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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

There is a limit

On the 30th of March 2003, Susan Sontag gave a keynote address during the presentation

of the Oscar Romero award to Yesh G’vul (‘There is a Limit’), in which she observed:

To fall out of step with one’s tribe; to step beyond one’s tribe into a world that is larger mentally but smaller numerically – if alienation or dissidence is not your habitual and gratifying posture, this is a complex and difficult process. It is hard to defy the wisdom of the tribe; the wisdom that values the lives of members of the tribe above all others (Sontag 2003:344-345).

The Oscar Romero award was presented to an alliance of Israeli soldiers who opposed

the occupation, often by refusing to serve in occupation duty. This act of dissent

frequently resulted in their imprisonment. Yesh G’vul was founded in response to the

1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, as growing numbers of soldiers became aware that it

was an act of futile aggression in which they wanted to take no part. Since that time, the

soldiers and their followers have refused to take part in the continued oppression of the

Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories and have refused to participate in policing

or in guarding the Jewish settlements within those Territories, “in order to dominate,

expel, starve and humiliate an entire people” (ibid:345). This raises many issues related

to the ramifications of dissent from one’s ‘tribe’.

This study will contribute to an understanding of the Australian Jewish community by

exploring the issues of conformity and the suppression of dissent. It will examine a

group of fourteen Jewish peace activists who dissent from the general view regarding the

policies of the Israeli government. The study will discuss issues of Jewish identity

(‘Jewishness’), perceived loyalty and disloyalty to a spiritual homeland, the diaspora-

homeland nexus, a long history of exile and persecution, and settlement in a new and

different land. These salient sub-topics form the fundamental momentum from which

arise the occurrences of silencing. The silencing of dissent, both in the Australian Jewish

community and in other diaspora societies, will be described in order to provide a

context for this study.

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A history of dissent and criticism of Israeli policies existed in small factions of the

Australian Jewish community, particularly the Jewish Left, following the 1967

Arab/Israeli war and the subsequent occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The

dissent escalated to a higher level with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the Sabra

and Shatila massacres in the early 1980s (Mendes 1991b). It should be noted here that

peace protests in Israel largely began following the invasion of Lebanon and peaked in

the next 20 years. After the withdrawal from Lebanon, the main focus of the protests

was the occupation of Palestinian Territories. More recently, the extensive media

coverage of the 2002 Jenin incursion into the Palestinian Territories increased the level

of dissent as well as the numbers of dissenters in Australia. The subsequent reactions to

this incursion will be described in more detail below.

Shocking television reports of events in Israel/Palestine (such as the Jenin incursion)

have had the effect of escalating the anxiety, discomfort and/or the burgeoning potential

for dissent amongst diaspora Jews. Faced with these distressing facts regarding Israeli

governmental policies, Jews in Australia would appear to have had two primary choices:

i) to speak openly and dissent from Israeli policies (which a minority of concerned Jews

have done); or ii) to uncritically support and attempt to live with the anxiety of an

increasing climate of awareness and criticism from a broader Australian community that

was well-informed by the mass media of what was occurring in Israel/Palestine. The

latter choice would arguably involve a strong attachment to the philosophy of Jewish

unity (am echad - ‘one people’) to which many Jews are committed. A possible third

choice would be to opt out of the debate altogether and largely withdraw from the

Jewish community. This study will examine and describe those Jews who have chosen

the first option; that is, those who choose to offer a voice of dissent regarding the actions

of the Israeli government.

The state of Israel and the origins of dissent

The state of Israel has developed from its earlier characterisation as a brave, beleaguered

and threatened land surrounded by hostile neighbours to become the strongest military

force in the Middle East. It has unremittingly exercised its newfound power against the

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Palestinian people, by illegally settling Palestinian land following the 1967 occupation

of the Palestinian Territories (U.N. Security Council Resolution 242). At the time, Israel

had achieved a stunning victory over the attacking military forces of Egypt, Syria and

Jordan - then thought to be the most superior combined forces in the Middle East. Israel

later mounted a successful invasion of Lebanon, only to withdraw three years later in

1985 after strong internal pressure from the Israeli population and international

condemnation. Shortly after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the U.N. unanimously

revived Security Council Resolution 425 (dating from 1978), demanding that Israel

withdraw and observe a ceasefire on the border. Two months later, the U.N. voted to

censure Israel, which had failed to observe the earlier U.N. Resolution. Within a few

days of the censure motion, Phalangist militiamen had perpetrated massacres at the

Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps while the Israeli Defence Force surrounding

the refugee camps refused to intervene (Friedman 1989:xiii).

Since 1967, the development of Israel towards a more militarist character has been

demonstrated by its increasingly inflexible and humiliating treatment of Palestinians of

the West Bank and Gaza. However, despite this, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242,

338 and 449 have largely been ignored, defended or the subject of silence by many Jews

in the diaspora who have placed an embargo on any debate on this subject (Novick

1999:146-152; Brettschneider 1996:88-100; Mendes 1991a:8-21). The April 2002

incursion into the Jenin refugee camp in the Palestinian Territories (Operation Defensive

Shield) resulted in the near total destruction of that camp and was the subject of an

international outcry. Allegations of war crimes were made and international

investigations called for:

The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes… the international community needs to ensure that meaningful accountability occurs (Bouckaert 2002).

The international condemnation at the time possibly precipitated the censorious

comments four months later from Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Britain

and the Commonwealth, as well as from many other loyal Jews who had previously

remained silent concerning Israeli policies. Other Jews in the Australian community

labelled critics such as Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red

Cross ‘anti-Semitic’ and/or biased because of their allegations of massacres in Jenin.

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The most recent incident in the history of Israel’s descent into what Jewish MP Gerald

Kaufmann has called “a pariah State” (BBC News, 15 March 2002), is the building of

the ‘Separation Wall/Barrier’ between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, in an

attempt to stop suicide bombings within Israel. This wall appropriates a large amount of

Palestinian territory and separates Palestinians from their olive groves, fields and

frequently from medical care. Ellis (2004:271-285) suggests that the building of a wall

to separate Israel from the Palestinians means the effective “ghettoisation of a people”.

This ghettoisation, suggests Ellis, “has consequences beyond the act of physical

separation: a ghettoised people suffer, and those who build and maintain the ghettos

suffer. Ellis’ potentially predictive statement stresses the ultimate cost to the architects

and builders of the wall, as well as those contained within it. These and other repressive

‘realities’ of Israeli governmental policies, together with the containment of the

Palestinians, elicit dissent from both diaspora peace activists and also from peace groups

within Israel.

Dissent, conformity and suppression - the protagonists

This thesis examines and describes the experience of peace activists in the Australian

Jewish community. These activists have made the decision to publicly criticise and act

against the policies of the state of Israel, in relation to the illegal occupation of the

recognised Palestinian Territories. The respondents to this study self-identify as Jews

who partake in activism through writing, participation in silent vigils or other protest

events, attendance at meetings and/or public speaking. The respondents are recognised

as activists who dissent from the generally accepted ‘wisdom’ of their ‘tribe’ or in this

case, the majority view, where, “dissent mean[s] rejection of the views that most people

hold” (Sunstein 2003:7). This cohort of fourteen ‘dissenting voices’ has been drawn

from two groups of Jewish peace activists in the city of Sydney, Australia. Six of the

respondents were drawn from ‘Jews against the Occupation’, a publicly active group

who are frequently involved in visible protest actions. Six respondents belong to

‘Jewish Voices for Justice and Peace’ whose members tend to be minimally involved

with mainstream activities of Jewish community organizations. Two of the respondents

interviewed were un-aligned with either of these groups but were widely known to the

entire activist population.

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The respondents to this study will be hitherto referred to as ‘peace activists’ or

‘dissenters’, and the term ‘dissent’ will be used to describe what they do. The adjective

‘Jewish’ will usually be implied in this context.

A search of the literature has revealed that there are lacunae in material relevant to the

topic of dissent. For this reason, Sunstein (2003) will be quoted extensively in this

thesis. Sunstein’s book Why Societies Need Dissent has been a valuable resource in

understanding the topic of dissent as it applies to any marginalised group, as it offers

insights into the dynamics of and the drive for conformity in most societies.

The peace activists included in this study openly act in defiance of the majority opinion

of members of the Sydney Jewish community who generally maintain an attitude of

unqualified loyalty to the state of Israel, regardless of what inhumane policies are

enacted against the Palestinian people. In a two-volume work on Jews in Australia,

Rubinstein (1991:5) states that:

today’s Jewish community is Zionistic to its core and overwhelmingly views support for Israel as arguably its major raison d’être and chief focus of non-religious Jewish identity.

