Faith parliament snub to Jews leaves ‘sour taste’

LEXI LANDSMAN

JEWISH community leaders have expressed disappointment at being excluded from delivering a formal Jewish blessing in the closing ceremony of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Final prayers at the closing plenary of the seven-day faith conference in Melbourne last week were delivered by representatives of the Sikh, Buddhist, Christian and Islamic faiths, but Jewish leaders were neglected.

There were also presentations by Hare Krishna and Brahma Kumaris leaders.

Josie Lacey, honorary life member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and interfaith chair for the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said she found it “inexplicable and incomprehensible” that the Jewish community was not included.

“It was so disappointing that we were left out in the closing plenary, seeing our input at the Parliament was so significant,” said Lacey, who presented two sessions and chaired one at the event.

“I was just gobsmacked that we were not included in the program. I thought it was a typo. Sitting in the audience, it was almost humiliating to be so excluded.”

The Great Synagogue’s Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence said: “The Jewish blessing was conspicuous in its absence from the program, despite the presence of Jewish clergy at the plenary and despite substantial Jewish involvement in the Parliament over the week, as both participants and presenters.

“It would be a shame if the goodwill and worthwhile interaction of the Parliament became diminished by this incident, but it does leave a very sour taste.”

Former ECAJ president Nina Bassat, who was on the Melbourne PWR board working in conjunction with the conference’s main organising body in Chicago, said the Australian committee had very little input in the opening and closing ceremonies.

“I was upset that the Jewish community was excluded. The three Abrahamic faiths should have been represented and only two of them were,” she told The AJN from New Zealand.

“I was extremely disappointed as a Jew and also as a member of the PWR board to think we were so remiss.”

At the end of the plenary, after the final traditional blessing was announced, there was a world-music performance, during which two lines of Hebrew were sung by a female vocalist. However, the vocalist’s name and religion were not announced, nor was it mentioned in the program.

When contacted by The AJN, a representative of PWR said the blessing sung by the vocalist -— who she identified as Israeli singer Miriam Ohevetel -— together with the interfaith ensemble constituted the Jewish blessing.

However, Rabbi Lawrence said: “A suggestion that this constituted the Jewish blessing is dismissed as insulting. The other blessings were stand-alone and introduced. If anything, it turns an insensitive oversight into marginalisation.”