Balkin paints bleak picture

DAVID Balkin pointed to a pretty bleak future for the Sydney Jewish community and said that only the Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA), with the help of the community, can solve the problem.

The JCA president told more than 1000 people at the organisation’s major function on Tuesday night that in 15 years, the community will be smaller, older, more assimilated, with more students in public schools and the bi-partisan support for Israel would have eroded as Australia’s Muslim population grows.

“But the future of Jewish continuity in New South Wales does not need to be this way,” Balkin said.

He explained the community needs to find a way to make Jewish schools more affordable, to improve the relevance and meaning of Jewish studies programs, to assist families to promote Yiddishkeit in their homes and to engage Generation X and Generation Y who are “Jewed out” a phenomenon he said is unique to Sydney.

Balkin emphasised that while money is important, and the JCA will need a lot of money to carry out the huge tasks they have set themselves, it is not the only answer.

“So what is the problem? Why can’t the JCA family just get on with addressing all of this?

“What is missing is the attitude and mindset from the top to the bottom of the NSW community that puts our community’s future health and welfare front and centre of everything we do.”

He said the theme of this year’s campaign, charity begins at home, reflects the long term goals and short-term needs of the community.

“We must also attend to the here-and-now needs of the community’s less fortunate.
“How we do this is a measure of our community’s compassion and cohesiveness which are pre-conditions for the kind of Jewish community we all want.”

The evening was about honouring community volunteers, and after Balkin’s speech one volunteer from each JCA constituent organisation accepted an award on behalf of all the volunteers nominated for their hard work and dedication.

Finally, OzHarvest founder and recipient of Australia’s 2010 Local Hero award Ronni Kahn told how she started a charity in 2004 to collect food that was going to be thrown out and delivered it to the less fortunate.

She admitted that she was nervous because speaking at a JCA function was like “being the home team in front of a big crowd”.

Kahn said she never dreamed of how big OzHarvest would become and was emotional when she noted that her organisation delivers 7000 meals per day to the needy.

JOSHUA LEVI