In this quote, Rubinstein is reflecting on the phenomenon of Zionism that competes with

Judaism (Jewish religion) as the main focus of Jewish identity.

The term ‘mainstream’ Jewish community will be utilised as a heuristic device in this

thesis, to describe the majority Jewish community in Australia; for example, those Jews

who react against and aim to silence the dissent from a minority of peace activists. It is

used with the understanding that the Jewish community is not monolithic but

encompasses a range of attitudes and ethno-religious and social observances. To a

considerable degree, this community disallows criticism of most Israeli policies. Elazar

and Medding (1983:339-340) suggest that the impact of Zionism:

would be more difficult to measure but for one fact: it is so comprehensive that almost no area of Jewish life is untouched by it… if they are Jewish today, there is, `in some way, a Zionist dimension to their Jewishness.

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With certain exceptions it could be said that to be Jewish in Australia is to be a Zionist.

The following section will discuss the silencing of the dissent that exists partly as a

result of this ‘Zionist dimension to Jewishness’.

Zionism will be referred to extensively in this thesis. It can be briefly defined as a

nationalist movement for a Jewish homeland in Palestine that originated in Europe in the

late 19th century. This nascent movement came to fruition at the end of the Second

World War and the Nazi destruction of European Jewry, with the subsequent emigration

of refugees into Palestine. Zionism has changed from the early hope for a ‘homeland’

for the Jewish people to the later ascendancy of a political Zionism that has culminated

in a Jewish State (in contrast to a Jewish ‘homeland’). It is the militarist policies of the

State of Israel based on a ‘political’ Zionism that are largely the focus of the dissent

from the Jewish peace activists studied here. The respondents included in this study

have identified themselves in categories that describe a continuum from anti-Zionist,

non-Zionist, to post-Zionist and spiritual/cultural Zionist. These categories will be

further discussed in Chapter 4.

The silencing of dissent

The Australian Jewish community employs a variety of strategies, both overt and covert,

in an attempt to silence any dissent from the occasionally vocal, issue-driven minority of

peace activists - neither is any debate on the subject tolerated from within its own ranks.

Dissenters of any degree are commonly called ‘self-hating Jews’ or in more extreme

cases, ‘anti-Semitic’. The implied threat inherent in these names inhibits most free and

open debate on the subject. Mendes (1997b: 65) describes this suppression of dissent as

a ‘politics of silencing’ in which the only acceptable comment on Israeli policies is one

of support for the government of the day (Mendes 2000:459; Rothfield 1991:526). There

exists a silent conformity on any significant debate on this subject, despite the wide and

frequently disturbing media coverage of current events in the Middle East. Any critical

comment from those within the mainstream community is promptly silenced and

discussion is not encouraged. In Rothfield’s political memoirs, entitled Many Paths to

Peace, he describes his experiences of the suppression of dissent in the Melbourne

Jewish community:

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Suppression of dissent results in a numbing conformity and people are afraid to speak out… there have been public meetings at which I have questioned Israeli policies… when my comments have been denounced as unwarranted and disloyal. During such times I have observed Jews whom I have known to be sympathetic to what I was saying, remain impassive like stone (Rothfield 1997:180).

The suppression of dissent ranges from an implicit expectation that transmits a ‘not-for-

discussion’ message (reinforced through verbal and/or non-verbal communication), to a

more explicit, censorious message that threatens exclusion from the group. These

silencing strategies also give rise to the phenomenon of self-censorship, when an

individual wishing to conform to the majority view censors her/himself in expressing

their opinion. The self-censoring response can be described as a type of ‘political

correctness’ (Epstein 1995:3-19; Loury 1994:428-461). Sunstein (2003:11) maintains

that “political correctness, in all of its forms, develops through group polarisation…

violence is sometimes produced in this way”. She suggests also that, “most human

beings are strongly influenced by the view of others” (ibid:1). There are two influences

identified here: first, if a number of people believe that a proposition is true, there is

reason to believe that it is in fact true; second, humans desire to have the good opinion

of others and therefore there is an incentive to not disagree with them. Sunstein

(2003:12) also acknowledges the importance of social cohesion and suggests that

cohesion can be undermined by “non-conformity or dissent”.

The incidence of self-silencing has been observed in the activist community. This will

be discussed further in Chapter 4 in the context of the experiences of this study group.

Loury (1994:428) contends that those in minority positions often silence themselves or

hold no weight in group opinion. This observation has relevance to the ‘roof bodies’ in

the Australian Jewish community: those who act as the opinion-makers and transmitters

to the broader community (see Mendes 1991a:18-21, 1991/92:8-10). Taussig

(1993:xviii) describes the phenomenon of ‘mimesis’ as one in which there is a

“compulsion to become the Other”. It might be questioned whether this unconscious

process influences the recursive feedback loop that exists between the community

‘leaders’ and members of the Jewish community in the formation of group opinion. It

could be further questioned whether this then results in the subsequent silencing of any

dissent from this established opinion. Sunstein (2003:210) refers to the important role of

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dissenters or non-conformists: “the problem with conformity is that it deprives society of

information that it needs”.

At the other end of the continuum, there are the more threatening messages that are

known to have occurred both in Australia and in other countries of the Jewish diaspora.

Jewish peace activists are subject to this ‘silencing by intimidation’ in abusive and

occasionally threatening ways, when they openly demonstrate or speak out to uphold

justice and human rights for the Palestinian people. High profile Jewish figures have not

been exempt from occasionally extreme and threatening levels of censure. Norman

Rothfield, an influential figure of the Australian ‘Jewish Left’, experienced a “personal

toll because of poison pen letters, death threats and the loss of long term friendships”

because of his support for a ‘two-state solution’1 to the Middle East conflict (Mendes

1997a:171). In 1990, Dr. Clive Kessler and Dr. Ephraim Nimni published an article in

the Australian media that commented on “the extremist intransigence of the current

Israeli Government” and called for an Israeli peace initiative and the ‘two-state’ option

as endorsed by the November 1988 Palestinian National Council in exile (The Financial

Review, 30 October 1990). Dr. Kessler later received phone death threats because of the

article. When interviewed, Mark Leibler, President of the Zionist Federation of

Australia, condemned the threats but implied that the victim may have been

exaggerating, saying, “death threats make good press”. Leibler went on to speak of the

need for “contested issues to lie within the acceptable range of debate” (Matheson

1991:8-9).

Organisational silencing within the Australian community

Expressions such as ‘self-hating Jew’, ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘anti-Zionist’ have traditionally

been levelled at people attempting to debate the subject of Israeli policies and/or

Palestinian rights by the “communal organisations who regard themselves as being the

exclusive source of all wisdom about all things Zionist” (Bernstein 1992:12). As a

significant part of the suppression of opinion and debate on this subject, Jewish-

1 The two-state solution refers to the oft-repeated proposal that the two states of Israel and Palestine should exist side by side. Initially proposed by the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947 and since cited in numerous peace initiatives, including the most recent “Road Map” (April 2003).

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Australian journalists have reported that they largely feel intimidated to make any

comment on the subject of Israeli policies, other than that of unquestioned allegiance. It

was reported in a now-defunct Jewish journal that they have been accused of disloyalty

for what was perceived as criticism of Israel. For example, Bernstein (1992:12-13)

suggests:

The thought of being branded as an ‘anti- Semite’ or a self-hating Jew’ by the Jewish community’s self-anointed ‘thought police’ hangs, it sometimes feels, like Damocles’ sword over one’s head.

A well-known Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) broadcaster withdrew from

any comment at all on the vexed subject of Israel/Palestine, saying:

the Zionist lobby in this country is malicious, implacable, mendacious and dangerous. They have caused me a great deal of lost sleep – and in the end, my insomnia has not contributed anything to the resolution of the conflict over Palestine. I might as well keep my mouth shut and get some sleep (Lane 1992:16). As an example of the attempts to control and silence a Left Jewish organisation that

holds liberal views in line with the ‘Peace Now’ movement in Israel, the Australian

Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) met with frequent controversy from the Jewish ‘roof

bodies’ over its views on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Created shortly after the 1982

Israeli invasion of Lebanon which deepened divisions in the Melbourne community, it

was proposed to establish a group with a wider, universalistic agenda than solely the

Middle East conflict. From 1984, AJDS established itself as “a progressive voice among

Jews and a Jewish voice among progressives” (Mendes 1999:120). Since its creation, the

organisation has experienced sustained vehemence and attempts to silence its frequent

criticisms of the Israeli government and its policies, as well as attempts to stop its

promotion of interfaith dialogue within the Melbourne community (ibid:112).

