Brumby pays tribute to Jewish contribution

PETER KOHN

PREMIER John Brumby paid tribute to Victoria’s Jewish community for its role in fostering diversity and multiculturalism in the state at a United Israel Appeal (UIA) fundraising dinner on Tuesday evening (March 16).

“Victoria’s Jewish community, the largest and most vibrant Jewish community in Australia, has itself played an immense role in making our state so diverse, so multicultural, so multi-faith and so tolerant,” the Premier said.

Brumby added that his government’s efforts “to stamp out religious and racial vilification have received immeasurable support from Jewish communities here in Victoria”.

He recalled the Jewish community’s support when, as Opposition leader in the mid-1990s, he worked closely with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria to develop a framework for racial vilification legislation that was brought into law by the ALP government in 2001-02.

“As you know, there were quite significant differences in many of the multicultural communities about the value of that legislation. So it was really the leadership of the Jewish community working with us and making that commitment that saw that legislation put into place in 2001.

“And in particular, in that regard, I would want to acknowledge the work of the Zionist Council of Victoria and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria because you’ve all worked so hard to promote mutual understanding and tolerance and to support the democratic fundamentals of dialogue and inclusion.”

Urging the Jewish community to support the UIA, Brumby noted that the organisation “is concerned not only with material assistance, but also with the preservation and protection of the neshamah, the concept of the Jewish soul”.

He commended UIA’s initiatives in taking Jews and non-Jews, many from Victoria, to Israel on cultural exchange programs, “to share the values of the Australian Diaspora community” and to bring home new ideas to Australia.

He gave as an example the groundbreaking Victoria-Israel Science and Technology Research and Development Fund (VISTECH) – launched by Brumby as minister for innovation in 2005 – which has received 175 expressions of interest and is now into its seventh round of grants.

Special guest Kathy Kellerman, an American who made aliyah, also spoke at the function about the Keren Hayesod-UIA Nitzana Youth Village initiative in the Negev, where she lives and works.

She predicted that Israel’s south, comprising more than 60 per cent of the country’s land mass, would become a major population centre in the future, as sustainable water and power technologies, now under development in Nitzana, became widespread.

UIA Victoria paid tribute to veteran fundraiser George Kuran, 90, who told the gathering his passion for digging deep to help Israel was sparked by a solidarity drive at South Caulfield Hebrew Congregation during the Six-Day War, and has grown ever since. In his honour, the UIA funded a 12-month scholarship for a young Victorian to take part in the programs at Nitzana.