Students shine in Mikolot final

Media personality Erin Molan and visiting Jewish activist Eitan Chitayat from the “I’m That Jew” campaign made up an esteemed panel of judges for this year’s Mikolot grand final, which featured students from Jewish schools across Australia and South Africa.

Mikolot is an annual public speaking competition that fosters a more refined expression of Jewish voices in the modern world.

Before the finalists took to the stage at Moriah College, Molan reminded the audience of Jewish students to continue to “stand up for your people proudly and boldly and unapologetically”.

“I know it feels like not just the whole world is against you, but a lot of people in your own country are,” she said.

“I genuinely think that I speak with some level of knowledge here that it is not the vast majority of Australians who feel the way that this very loud minority feel. They may take up a lot of space on television, a lot of space on the radio, a lot of space in social media land and in print, but they are not representative of how the vast majority of Australians view you.

“You should never let their attempt to bring you down and make you feel bad about yourself impact your sense of self worth, because you are incredible. Don’t ever let them make you doubt it.

“You are amazingly strong, resilient, good, decent, incredible people.”

Also on the judging panel were Rabbi Benjamin Elton from The Great Synagogue, advocate Marnie Perlstein and NSW AIJAC chairman Paul Rubenstein.

The Mikolot finalists were Ben Uria from Moriah College, Kesser Torah’s Ben Krebs, Shakked Gazi from Masada College, Noam Goldberger from Bialik College, Carmel’s Lila Wilkin, Daniel Segal from South Africa’s King David Victory Park and Elise Borsky from Mount Scopus.

The prestigious competition offers more than $10,000 in prize money and the judging panel had a tough time settling on the winners, with all finalists making inspiring and moving speeches about their Jewish identity.

Ultimately, the top prize went to Mount Scopus’ Borsky, Goldberger was named the runner-up, while Wilkin and Segal came joint third. The winners will share the prize pool of generous funds towards Israel programs.

Moriah College principal Mira Hasofer praised the students for their incredible presentations

“After last year, I thought, ‘what could they present this year?’ And you have really blown us away,” she said.