Allegations that AJDS “harboured an anti-Zionist agenda” came from the Zionist

Federation of Australian through its then-President Mark Leibler (ibid:123). This charge

was made despite the documented fact that AJDS has a pro-Israel agenda “to support

peace in the Middle East based on justice and national rights for both Israelis and

Palestinians” (Paths to Peace 1985:5, cited in Mendes 1999:120). At the time of the

1987 Palestinian Intifada, AJDS defended its right to express views contrary to those of

the Israeli government and was subsequently engaged in an ongoing controversy with

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the Israeli Consul-General, who argued that, “Zionists should not tolerate diaspora

criticism of Israel” (ibid:124).

Mendes (2000:460) later stated that the methods used by the Zionist Federation of

Australia in their attempts to suppress AJDS were similar to those employed by groups

such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to censor dovish Jews in

the United States. According to Brettschneider (1996:2-5, 16), “groups critical of Israeli

government policies were labelled anti-Israel and self-hating traitors”. In contrast, a

month before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the then-editor of the

conservative Australian Jewish News (AJN), Sam Lipski commented:

Quite part from being wrong in principle, the deliberate politics of exclusion of dissent from the organized community… backfired. Keeping out Jewish groups whose views were within the Peace Now framework in Israel reinforced the perception of a monolithic lobby that stomped heavily on not only criticism of Israel in the mainstream public opinion, but within its own community (Lipski, August 1993).

More recently, a controversy arose with the cancellation of a speaking arrangement for

visiting Israeli scholar Dr. Uri Davis after the Jewish National Fund (JNF) brought

pressure to bear on the ABC National Press Club (NPC) program. According to a report

in the Australian Jewish News (Cavanagh, June 3 2005), the JNF CEO Rob Schneider

warned of possible legal action, saying that the NPC would be held jointly responsible if

Dr. Davis said anything that they considered defamatory to the JNF. The privately

funded Australia, Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) also criticised the NPC for

inviting Dr. Davis to give an address. The Canberra Times National Affairs writer also

reported this incident under the headline, “Club denies bowing to Jewish lobby” (Peake,

June 8 2005). Dr. Davis has a distinguished academic résumé and is an internationally

recognised authority on the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, it is his latest book,

Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (2004) that has largely contributed

to this censorship, and led leaders of the Jewish community to strongly oppose Dr.

Davis’ critical views of the role of the JNF in appropriating Palestinian land.

Globally, high profile diaspora Jews have created a furore when they have taken a

critiquing viewpoint on Israel. As discussed earlier, in 2002 the Chief Rabbi of Britain

and the Commonwealth, Dr. Jonathan Sacks delivered a moral caution to Israel, saying:

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the country is adopting a stance incompatible with the deepest ideals of Judaism and … the current conflict with the Palestinians is corrupting Israeli culture (Freedland 2002).

Many Jews denounced Sacks, who was accused of giving comfort to Israel’s enemies,

although he pointed out that he was not criticising Israel but lamenting that the conflict

was having a corrupting effect on the nation and its culture (Klug 2002). As noted earlier

in this chapter, in the same year, Jewish senior British Labour MP Gerald Kaufman

stated that Israel had turned into a “pariah state”, with ways of dealing with terrorism

that were “unacceptable”. Kaufman commented, “This is not what Israel is all about and

I am sad about it, Israel was founded in idealism” (BBC News, 15 March 2002). Clearly,

these two instances demonstrate that two, high profile diaspora Jews have been able to

make significant dissenting comments. Although they created a strong reaction at the

time, there is no evidence that they have been subsequently silenced to any great degree.

The Jewish community in the United States has also experienced the silencing of dissent

at both the individual and organisational level. Serious death threats were made against a

prominent Jew, Rabbi Michael Lerner and his family when he openly expressed

opposing views to Israeli governmental policies and advocated the ‘two-state’ policy and

a withdrawal from the West Bank as a solution to the problems in the Middle East

(Lerner 2001). In an effort to provide an alternative beneficiary for American

philanthropy to Israel through the existing United Jewish Appeal (UJA) (which

contributed money to building settlements on the Occupied Territories), a number of

“highly Jewish-identified founders” established B’reira (meaning ‘alternative’) to

“challenge the mainstream paradigm” (Brettschneider 1996:11, 27). The name B’reira is

a play on Ain b’reira (meaning ‘no choice’), the slogan of the Labor Party in Israel (ibid:

42). B’reira began and remained an organisation of Jewish intellectuals, rabbinical

students and Jewish professionals and was not a counter-cultural group. The goal of this

organisation:

was to build creative links between independent minded Diaspora and Israeli Jews based on shared values and traditions, as well as a shared responsibility and commitment to solving the problems which confront Jewish people as a whole (ibid:42-43).

The President of the Zionist Organisation of America demanded that B’reira be scoured

from the community. Any individuals who had ever been associated with the

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organisation came under attack, and there was some evidence that they had come to the

attention of the Israeli Labor government (ibid:44). The group collapsed in 1978 after a

successful first national conference that attracted three hundred participants.

Brettschneider (ibid:40) describes the attack on B’reira as, “an extreme example of a

communal politics that sought to silence dissent in a broader political climate un-

practiced in a politics of difference”. This example of significant silencing of dissent in

the United States is interesting in view of an earlier observation by Mendes (1991/92:8):

that Australia is one of the few significant diaspora communities where “open debate

and dissent are strenuously discouraged and where Jews are expected, sheep-like, to take

their cue exclusively from the community leadership” (Mendes 1991/92:8). Clearly, the

earlier statement by Mendes has been proven incorrect in view of the later work by

Brettschneider (1996).

To draw a distinction between the Australian Jewish community’s responses to dissent

with that of other diaspora communities, it appears that the Chief Rabbi of Britain still

holds his position despite his expressed critical views. Nor is there any evidence that

MP Gerald Kaufman has been silenced for his views. In the United States, Rabbi

Michael Lerner still remains a prominent spokesperson for liberal humanitarian views,

in his role as the editor of the influential newsletter and website Tikkun (‘repair’). In

contrast, within Australia, Kessler has largely withdrawn from the Israel/Palestine

debate, although he remains a spokesperson on other areas of his expertise, notably

South-East Asia (Malaysia). These distinctions may reflect a difference between the

diaspora communities in the United States, Britain and Australia. However, without

further comparative studies between Australia, the United States and Britain it cannot be

claimed that the silencing of dissent in Australia is anymore prevalent and effective than

in those two other countries of the Jewish diaspora.

The section that follows describes further the importance of the relationship between the

diaspora, the state of Israel, and Israel as the purported homeland of diaspora Jews.

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The Israel/diaspora relationship

With regard to the question of diaspora loyalties, Sheffer (2003:230) comments on the

“Jewish diaspora’s strong and continuous primordial and psychological-symbolic

attachment to Eretz Israel2”. The ramifications of this assertion are important for an

understanding of the struggle experienced by the group of peace activists studied in this

research – between those Jews who dissent from the majority view of unqualified

attachment/loyalty to the state of Israel, and those mainstream adversaries who are to

some degree captivated by a ‘psychological-symbolic’ attachment to Israel. Further

emphasising the complexity of the Israel/diaspora relationship, Azria (1998:26) claims:

As Israel has established its status as a sovereign State, its image is getting blurred and is becoming a source of confusion and misunderstanding in the eyes of Jews (and non-Jews). … Actually, the uneasy feeling about Israel derives principally from the fact that the traditional Diaspora image of the spiritual mythic Israel, a political reality traditionally and historically alien to Judaism. The confusion at work between these two visions of Israel has a terrible human, moral and political cost. The complexities in the Israel/diaspora relationship deepen the rift between the many

Australian Jews who relate to Israel at the level of Sheffer’s ‘psychological-symbolic’

attachment, and peace activists who hold a different analysis of the meaning of Israel;

one that recognises the “confusion between the spiritual-mythic Israel and the existence

of the State of Israel with all of the political realities” (ibid:26). It could be argued that

peace activists are reacting against those ‘political realities’ rather than making a total

rejection of the state of Israel as such. It is apparent that a majority of peace activists

have an attachment to Israel and it could be claimed that their activism arises out of a

deep concern for its future as well as for the rights of the Palestinian people. Chapter 4

will discuss responses from the studied activists to a question regarding political position

on a Zionist continuum, as well as the link that exists between their activism and their

Jewish identity.

2 Eretz Israel (Hb) – utilised here in the context of the literal translation of ‘The Land of Israel’. However, it has come to mean ‘Greater Israel’ politically by right-wing Jews, encompassing the whole of Judah and Samaria, which are now a part of the Palestinian Territories. This ideology maintains that the Palestinian Territories are a part of Judah and Samaria and therefore are the God-given right of the Jewish people.

