Letters, November 12, 2010

Best man for the job might not be a woman

THE Australian Jewish News (29/10) carried an article headed “Gender on the Agenda” that referred to a proposal by the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia (NCJWA) Victoria to impose minimum quotas on the number of women elected to community positions in Victorian Jewish organisations.
The article suggested that the proposal had the support of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) leadership.
What the JCCV does support is that women have every bit as much to offer to community organisations as their male counterparts. There is no doubt that our community has many well-educated, highly educated, experienced and astute women who can serve our institutions well. What we also support, and indeed have been offering and providing during my term as president, is leadership support and development for both men and women on an equal footing.
The JCCV is opposed to any prejudice, bias or discrimination that prohibits, precludes or inhibits the ability of women to undertake roles in communal leadership.
Our community is facing a great number of serious issues. There are issues of anti-Semitism, security, education, welfare and others, which collectively are of great concern to us. It is for this reason that our community not only demands but also deserves the most meritorious of representatives — those best able to serve the community’s interests. Certainly there is a dearth across the board of willing individuals who are prepared to volunteer considerable time, effort and energy in dealing with these needs.
There is an established democratic system by which candidates are nominated, or nominate themselves, to fill these elected positions. It is not seen as an advantage for our community to artificially create a biased selection system, which would undermine the essential democratic process without guaranteeing election of the best candidate for the job.
Education and encouragement are the best ways to ensure that the best women leaders in our community are engaged and active. This is a practice the JCCV has followed, which has ensured there have been women executive members in many roles, including of course as president. The JCCV calls for all organisations to encourage talented members of the community, men and women, to consider taking on a more active leadership role. They will all be equally welcome.
John Searle
President
Jewish Community Council of Victoria

Women leading the way in education initiative

CONGRATULATIONS on the special feature “Jewish Women” (AJN 29/10) edition in which the difficult issues relating to “getting women to the top” have been highlighted. We at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia (NCJWA) appreciate the inclusion, so well deserving, of our own leaders in “Australian Jewry’s Modern Matriarchs”, who helped build our community and made a lasting impact within the Jewish and wider community in Australia.
This takes me directly to the article titled “Israeli Know-how Helping Aussie Kids” in the same issue, referring to the very successful HIPPY (Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters) program in Australia. Once again we, at NCJWA, are very proud to play an integral part in introducing this program to Australia.¬†The HIPPY¬†program,¬†as it is known today, was originally developed¬†by the NCJW Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, in the late 1960s as a way to address the education gap between families immigrating from different countries. Run mostly in disadvantaged communities, the program focuses on parents and builds their confidence as¬†the child’s first educator.
This program was introduced to Australia by the late Miriam Stein, then¬†NCJWA vice-president, who¬†had been trained at the Hebrew University and “transplanted HIPPY to South Africa, and on her arrival to Sydney, thought she might do the same again in Australia” (Hand In Hand book)¬†and she did. The La Perouse HIPPY program was launched in 2002 and members of council still play a minor role in it.
Dalia Ayalon Sinclair
President, NCJWA NSW Division

Don’t ignore our female-focused organisations

To dismiss leaders in female-focused community organisations as if they don’t count (AJN 29/10) is to do a disservice to so many women who do take on leadership roles in these organisations at state or federal level. The fact is that many women choose to join these organisations because they see great value in the cause that they are supporting and often devote a lifetime to their volunteer work.
The leadership experience they gain being nurtured by these organisations enables them to develop their skills, which can be used by the wider community. If the wider community is not attracting women leaders, it means that they don’t feel welcome or valued in these organisations.
Gilla Liberman
President, WIZO Australia

Shul participation is not radical feminism

IMPLYING those women who desire greater participation in religious services are radical feminists (“Women’s Rights and Women’s Rites” (AJN 29/10) could not be further from the truth.¬†Those women who derive excitement from holding a Sefer Torah or dancing with it on Simchat Torah do not necessarily¬†do so because it makes them feel equal with men. Rather, it is the expression of a spiritual yearning often harboured for many years to feel a connection to the lifeblood of our religion.
While I cannot speak for Reform or Conservative women, as a member of Shira Hadasha, I can say that a significant proportion of the women who participate in the service do so having embarked on a detailed and¬†continuing course of Jewish learning. Holding a Torah and agitating for more serious learning for women are not mutually exclusive concepts, and can coexist in harmony. Furthermore, Rabbi Yuval Sherlo of the Petach Tikvah Hesder Yeshivah last year formulated a halachic document, in which he recommended renovating synagogues to adjust them to women’s prayers, encouraged women to dance with the Torah and advocated allowing women to be recognised in the congregation when reciting kaddish.
I agree that as the primary educators of our children, women are entrusted with the task of imbuing the next generation with a love of Judaism. However, if our daughters choose to attend a service in which they can participate within the boundaries of halachah, they should be able to do so as a positive expression of their love and continuing learning of our evolving religion.
Shaynee Barnett
Caulfield South, Vic

Fighting for Yiddish

I WRITE in response to the recent report regarding the discontinuation of Yiddish at the University of Sydney (AJN 22/10). The word broigus was used to describe the situation — a Yiddish word we associate with anger, friction, fretting, even sulking, perfectly understandable for students who now face the prospect of restructuring their degree and learning an entire new language. I too feel broigus for the loss of this ¬≠position.
Although not a student in Yiddish, I know that Jennifer Dowling is a patient and generous teacher who has given me hundreds of hours of advice and help on Yiddish texts during the course of my PhD research. She has assisted me in understanding Warsaw and Lodz dialects, and I could not have completed my thesis without her. I know that she also gives others many hours of her time for linguistic advice and translations. But does the community really feel broigus about this loss, or are we just going to watch the brief formal study of Yiddish disappear without a murmur?
The universities are stretched to the limit just in teaching their core vocational subjects, let alone languages in danger. It is the responsibility of those who cherish Jewish history to step up and fund a Yiddish lectureship. The only reason we have Hebrew at the University of Sydney is the generous bequest some years ago that ensured a permanent presence.
For many years, generous private individuals have kept Yiddish alive as an academic discipline in this town, seeing the value in preserving our 800-year-old mameloshen. If Yiddish disappears from higher learning, it will be a reflection on our commitment to historical memory and cultural diversity within our community.
Joseph Toltz
PhD candidate
University of Sydney

They already know it’s the Jewish State

WHAT say Alan Freedman (AJN 29/10) gets Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to propose a Bill that requires all references to Israel to include “the Jewish¬† State”: that ought to get the “essential point” through to Israel’s strongest ally, America.
But don’t bother with Israel’s enemies; they already know — that’s why they sent the explosive packages to the Jewish centres in Chicago.
The¬†arguments put forward by advocates¬†of the nonsensical amendment to the citizenship law remind me of the joke about the Jew and the man with a hunchback who meet on a train. The Jew asks the man with the hunchback if he can tell that¬†he is Jewish, to which the hunchback guy replies,¬†”Can you tell¬†that¬†I am¬†a hunchback?”
Henry Herzog
St Kilda East, Vic