Editorial (June 26, 2009)

 

The new face of the ECAJ  

PETER Wertheim’s appointment as executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) is a landmark advance for the community’s national organisation.¬†The new full-time position will enable Wertheim to advocate comprehensively for the Jewish community -— to government, media and other groups within the Australian community.

It comes at a time when the Jewish community is in need of a round-the-clock voice on critical issues relating to our development, our needs for resources and conveying our views in a world rife with anti-Semitism and racism. Wertheim, a longtime Jewish activist, will take on tasks that a volunteer president, no matter how diligent, cannot squeeze into 24 hours.

Our adversaries understand how to use the media and the web, and these are skills the ECAJ needs to keep on top of.¬†Hopefully, Wertheim will be the 30-second sound bite on AM, the face on Lateline and PM Agenda, and the source quoted to balance a story on Jewish issues in The Australian or The Sydney Morning Herald. Blogging skills would also come in handy!¬†If there is any advice we could add to the mountain of bright ideas already piling up in Wertheim’s inbox, it would be to set out early where the delineations run between his role and that of the president’s.

He will also need to sharpen the sometimes fuzzy boundaries between the ECAJ, the Zionist Federation of Australia and the privately run Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, so these organisations do not overlap in speaking to the media. A battle of the acronyms is in nobody’s interests.¬†Another concern is that Wertheim’s Sydney-based role will mean the ECAJ’s critical mass will reside in the north. This is not necessarily a problem as long as the ECAJ presidency is in Sydney.¬†

But after Robert Goot’s term ends and the presidency rotates to Melbourne or elsewhere, how effectively will an executive director and a president in different cities work together?¬†Historically, the Sydney-Melbourne rotation of the ECAJ presidency has curbed the development of a much-needed full-time secretariat, and Wertheim will need to navigate these logistical challenges, as well as the occasional dissonances between north and south. These are challenges he is well equipped to handle.

 

Three years of captivity

GILAD Shalit is not Israel’s only missing soldier. There are actually seven: Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz and Zvi Feldman have been missing since 1982. Ron Arad since 1986. Guy Hever disappeared without a trace in 1997, and Majdy Halaby in 2005.¬†Each and every one of them left behind a family that deserves to learn the fate of their son, brother, husband -— and in the case of Arad, a father -— and have them returned to them immediately and without delay.

However, only Shalit is being brazenly held hostage by an identifiable regime -— Hamas -— that openly admits to perpetrating the capture and holding out for a ransom.¬†Only Shalit is tantalisingly close to being returned to his family, as negotiations start and stop, surge and ebb.¬†In a viewpoint this week, Yediot Achronot’s Anat Meidan voices the frustration of many in Israel who have grown tired of the sound bites and platitudes of well-meaning public servants who have yet to show the political will to seal the deal to bring Shalit home.

Meidan’s feelings are understandable, but at the same time, we realise there is no simple answer to why Shalit’s release remains elusive. Indeed, kicking around the footy of blame will not bring Shalit any closer to home.The difficult question of whether scores of perpetrators of deadly terror attacks should be released, as Hamas has long been demanding in exchange for Shalit, must be left to the Israeli people, its elected leaders and its appointed negotiators.

It is once again time to ask ourselves in the Australian Jewish community if we have done everything in our power to help secure Shalit’s release. Have we engaged our own government to make Shalit’s release a priority in its own dealings with the Palestinians? Have we kept Shalit in our thoughts and kept his hope alive?¬†As we reach the milestone of three years since Shalit’s abduction, The AJN has resolved to do our part to increase the level of awareness of Shalit’s plight in our community by including a counter of the days since his abduction in every edition of the paper from this week forth.¬†We join in the prayers of our readers that the counter will not be necessary for much longer.