Changing of the guard at Zionism Victoria
ZIONISM Victoria’s 77th Annual Assembly last Tuesday night saw a changing of the guard, as Sharene Hambur was elected as the organisation’s first female president since the 1980s, and reportedly its first with an active background in Progressive Judaism.
ZIONISM Victoria’s 77th Annual Assembly last Tuesday night saw a changing of the guard, as Sharene Hambur was elected as the organisation’s first female president since the 1980s, and reportedly its first with an active background in Progressive Judaism.
Hambur, who served as Zionism Victoria’s vice-president since 2010, took the reins of the presidency as Sam Tatarka ended five years at the helm.
A Melbourne property lawyer and mother of two, Hambur grew up in the Progressive movement through her youth leadership at the Leo Baeck Centre and was also president of Progressive Judaism Victoria. She is now on the executive of the Union for Progressive Judaism and the World Union for Progressive Judaism, honorary secretary of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, and a vice-president of the Zionist Federation of Australia.
Hambur reflected that her involvement in Zionist communal leadership continues a family tradition, noting that both of her paternal grandparents had been actively involved, through the Zionist Federation and WIZO, and her mother has carried on the tradition through her roles in WIZO and other organisations.
Paying tribute to past presidents, Hambur told the meeting: “I hope and pray that I will be able to live up to the trust you have all placed in me. I follow in the footsteps of a group of dedicated and talented presidents, two of whom are in the room tonight and I acknowledge the amazing contribution that has been made and continues to be made by Phillip Chester and Dr Danny Lamm.
“We need to acknowledge that the challenges that face us are both external, as we attempt to tell Israel’s stories to those around us, and internal, as we continue to search for ways to engage members of our community who – for a variety of reasons – have disengaged from the conversation about Israel,” she said.
Guest speaker Steven Ciobo, recently appointed federal Minister for International Development and the Pacific, who has visited Israel on an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Rambam study tour, said: “I’d initially envisaged discussing Israel’s innovation culture and our mutual passion for engaging with the world, but now it is appropriate to touch on some of the mutual threats we endure.
“This audience would have a greater appreciation than most of the threat to innocents posed by radical Islamists. Seventy-seven years ago, in 1938, was a time of impending global conflict. Germany was near its full strength comprising a sea of people devoted to a warped ideology, facilitated by media propaganda … this organisation, like many other Zionist groups, emerged as a response to these extreme pressures,” he said.
Ciobo said that although the future is far from clear, there is a hope that eventually a “negotiated settlement” and “land swaps” would be integral to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Dorit Herscovici, first secretary of the Israel Embassy in Canberra, lauded the local Jewish community as “a home away from home”.
Zionism Victoria’s information chair Ian Samuel conferred this year’s Community Volunteer Award on stalwart Edith Herman for her decades of service to organised Zionism and the Australian Jewish community.
PETER KOHN
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