ARZA president warns silence fuels antizionism

Jewish communities that stay silent in the hope that antizionism will fade away will find it grows stronger instead, the president of the Australian Reform Zionist Association (ARZA) Australia has told a Melbourne symposium.

Ayal Marek was speaking to around 100 people at a panel discussion called Examining Antizionism at the Leo Baeck Centre in Kew East on Wednesday, August 12.

The symposium was organised by ARZA Australia with support from KKL and ARZENU, the International Federation of Reform/Progressive Religious Zionism, and was the first in a series, including Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide.

“This problem cannot be escaped, nor can it be contained through silence or by avoiding confrontation,” Marek said. “Every time Jewish communities choose not to confront it in the hope that it will simply fade away, it grows stronger.”

He said history had shown that concessions, silence and a fear of drawing clear lines encouraged hatred rather than diminishing it. Unless Jewish communities defended themselves in the public sphere, in the courts, in politics and in the media, he said, they might find that societies in which they had lived safely for generations were no longer able or willing to protect them.