but actually the victim.  As Phillips wrote, Britain has descended into lunacy.

These developments over a number of decades have made the Jews of Britain and now the Jews of Australia nervous about their future.  In countries, where previously we would have employed the verb ישב (yashav) to describe our situation – a place where we felt comfortable, safe and secure, nowadays the verb used is more likely to be גור (gur) with its implication of living rather anxiously and perhaps temporarily in a society that is unwelcoming, at times downright dangerous.  This came home to me the other day when a young Jewish Australian at university in Sydney expressed the view: “Why would I want to live here, when I can move to Israel and be safe!”

I conclude with a personal reflection on the current trials and tribulations our community faces.  As a young rabbi in London back in the 1970’s, I recall the then Chief Rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits advised the younger rabbis to steer clear of politics in their sermons.  One of the differences that I have observed over the fifty years that I have served the Jewish community here and in the UK is that British rabbis would never contemplate taking a partisan political position from the pulpit – unlike American rabbis who seemed to do so quite regularly.

This changed, in the UK at least, in 2018.  Coincidentally I happened to be in London at the time and early one Sunday morning switched the television on in our apartment to watch the current affairs programme hosted by the celebrated commentator Andrew Marr.  As it turned out that morning he interviewed the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks regarding the upcoming General Election in Britain and the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn, at the time leader of Britain’s Labour Party, becoming the Prime Minister of the country.  Rabbi Sacks was asked to justify his comments describing Corbyn as an “anti-Semite”.  Sacks did not hold back, he reminded Marr of one of Corbyn’s speeches that implied that British Zionists, that is, the majority of British Jews, are essentially alien to British culture.  That, said Sacks, is a classic trope of pre-war European anti-Semitism.  Jews may have been in France, Germany and Poland for a thousand years but they are not really like us.  Sacks added one can also judge Corbyn by the impact of his words on the Jewish community.  Sacks explained, the Jews returned to England in the mid-seventeenth century and this is the first time since then that Jews are asking themselves, “Is this country safe to bring up our children”.

This interview was followed up by an extra-ordinary intervention into politics by the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, when he made a public statement arguing that the “soul of the nation is at stake as the country goes to the polls in just over two weeks’ time”.  Writing for The Times, he said it was not his place to tell people how to vote but argued that the way in which the Labour leadership had dealt with anti-Jewish racism was “incompatible with the British values of which we are so proud – of dignity and respect for all people”.

With all this in mind, I tread carefully, but it seems to me that at this moment in history, I have a responsibility to speak out.  There may be some Jews who consider their own personal safety to be unimportant, others who care little for Israel – but for the overwhelming majority who worry about such things, the upcoming election here in Australia should be a time for Jews to cast their votes against anti-Israel and anti-Jewish politicians, or those that have appeared ambivalent in their support of our community – often choosing expediency over morality.  In my own constituency of Wentworth, the choice is between Liberal and Teal, rather than Liberal and Labor.  I am interested therefore at the voting record in Federal Parliament of our Teal MP and her statements concerning Israel as well as those concerning anti-Semitism.  In what I imagine was meant to be a semi-humorous, but perhaps also a quasi-political comment, one person reminded me that teal is a shade of green!  By contrast Peter Dutton has led the Coalition through these dark days with a clear and consistent message to the electorate supporting both the State of Israel and the Jewish population of Australia.

I would say one final thing.  For evil to prosper, all that has to happen is for good people to do nothing.  This came originally from John Stuart Mill – allow me to share with you the complete quotation:

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.  Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.  He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

This being the case, I also call upon our non-Jewish friends to speak up and act in good faith towards their Jewish neighbours.  The ballot box next year will demonstrate more than anything if the Jews have a future in Australia.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Freedman