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Having proposed that a strong, ‘psychological–symbolic attachment’ exists between

many Jews and Israel, I question whether this is one underlying impetus for the attempts

by the mainstream community to silence any critical opinion regarding the policies of

the state of Israel. This psycho-symbolic loyalty is particularly true of diaspora

communities (Sheffer 2003:230) and is heightened within isolated ‘frontier’ diaspora

communities such as Australia (Elazar & Medding 1983:339-340). Although a strong

and active ‘peace’ movement has existed in Israel (Gross 1997:188-222), the

psychological motivations of the ‘homeland’ and the diaspora differ. There is no

evidence of any tacit suppression of dissent in Israel. Opposition to peace movement

activities in Israel are usually overt and occasionally violent. For example, the silent

vigils of an early women’s peace movement called ‘Women in Black’ (formed in 1988

in reaction to the second Intifada), were often accompanied by “epithets, verbal abuse,

and violence” (De Gooyer & Marchand 2001) from right-wing adversaries on the

opposite side of a main intersection in Jerusalem. This overt and abusive reaction is the

general response from right-wing Israelis to any public dissent within Israel.

In the case of peace activists in the Australian diaspora, the silencing of dissent is far

more complex a phenomenon, encompassing the psychological-emotional meaning of

Israel as the ‘homeland’ of a perceived exiled and persecuted people. This factor,

together with the resultant intra-psychic fears and the mimetic, recursive process of

transmission and internalisation of attitudes from community leaders to community

members in a re-occurring feedback loop (Taussig 1993:xiii), has subsequently created a

‘politics of silencing’ (Mendes 1997b:65).

Diaspora, ‘homeland’ and the question of return

It is necessary to examine the issues surrounding the subject of Israel as the Jewish

‘homeland’ of diaspora Jews and what that means in terms of an eventual ‘return’, in

order to place where the diaspora Jew stands in relation to what is described as the

Jewish ‘homeland’:

Modern diasporas are ethnic minority groups of migrant origins residing and acting in host countries but maintaining strong sentimental and material links with their countries of origin – their ‘homelands’ (Sheffer 1986:3).

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It is important to acknowledge the reality of Australian Jews as a diaspora people.

Although they have arrived from many disparate points of a wider Jewish diaspora, and

may relate to different homeland countries as far as birth language and culture are

concerned, Jews largely share a common symbolic link with the survival of the state of

Israel. As noted earlier, in a mystical/spiritual sense Israel is acknowledged as

‘homeland’ to many diaspora Jews. Smith (1995:8) asserts that “implicit in the very

concept of diaspora is the contrast with an ancestral homeland and the possibility of

returning to it”. Referring to the specific Jewish and contextual features of Zionism,

Smith (1995:5) maintains that:

an essential element in any kind of human identity is memory and further … it is not simply a matter of sameness through time, of persistence through change, but also a reflective consciousness of personal connection with the past.

Smith is here commenting on the recursive process between memory, time, change and

the past that exemplifies the unconscious link between a past memory of a mythic,

ancestral Jewish homeland and its modern attainment via political Zionism:

the necessary condition was the acquisition of a national centre in the ‘homeland’, and preferably a sovereign one … this was one reason for the triumph of Zionism (ibid:16).

In an examination of a variety of global diasporas, Safran (1991:87) identifies the

Jewish, Armenian and Palestinian diasporas as those that:

have memories of their homeland; their descendents cultivate a collective myth about it; and their ethnic communal consciousness is defined by… the desire to return to their homeland.

This statement groups the Jewish diaspora with other diasporas who also cherish a

memory of a homeland and have concomitant hopes for a return. Although the Jewish

diaspora is known as the archetypal diaspora, it differs in that a return to the Jewish

homeland is now an option; thus implying a potential for an end to the diaspora.

In contrast, as a result of this possibility for an end to the Jewish diaspora, a return is not

an alternative for the Palestinian diaspora at this point in time. Safran (1991:95) poses

the question:

does the Jewish myth of a return to their homeland ‘at the end of days’ serve to encourage them to anticipate the event by settling in Israel, or does it weaken their

18

will to do so? Conversely, does the secularisation of Zionism in Israel undermine the religiosity of Jews and therefore their ethnic unity?

This point may be answered in the following years, when history has revealed how Israel

deals with the conflict between secularisation and its religious/ethical expectations. In

fact, only a minority of Jews from the diaspora have migrated to Israel since its

foundation in 1948. Hobsbawm (1980:504) observed 22 years ago that “Israel failed

almost totally to attract Western Jews, who, content where they were, preferred long-

distance Zionism”. This view was more recently affirmed by Gitelman (1998:20) who

states from his position as an Israeli, that although the Jews’ attachment to their ancestral

homeland is legendary, now that it has become a state, attachment to the homeland has

only impressed a small proportion of world Jewry other than refugees. Ideologically

impelled Zionists have not made that journey of faith. Gitelman (1998:127) further

argues that it is Jewish identity alone, and not Zionism, that most recently has brought

the largest number of immigrants to what is known as the Jewish state. This observation

affirms the proposition regarding the ‘symbolic’ attachment to Israel, if indeed ‘Jewish

identity’ can be interpreted in this way. It can be said that ‘Jewish identity’ is a complex

and multifaceted concept that includes memories of Jewish past and recent history,

religious/spiritual understandings and with many individuals the importance of Israel as

the Jewish homeland. Gitelman’s (ibid) claim that it is Jewish identity and not Zionism

that has brought the largest number of Jews to live in Israel, is emphasizing the

difference between a spiritual identity that may encompass an attachment to the notion

of the land of Israel and the purely ideological position of Zionism as a political stance.

It may also be inferred that those refugees who have chosen Israel as a place of refuge

have also made this choice on the basis that Israel is the Jewish homeland, rather than

any of several alternative places of Jewish settlement.

It can further be argued that many Jews from Western settler countries such as the

United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Western Europe and the United

Kingdom, have not chosen to return to the mythical homeland when it became the state

of Israel. For these Jews, their country of settlement is their homeland. Alternatively, it

can be suggested that as Jews in these settler countries frequently originated from

19

countries to which they may be able to return if they so choose, their homeland

yearnings are for the countries and the cultures in which they, or their parents were born

and grew up. As Einhorn (2001:710) argues, “a sentimental attachment to the landscape

of one’s youth is common”. Those Jews who were willing immigrants to settlement

countries, or were refugees who have eventually settled well, may not consider Israel

anything other than a dream and a safe haven if the need arises. For those Jews who

differentiate between the mythic and the real, for those who decide not to return to either

the home of their youth or the ‘spiritual homeland’ (Israel), the concept of Heim (home)

and Heimat (homeland) have become one in their place of settlement (Hobsbawm

1991:66-68).

The previous discussion has questioned whether the state of Israel is in fact the ancestral

dream of Zion, as evidenced by the paucity of Jews returning there from the diaspora. I

would argue that this apparent ‘long distance Zionism’ (Hobsbawn 1980: 504) may

indeed produce the unconscious need to be uncompromisingly acquiescent towards the

state of Israel from the safety of the diaspora. Many Jews retain an intra-psychic fear

that the recent history of extreme anti-Semitism should re-occur, and as Bernstein

(1991:43) suggests, “they will also somewhere in their minds continue to value Israel as

an insurance policy should their survival in the diaspora ever become untenable”. This

suggestion might explain the different reactions to dissent observed in Israel and in

diaspora countries, particularly Australia, with its high pro rata ratio of holocaust3

survivors.

The next section of the thesis will examine the meaning of the terms ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’

within the context of this research.

What/who is a Jew: Jewish identity – a religion or an ethnicity?

These crucial factors …. have marked the whole of Jewish life and strongly affected Jewish migration to Australia. Therefore, Jewish identity and history must

3 In this thesis ‘the holocaust’ will utilise a lower case ‘holocaust’. This is with the exception of direct quotes or expressions from other sources. This decision is taken because of the belief that there have been many holocausts in history and out of respect for these, capitalisation will not be used (see: Finkelstein, 2000, ‘Capitalizing the Holocaust’ in The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, pp. 11-38).

20

be understood if the Jewish experience in Australia is to be understood (Rubinstein 986:1).

In any discussion that addresses a Jewish topic, one must first define the question:

what/who is a Jew? It is not my intention to address this question through the prism of

religious law (Halakhah), which maintains simplistically that a Jew is a child of a Jewish

mother.

