‘People respond to leadership’
"I just wish more had been done – in the aftermath of those terrible events of October 7, 2023 – to denounce antisemitism," Former prime minister John Howard.
Former prime minister John Howard said he felt “very honoured and really quite touched”, when receiving the Dennis Clifford Humanitarian Award at Jewish House’s 2024 gala dinner on November 21, attended by 650 at Le Montage.
Howard said Jewish House is “one of those magnificent, faith-based organisations that do so much to help those who genuinely need help in our community … without discrimination on the basis of faith or ethnic background”.
Expressing his deep admiration for Israel and for the contribution of the Jewish community to Australia “in every walk of life”, Howard said, “I can’t tell you enough how angry and disgusted I am at what happened in Woollahra last night [referring to anti-Israel vandalism to parked cars and an apartment block entrance].
“I think it was a demonstration of naked antisemitism, which, whatever our political views are, we should denounce.
“I always thought that this country had a long tradition of bipartisan rejection of antisemitism.
“And I just wish more had been done – in the aftermath of those terrible events of October 7, 2023 – to denounce antisemitism.
“Because people respond to leadership on these issues and in many areas, it was not provided.”
Keynote speaker, federal court judge Justice Michael Lee – whose wife Penny is Jewish – agreed with Howard that strong, moral leadership has an important role to play in combating antisemitism.
A board member of an institution at Western Sydney University, Lee – speaking in a personal capacity – said he’s “pleased to see it had no encampments and the leadership of the university spoke out promptly and firmly, against antisemitic speech” – unfortunately in contrast to other universities.
Lee lamented how a generation of students are being exposed to institutions that are “producing an apparently significant number of future leaders whose lack of a traditional Western historical education is matched by their sense of self-righteousness and their willingness to spout slogans”.
“It is [thus] unsurprising that students now seem to use school and university to proclaim, rather than to learn.”
He recited a quote in the NSW Legislative Assembly in 1946 by his wife’s late grandfather, former NSW housing minister Abe Landa: “I shall treat any attack on the Jews as an attack upon my wife and my children.”
Lee added, “Although, unlike Abe, I cannot say I spring from your faith, over the sweep of almost 80 years, I can say I feel exactly the same way.”
comments