Albanese announces $8.5 million for Sydney Jewish Museum
The funding will go towards the Centre of Jewish Life and Tolerance which is to be built adjacent to the existing museum
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday “unequivocally condemned” the destruction and graffiti that occurred in Woollahra that morning as he announced $8.5 million for the the upgrade of the Sydney Jewish Museum.
The funding will go towards the Centre of Jewish Life and Tolerance which is to be built adjacent to the existing museum. Albanese was joined by Member for Sydney Minister Tanya Plibersek and Member for Wentworth Allegra Spender for the announcement, held at the museum.
“This isn’t a promise. This is funding that is there in the budget over the next two years,” he said.
“We need an end to antisemitism. It diminishes us us as a nation when we have events such as we saw here again overnight. To wake to this latest attack just a couple of kilometres from here in Woollahra and to see since then as well, there’s been graffiti somewhere in Sydney as well.
“That is completely abhorrent to who we are as Australians.”
Albanese continued, “I unequivocally condemn the shameful acts of violence aimed at the Jewish community.
“They are acts which are aimed at promoting fear in the community, and that by any definition, is what terrorism is about. And we need to make sure that we learn the lessons of history, which this museum shows us.
“More than two decades ago, I was part of a campaign against BDS in my own local government area. At the time, I argued that if you start targeting businesses because they happen to be owned by Jewish people, you’ll end up with the Star of David above shops, and that ended in World War Two, during the Holocaust, with six million lives lost, murdered.”
Spender said the museum is “so critical, because many Australians do not know many Jewish Australians”.
“When you walk in the doors here in the Jewish Museum … you recognise the contribution of the Jewish community to our country,” she said.
“This is a wonderful institution, and what makes it special is it humanises the Holocaust.
“It tells that human story, and it is that human connection we need to get back to, because it is that human kindness and community that really is what makes Australia special.”
On October 22 this year, federal opposition leader Peter Dutton promised that an elected Coalition government would match an existing $8.5 million commitment by the NSW Government to the SJM for the same major upgrade.
comments