There is a continuing debate on the vexed subject of Jewishness that is more complex

than this restrictive definition of religious law. In a multicultural country such as

Australia, which features a wide range of nationalities, the issue of a narrow religious

definition of Jewishness is irrelevant to the wider population. In general, Australians

would accept someone who identifies him/herself as a Jew and be unconcerned with

whether they have a Jewish father or mother. Outside of the narrow limits of Orthodoxy,

whether the children that result from intermarriage are considered Jewish or not very

much depends on personal cultural decisions as to how the family decides to raise the

children, and the attitude of an accommodating Rabbi (Kamins 1994:13-15). Gitelman

(1998:125) confirms this view, commenting on the difference between the definitions of

Jewishness according to religious practice:

the Reform movement’s acceptance as Jews of people with Jewish fathers, but not mothers, has pushed the boundary of Jewishness way beyond where it used to be, at least for those who accept this accommodation to the reality of intermarriage. Clearly, the lines are blurred on the question of Jewishness when it is considered in a

multicultural, pluralistic society rather than a shtetl (Jewish village) milieu or an Israeli

or diaspora Orthodox community. In these contexts, the decision would undoubtedly be

made according to halakhah as noted above.

What is of more relevance to this study is the definition of the nature of Jewishness in

the societies of diasporic Jewish settlement. This question in itself leads to the

exilic/diasporic history of the Jewish people: are Jews in the diaspora (Australia in this

case) an ethnic group or a religious group? If they are an ethnic group, to which national

group do they claim their ethnicity? With a focus on the Australian setting, Stratton

(2000:241) suggests that, “the lack of national origin means there is nothing to anchor

the representation of a Jewish ethnic identity”. Stratton further observes that:

21

In multicultural Australia the holocaust not only provides a source of Jewish identification, it also operates as a substitute for a national origin in the process of Jewish ethnicisation.

Stratton also observes that for many secular Jews, their Jewishness is in relation to the

holocaust, with its ‘genocidal inclusiveness’ based on genetic lineage rather than solely

on religion. This identification has been described as ‘holocaust-Jewishness’, which

Stratton claims operates as a substitute for a national origin in the process of Jewish

ethnicisation (Stratton 2000:11, 241). Medding (1968:275) validates Stratton’s

observations, in his comments on the increase of numbers in Melbourne Jewry following

World War II. He suggests that Jewish consciousness resulting from the Nazi holocaust

and the creation of Israel attracted many Jews that had previously only been marginally

identified. The phenomenon of returning Jews may have been abetted by the fact that

Melbourne received a high proportion of Polish refugees who were largely holocaust

survivors in the years following World War II. The Jewish population of Melbourne

increased from 38.1% of the Australian Jewish population in 1901 to 50.5% in 1961

(Medding 1968:18). The total Jewish population of Victoria in 1991, based on various

sources, was approximately 33,862 (Rubinstein, 1995: 23).

Religious Jews such as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks deride this reductionist view of

‘holocaust-Jewishness’. Rabbi Sacks (2000:207) maintains that being a Jew is related to

many other factors that enrich the Jewish experience – culture, values and a history of

survival and outstanding achievements. Sacks shares this viewpoint with Albert

Einstein, who said:

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence – these are the features of the Jewish tradition which makes me thank my lucky stars that I belong to it (Einstein 1977:116).

Rubinstein (1986:1-11) describes Jewishness in Australia as being encompassed by

religious identity, ethnic identity and cultural identity, all of which are influenced by the

issues of Jewish statelessness, anti-Semitism, assimilation fears and the dualism of

identity as a result of migrant status. These factors all imply an underlying sense of

insecurity and impermanence, and possibly only apply to the first and second generation

of Australian Jews. In the context of the Australian scene, Solomon (1980:94) suggests

that Jewish identity is largely expressed through one or more of the major cultural

22

factors of nationality, religion or community. Solomon also makes the observation that

the open nature of Australian society means that Jews are Australian citizens, so that

Jewish national identity is impossible. Consequently, she suggests, “Jewish nationality is

reduced to a spiritual affinity or an emotional notion of people-hood”.

The complexities of the ethno-religious identity of diaspora Jews are beyond the scope

of this thesis, and a definitive answer likely does not exist, as this is a process that is

evolving over time. The question of Jewish ethnicity will be further explored in Chapter

3. However, in the past, the question of Jewish identity had been succinctly expressed

as:

The historically unique features of the case – for example, the inextricable blending of religious and national elements in Jewish identity, the central place of the Holocaust and of the creation of Israel in contemporary Jewish consciousness” (Kelman 1977:10).

This quote on the nature of Jewish identity illustrates the fundamental issue that fuels the

topic of this thesis – namely, the silencing of dissent in the Australian Jewish

community. I suggest that this may arise out of a sense of the aforementioned ‘religious

and national elements in Jewish identity’ and, more recently, of holocaust and Israel

consciousness. Kelman’s words speak to the sensitive areas of the Nazi holocaust and

loyalty to a perceived ancestral ‘homeland’ that crosses the boundaries between ethnic

and religious identities in the Australian Jewish community.

Before concluding this discussion of identity, it is necessary to consider the concept of

ethnic election and national destiny within this depiction of Jewish identity, with the

links for many Jews to the nationalist enterprise of Israel (Zionism). Many Jews

maintain a belief in the Jewish notion of the ‘chosen people’. It could be claimed that

this is a part of the identity and self-concept of a significant number of religious Jews. In

itself, this belief implies that the state of Israel is God-decreed for his people. Smith

(1999:331) describes religious nationalisms of covenantal origin as based on a myth of

‘ethnic election’ by the deity. There is little doubt that the genesis of the state of Israel

fits that description. Although it claims to be a secular state, it is apparent that Old

Testament imperatives have maintained an incipient and ideological nationalism over

the thousands of years since the Jews were dispersed among the nations (Kellas

23

1991:22). Here is the basis of the idea of ancient ‘homeland’ and ultimate ‘return’. As

H. Kohn (1944, cited in Kellas 1991: 22) argues, “nationalism is a relatively modern

phenomenon, although having roots in the distant past”. Whether this concept has

conscious relevance for diaspora Jews of second and third generations, is not clear

without validating studies. However, the comment by Smith (1999:336) on ‘election

myths’ in ethnic communities (ethnies), is of interest to this study of Jewish peace

activists. He defines these ethnies as:

a named human community with myths of common ancestry and shared historical memories, one or more elements of common culture, a link with a ‘homeland’ and some degree of solidarity… and that election myths may also be used against insiders who reject the mission… (emphasis added).

This observation would appear to explain one of the origins of the silencing of dissent

within the Australian Jewish community. The concept of ‘ethnic election’ also offers a

deeper analysis of Jewish identity - itself raising the contentious question of Jewish

‘chosenness’. This potentially divisive belief will be discussed in more detail in Chapter

3. Although I am conscious of those complex and evolving features of Jewish identity

noted above, the ultimate objective of this thesis is to analyse the experiences of Jewish

dissenters through the experiences of peace activists. To date, there have been no studies

described in the literature regarding this type of dissident minority group within a larger

Jewish community.

Research aims

This research aims to address two questions. First, how do peace activists experience

and reconcile their Jewish identity in view of the condemnation and silencing attempts

directed at them from many of the mainstream Jewish community? Second, where are

these peace activists placed within the mainstream ethnic/religious community?

The first question was investigated by means of an interview/discussion aimed at

gaining insight into the experiences of individual peace activists. The interview sought

to gain details of the extent of any ‘silencing’ that these activists have experienced as a

result of their dissenting views/actions. It also sought an understanding of how any

silencing messages affected the respondents’ subsequent behaviour and decisions, and

24

how this had been dealt with; for example, whether those situations where silencing had

occurred were subsequently avoided altogether by the respondent/s, or whether

respondent/s had not withdrawn but had chosen to restrain themselves by limiting what

they say and/or how they act in particular situations. This restraint method of avoidance

could be interpreted as a form of ‘self-censorship’ as described by Sunstein (2003:81).

A major aim of this thesis is to explore the issue of Jewish identification in view of any

silencing strategies experienced with the potential for subsequent exclusion and/or self-

withdrawal from the mainstream Jewish community. This issue was explored through a

question asking how these activists reconcile their Jewish identity in view of the strong

reactions elicited by their activism. The respondents were also asked whether they view

their activism as an expression of their Jewish identity. This was further examined by a

question enquiring whether respondents perceived their ‘political views’ relating to their

activism as being linked to any Jewish ethics.

The second major research question sought to examine where these peace activists are

positioned in the ethnic/religious mainstream, given that the political views they espouse

are strongly proscribed within that community. Respondents were questioned about their

perceived position on a religious-secular continuum, and how they perceived the

mainstream Jewish community on a conservative-heterogeneous continuum. In order to

assess the respondents’ position on a political spectrum, addressing the subject of

Zionism and how this related to the recent increase in suicide bombings, respondents

were asked whether the bombings together with the harsh Israeli reactions had changed

their previously stated political position. The findings from these research questions will

be fully discussed in Chapter 4.

Methodological considerations

In the preface to this thesis I described my involvement as a Jewish peace activist.

According to Shore (1996:45), this role means that I have undertaken this research study

as an ‘insider’, and would therefore hold folk-models/theories of the field before I began

the study. I wish to begin this section by addressing this issue and discussing my role in

25

what is termed “native anthropology” (Mascarenhas-Keyes 1987:180-195) or “auto-

anthropology” (Strathern 1987:16-37). This chapter will describe the procedures for the

selection of participants to this study and the conduct of the semi-structured interviews.

The characteristics of the selected respondents will be described graphically. Finally, the

chapter will discuss a number of ethical considerations.

The interviewer as ‘insider’

I undertook this study with the knowledge that I was very much an ‘inside researcher’

and with an awareness of the need to maintain objectivity when interviewing

participants with whom I held a shared political point of view. Although the majority of

participants were unknown to me personally, the fact that we very likely possessed a

mutual opinion and partook in activities of a sensitive nature in the Jewish community,

created a sense of unity. For these reasons I was cognisant of Merton’s (1972:33)

warning that “the ‘insider’ is innately biased due to his/her commitment to the study

group and that his/her role is more of an advocate than that of an unbiased researcher”. I

am reassured on the issue of researcher bias by Segalen and Zonabend (1987:111), who

maintain that distancing with the intent of producing objectivity is an illusion. They

argue that:

Whether one is familiar with or a stranger to the culture one is working on, there are no absolute grounds for considering the degree of cultural difference between object and observer as either an obstacle or an advantage with regard to its objective description.

Although I and my respondents are Jewish peace activists, I consider that the ‘cultural

difference’ between us is greater than that of some Jewish researchers in similar

enquiries (Trigger 1978). I do not belong to the same group/s as the respondents in this

research, and as my activities are in a different city, I do not encounter these particular

activists in protest rallies, vigils or other related activities. Mascarenhas-Keyes,

(1987:183-84) has conducted work in India where she was already a permanent

component of a web of kinship and associational relationship. She suggests that, “the

Outsider is usually incorporated into native society by acquiring a temporary fictive

kinship position”. Nonetheless, I was aware of what Trigger (1978:276) terms ‘folk-

26

models’; that is, “the unconscious set of assumptions and understandings members of a

society or group share” (cited in Shore 1996:45). I am also aware that these could have

had the potential to influence my neutrality/objectivity. I am equally aware of the

importance of impartiality during interviewing. I had the expectation that there would be

different levels of dissent and different political positions in the group under

examination and therefore neutrality and confidentiality would be of great importance.

However, I would argue that because of the issue of silencing/suppression that this thesis

addresses, my identity as a known peace activist would engender a level of trust from

the participants, more so than with a Jew whose views on the subject are totally

unknown to the respondents.

There is little doubt that my personal reason for undertaking this particular research

topic involved a desire “to locate an autobiography within a cultural biography”

(Segalen & Zonabend 1987:190). I was aware that “the insider may depend too much on

his own background, his own sentiments, his desires for what is good for his people”

(Jones 1970:256). On the contrary, I maintain that such dangers “can be mitigated with

relative ease once one is aware of them” (Aguilar 1981:23). Srinivas (1966:157)

suggests that objective distance can be maintained when the ‘inside’ researcher is in

his/her academic environment at a distance from the field, analysing and writing the

results of the field research. I appreciate that the subject of my investigation was, and

still is, one of extreme sensitivity in the Jewish community. In conducting this study, I

was aware that the participants would need to know that they could trust me in order for

there to be forthrightness in responding to the interview questions. The difficulty here

was in maintaining a balance between objective neutrality within the interview, while

engendering trust and openness through my positive responses.

The interview procedure

As this field research was undertaken in the city of Sydney, it is necessary to describe

the nature of its Jewish community. The Sydney Jewish community is the second largest

in Australia (96.31% of total Jews in Australia) and just behind Melbourne (98.45% of

total), based on the Census data of 1991 (Rubinstein 1995:25). These two major centres

of Jewish life in Australia differ demographically, in that the Melbourne community of

27

approximately 50,000 is primarily of Polish origin and is generally described as more

‘conservative’. The Sydney community has relatively more Hungarian and

German/Austrian Jews, and has been described as more ‘socially liberal’ (Cohen 1988).

Sydney was chosen for this study on the basis of accessibility of potential respondents

and for its geographical familiarity. The two activist groups from which the respondents

were drawn included “Jews Against the Occupation”, formed in 2003, and “Jewish

Voices for Justice and Peace” – from which the former group originally differentiated.

The division of the original Sydney group into two separate groups was based on

differences of style and approaches to activism.

With awareness of the ‘insider’ caveats discussed earlier, I proceeded to select

participants for the study. I had already met two Jewish peace activists in Sydney from a

preliminary meeting there a year earlier. These two women became my first contacts

through whom I was able to gain entry into the broader Sydney peace activism groups.

An initial e-mail communication was made with potential participants, whose names had

been sent to me by my contacts in Sydney. Potential respondents were sent an initial

invitation to participate in the study (Appendix C), as well as copies of the Information

Sheet (Appendix A) and Questionnaire (Appendix B). The Information Sheet includes

details regarding the ethical considerations and standards to which this study has

adhered, as required by the University of Queensland School of Social Science Research

Ethics Committee.

After agreement for involvement was obtained, telephone calls were made to tentatively

arrange times and places for interviews to be conducted. Participants’ age, gender, place

of birth and parental place of birth are given in Table 1 (below). This information was

gathered by questionnaire during the semi-structured interview process.

28

Table 1: Characteristics/personal history of Jewish peace activists studied

Age Group

18-30

31-43

44-56

57-75

No.

1

2

6

5

Gender

Female

Male

No.

9

5

Place of birth

Australia/New Zealand

United Kingdom

South Africa

Europe

Israel/Palestine

No.

7

1

2

2

2

Parents’ place of birth

Australia/New Zealand

United Kingdom

South Africa

Europe *

Israel/Palestine

}

No.

4

3

2

18

1

* Of the 18 European-born parents, 15 were born in the 1939-45 period of World

War II and the Nazi holocaust.

As described above, respondents were drawn from two Jewish peace groups in the

Sydney metropolitan area. The 14 respondents interviewed included 6 from each of the

Sydney peace groups, together with 2 respondents that were not aligned with either

group but were known to the wider Sydney peace activist community. My two original

contacts were familiar to members of both groups, and as there is a degree of overlap

between the two Sydney groups, I was offered names of members from both groups as

the snow-balling selection proceeded. Following this initial stage, I made personal e-

mail/letter contact with each participant, informing them of my anticipated arrival date

in Sydney. Confirmation of the interview times and places was made on my arrival in

Sydney.

The interview venues and times varied; the first interview was held in the lounge/dining

room of the Bed and Breakfast where I was staying, two interviews were conducted in

29

cafés, eight were held in respondents’ private homes, one was held in Centennial Park,

one was held at a respondent’s office and the last interview was held in the Fisher

Library of the University of Sydney. My initial contacts with potential participants had

revealed considerable interest, with the majority of people who were approached

enthusiastically agreeing to participate in the study. Several participants expressed their

interest in the anticipated research outcomes as well as a sense of satisfaction in the topic

of study. This positive reaction to the research project was extended to the actual

interview arrangements, when several people went out of their way to make it easier for

me to reach certain venues by offering to meet me at a public transport station. There

was an atmosphere of trust and comradeship in all of the interviews conducted. I am

aware that this subject is an extremely sensitive one within the Jewish community and

that, initially, only the two respondents who had met me previously were aware that I

was Jewish. Undoubtedly, my credentials as a Jewish activist had been supported by my

two original contacts in Sydney. The main issue of concern for these activists would be

that confidentiality would be maintained, particularly in regard to the wider Jewish

community.

I commenced each interview by introducing myself and asking if there were any queries

about the information already received. This was followed by the signing of the

Informed Consent form (see Appendix D). Every respondent appeared to have an

expectation that this would occur and it was not questioned. The audio-taped interview

then proceeded. In some cases, there were attendant difficulties as a result of the public

venues and lack of quietness/privacy, together with occasional difficulties of the tape

recorder picking up extraneous noises, and on one occasion, failing to record until the

interview was well in progress. The interviews took a minimum of two hours and a

maximum of three hours, with the respondents either completing the questionnaire as we

talked, or in some cases, prior to the interview.

Maintaining the distance

My reaction was always to avoid any over-identification with the peace activists with

whom I shared a common philosophy – ‘cultural-models’ as described by Shore

(1996:45). There were obvious differences between individual responses to the

30

questionnaire - many aligned with the peace group of which they were members. I was

aware that participants from one group had a different approach to activism – that is,

having a perspective that supported them in their activism largely from within the

religious mainstream community. Members of the other group largely acted outside the

religious community and were generally viewed as being more visible and outspoken.

Despite sharing a common cause with the respondents, I consider that I was able to

maintain objective distance as an ‘insider’, certainly at a distance from the field as

suggested by Srinivas (1966:157) and also throughout the interview process.

Maintaining distance during the interview process presented a challenge in view of the

fact that I was linked to the questions that were written from my personal experience as

a dissenting Jew. It was also interesting to note that there was no animosity expressed by

members of one group toward the members or activities of the other peace group,

despite their differences in philosophy and approaches to activism. A ‘common cause’

seemed to be the attitude shared, and if anything was expressed, it was respect for the

other.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the University of Queensland School of Social Science

Research Committee and gained ethical clearance in July 2003. The subsequent research

has complied with the ethical standards of the School, and respondents were informed of

these standards in the Information Sheet sent in advance of the interviews being

conducted. Consent forms were signed by all respondents prior to the interviews. All

efforts have been made to disguise the identities of the respondents - pseudonyms have

been assigned to each name in the subsequent data analysis to comply with a

commitment to confidentiality. Furthermore, in the case of three high profile

respondents who may be identified by a future reader with some knowledge of the

group, I have sent excerpts to the relevant respondent and asked for their permission to

publish the data. In all three instances, I have received permission to do so, after making

suggested small changes to the verbatim text.

31

Organisation of the thesis

Chapter 1 has presented an overview of the core elements of this thesis. These will be

described more fully in the following chapters. The research aims and methodological

approaches have also been discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 2 will examine the history of early Jewish settlement in Australia. It will

describe the development of the Jewish community, from its earliest beginnings in the

19th century with the Anglo-Jewish dominance of that era, to the period of the post-

World War II influx of European refugees that permanently changed the Jewish

demography. Within the scope of this Australian Jewish history, the questions of early

Zionism and anti-Zionism, the developing heterogeneity of the contemporary Jewish

community in Australia, and the unique features of the Australian Jewish diaspora will

be described.

Chapter 3 will present a review of the relevant bodies of literature pertaining to this

thesis. First, the thesis will discuss the question of where is the ‘homeland’ of diaspora

Jews? Is it Israel, the traditional Jewish homeland, or is it a primary country/culture of

birth? This section will also describe the present diaspora-Israel relationship. Second,

the chapter will discuss the negotiation of Jewish identity/Jewishness, including the

notions of the ‘chosenness’ of Jews and the Jew as the ‘eternal victim’. This chapter will

examine the key thesis topic of the silencing of dissent, with reference to a wider Jewish

historic context. This historic facet will present a crucial aspect to the suppression of

dissent in Jewish history, describing the experiences of prominent figures such as

Hannah Arendt, Baruch Spinoza and others of particular Jewish significance.

Chapter 4 will comprise a presentation of the data analysis and results of the semi-

structured interviews with the respondents to this study.

Chapter 5 will discuss the final conclusions arising from this study.

32

CHAPTER 2

HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN AUSTRALIA Introduction

The nature of diaspora bestows a particular history and identity on those who have

experienced a perceived exile from a homeland and resettlement in another culture, at

least within the first two generations. Australian Jews of the present are a product of the

distinctive history of this small part of the Jewish diaspora. This chapter will examine

the history and development of the Jewish presence in Australia, in order to gain an

appreciation of the distinctive features of Australian Jewry. This description will broadly

cover the period of more than two centuries since a Jew was first mentioned in the

colony’s records. This includes the period of early settlement through to a changing

demography, when a relatively rapid increase in the Jewish population resulted in a

more heterogeneous Jewish community. The chapter will also discuss the subject of

early anti-Zionism in a dominantly Anglo-Jewish population. The increasing concern

regarding Jewish survival and the fears surrounding anti-Semitism and assimilation

following World War II and the Nazi holocaust will be discussed in the context of a

rapid growth in the Jewish population as a result of an influx of Jewish refugees and

survivors from the European cataclysm.

Early settlement from 1788 – 1930s A Jewish presence in Australia began with the arrival of eight convicts transported from

England on the First Fleet (Elazar & Medding 1983:235). The first record for any type

of Jewish service was made in 1803 - for the preparation for execution of a Jew who was

‘prepared by a person of his own profession’ (Rutland 1997:22). Although there had

been two previous burials of Jewish convicts, these were not recorded as ‘Jewish’ in the

registers nor were they ‘prepared’ in the same way (ibid). The early, inauspicious arrival

of Jewish convicts in Australia was followed by subsequent arrivals of free settlers -

often families of those who had been transported earlier, thereby creating a ‘chain

migration’ (Richards 1975:8). This chain family migration, together with later Jewish

transportees and about 100 free Jewish settlers who arrived between 1820 and the early

1830s, marked the beginnings of the Anglo-Jewish presence in Australia. This presence

33

dominated the small and nascent Jewish community until the arrival of European Jews

before and after World War II. Prior to the end of the 19th century, most Jews were

English-speaking convicts, emancipists, immigrants from Britain, or their Australian-

born descendents. This must have added to the acceptance of their situation, as, apart

from religion, they would be indistinguishable from the general population. It has been

noted that this English-speaking population aspired to emulate the English upper-middle

classes, thus introducing a dynamic of acculturation. This was particularly true of South

Australia, which had been a free colony with no convict origins. It is not clear when

Jewish worship commenced in the earliest era - it was possibly first observed in the

private homes of emancipists (Rutland 1997:26). However, the earliest organised Jewish

life was a burial society (Chevra Kadisha) established in 1817. In 1820, a burial site was

consecrated when a corner of the Christian cemetery in Sydney was allocated to the

‘Hebrews’ (Levi & Bergman 1974:218).

More substantial Jewish religious life in Australia began in 1832, with the formation of

the first permanent congregation in Sydney (Elazar & Medding 1983:14). Other colonies

were soon to follow in the pre-Federation period. Tasmania, Western Australia and

South Australia were experiencing the beginnings of organised Jewish communal life

between the 1830s and 1850, while Victoria did so after 1851 when it had separated

from New South Wales (Rutland 1997:25-41). With the new century and the Federation

of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, came the arrival of more Jews, largely from

Eastern Europe (Pale of Settlement) and Poland, especially after the Russian Revolution

in 1917. Even with this new injection of non-English Jews, the homogeneity of the

Anglo-Jewish culture was not lost, with the European newcomers being absorbed into

the existing Anglo-Jewish culture. As Rubinstein (1986:56) observes: “down to the

influx of European Jewish refugees from the Nazis during the 1930s, the Melbourne

Jewish community maintained its Anglo-Saxon character”.

After 1930, when the initial flow of Jewish refugees from Europe had tapered off, it was

supplemented by the arrival of other European refugees fleeing from Nazism. This

marked the beginning of a more diverse Jewish observance in Australia and the creation

of other community organisations such as Jewish day schools, which were financed with

the resources of the new immigrants (Elazar & Medding 1983:11). Immediately before

34

and after World War II, Jewish refugees and survivors of the holocaust further added to

the ethnic and religious diversity of Australian Jewry. The Jewish community rapidly

became more heterogeneous, with an increase in communal facilities such as educational

and religious institutions that served a more traditional trend:

Australia came to be the only one of the new societies in which a majority of the migrants came from prior commitments to creating a traditionally oriented Jewish community (ibid:10).

These changing demographic factors had the positive outcome of limiting an earlier

trend toward intermarriage and assimilation that occurred from a serious dearth of

Jewish women in the early settlement period (Salom 2000: 9-13; Medding 1968:269-

270). This will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter.

It is worth noting that the Zionist aspiration had been gradually developing in Europe in

the years after its initial conception in the late 19th century by Theodore Herzl, the father

of Zionism. A number of settlements were started in Palestine, instigated by Russian

pogroms and widespread anti-Semitism in Europe. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was

ratified by the League of Nations in 1922, establishing a temporary mandate for

Palestine under which the British were “empowered to act in a governing capacity for

the benefit of both Arab and Jew” (Balfour Declaration, November 2, 1917).

Early dissent in Australia

As noted earlier, Australian Jewry was largely Anglo-oriented and derived up to the pre-

World War II period with its influx of European refugees and the later survivors of that

war. According to Rutland (1997:106):

Australian Jewry failed to diversify its communal framework because of the dominance of Anglo-Jewish leadership, whose philosophy it was to eliminate differences between Jew and non-Jew except in a narrow religious sense.

By 1920, nearly all Australian Jews were either born in Australia or were British-born

and regarded themselves as British subjects. They were more concerned with being loyal

Australians (of British stock) than being Jewish. This demography is of importance to

the following description of the reaction against the initial concept of a Zionist/Jewish

state in Palestine.

35

As an example of early dissent, it is necessary to briefly examine the history of the

Australian Jewish community, with a particular focus on the burgeoning Zionist

movement. The development of the Zionist concept in Australia in the early 20th

century met with heated opposition from the dominant Anglo-Jewish population, which

was fiercely loyal to the British Empire. As Palestine was a British mandate, this

movement elicited much conflict within their ranks (Medding 1968:130; Levi 1995:156;

Hyams 1998:45). One of the most outspoken critics, Sir Isaac Isaacs, former Chief

Justice of the Australian High Court and a former Governor-General of Australia,

expressed his doubts in the movement in the early 1920s and made reference to its

‘pestilential doctrines’ in 1943-4 (Medding 1968:130). Docker (2001:177-178) describes

articles written with some prescience by the former Govenor-General Isaacs in July

1942 and December 1943, which agreed with the British government’s refusal to

constitute Palestine as a Jewish state:

if that Zionist demand were to be met, it would, he argued, be ‘unjust’ and would antagonize the Arab population in Palestine… it would exasperate the whole Muslim world...

At the time, opposition to a Jewish state was also supported by several Anglo-Jewish

notables, including former Governor-General of Australia, Mr. A. Michaelis MLA, and

Rabbi J. Danglow (Rutland 1997:171-172). The argument of these opponents was

simply based on their perception that the establishment of a Jewish state was an act of

outright disloyalty to the British Crown (Medding 1968:130-131). Although these pro-

British dissenters were opposed to ‘political Zionism’, they did not preclude a Jewish

settlement in Palestine and supported a cultural4 or humanitarian Zionism; for example,

“the migration of Jewish refugees to Palestine from where they suffered racial or

religious discrimination” (ibid:133). It is important to note, however, that following the

revelation of the horrific extent of the holocaust and the subsequent creation of the state

4 Cultural and spiritual Zionism were ideals of a form of Zionism conceived by Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha-am) (1856-1927) and Martin Buber (1878-1965), which encompassed the view that Zionism was important because it sought to provide a physical homeland for the Jewish people but it also had the potential for becoming a spiritual homeland for world Jewry. However, both of these philosophers had a vision of a Jewish homeland as living alongside and with the indigenous population of Palestine. Buber, who died in Jerusalem, had an ongoing debate and dispute with the ‘revisionist’ founders of the present state of Israel regarding the nationalistic direction it was taking (for a full exposition see: Shatz 2004, ACentury of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel).

36

of Israel in 1948, the surviving former anti-Zionist adherents largely supported the new

Jewish state (ibid:45).

There is a difference between the ‘anti-Zionism’ of this early Anglo-Jewish group and

the later dissent that emerged with a growing awareness of the repressive policies of

various Israeli governments. The early resistance to the concept of a Jewish homeland in

Palestine was largely based on loyalty to the British Empire and its interests, although

individual dissenters at the time may indeed have considered the effect on the

indigenous people. Recent dissent is based on the recognition of and support for a

universalistic philosophy of justice and human rights, and has followed from the

occupation of the Palestinian Territories in 1967. However, the consequences have been

similar, in that an initial ‘politics of silencing’ was in existence as early as mid-1946,

prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, when the views of Sir Isaac Isaacs were

branded as “audacious and impudent” and as “disloyal to Jewry” in the daily Press and

in meetings of the Victorian Jewish Advisory Board (VJAB) (ibid:132). These and any

other derogatory terms implying disloyalty, such as the term “self-hating Jew” used

more recently (as discussed in Chapter 1), are an affront to most Jews. Dread of this slur

frequently has had the effect of silencing criticism of Israel wherever any such embargo

on debate exists.

After 1948, support for the state of Israel became synonymous with being Jewish. This

was undoubtedly reinforced by the many Jewish holocaust survivors that were settling,

particularly in Melbourne (Mendes 1997b:67). By 1954, Melbourne was the largest

Jewish community in Australia, and over 90% of Australian Jews resided either in

Melbourne or Sydney (Rutland 1997:255). The influx of Jewish survivors of the

holocaust more than doubled the size of Australian Jewry from 23,553 in 1933 to 48,536

in 1945 and 59,343 in 1961 (Rutland 1997:256). On the changing demography of

Australian Jewry, Elazar and Medding (1983:14-15) remark: “the 1950s saw the end to

the dominance of Anglo-Jews as the Jewish population triple[d]”. In 2001, the

population of Melbourne (City of Glen Eira5) reached 19,480 - an increase of 1.5% since

5 The city of Glen Eira includes the suburbs of Bentleigh, Bentleigh East, Carnegie, Caulfield North, East and South, Elsternwick/Gardenvale, Glen Huntley, McKinnon, Murrumbeena, Ormond and St Kilda East, where many of the Jews of Melbourne reside.

37

the 1996 Census (2001 Census of Population and Housing, Australian Bureau of

Statistics).

As discussed in the previous chapter, Zionism became a large part of the expression of

Jewish identity for Australian Jews following the Nazi holocaust and the establishment

of the state of Israel. The Zionist movement became an active, flourishing movement

with many different strands of expression and levels of involvement and commitment.

The positions of the studied Jewish peace activists on the question of Zionism will be

discussed in Chapter 4. The section that follows will discuss the role of Zionism in an

otherwise diverse, contemporary Jewish community.

Heterogeneity of the Jewish community

As noted previously, Zionism has become a significant part of Jewish identity in

Australia. Zionist organisations servicing every communal need currently exist in the

Australian community; for example, Zionist political organisations include the Jewish

Board of Deputies (JBD), the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the Women’s International

Zionist Organisation (WIZO), the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), the Australia-

Israel Association (AIA), and the Executive Committee of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).

The Jewish Left is even represented by the Radical Zionist Alliance (RZA), which adds

a “progressive Jewish voice” (Mendes 1991:507). The more socially-oriented

organisations include Hashomer Hatzair and Betar (Zionist Youth) and the Anti-

Defamation Committee of B’nei Brith (ADC), who’s brief is focussed on anti-racism at

an educational and monitoring level. B’nei Brith also hosts a variety of social activities

for Jews. The political groups referred to above are considered to be the ‘roof bodies’

and spokespersons for the entire Jewish community on any Jewish matters, particularly

those pertaining to Israel:

Even internal criticism of Israel, will, it appears, lead to being marginalized, purged, ostracized, and eliminated by the community’s fearsome ‘roof bodies’… perhaps the Melbourne-led Australian Jewish community also leads the way amongst world Jewry in its insistence on an authoritarian conformity (Docker 1991:151).

38

It is important to note that the one remaining Jewish newspaper (Australian Jewish

News; AJN) is a conservative paper that largely represents the views of these Zionist

organisations. Very little diversity of viewpoint is presented, although there have been

minimal variations, according to the editor of the time.

According to ABS Census data, the Jewish population of Australia was 84,000 in 2001,

representing 0.4% of the wider Australian population and a growth of 5.2% since the

1996 Census. This Census data is taken from a question on religion, however, it has

been suggested that many holocaust survivors and their descendants may not have felt

able to answer that non-compulsory question, which may have affected the Census

figures from 1947 onwards (Rutland 1997:287).

Contemporary Jews in Australia clearly have diverse origins in terms of history,

religious observance and politics. Thus, it is necessary to define the nature of the so-

called ‘Australian Jewish community’ as it exists at present. This broad term

encompasses many different religious observances including Ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox,

Conservative, Reform/Progressive, Humanist, and Reconstructionist, as well as secular

and/or marginalised Jews who nonetheless profess their Jewishness openly. With regard

to politics, there are obviously some differences within and between these groups in

terms of their attitudes towards Israeli policies and the peace process. For example, the

Habad Ultra-Orthodox movement opposes Jewish withdrawal from any part of ‘Eretz

Yisrael’, the biblical land of Israel (Rutland 1997:404). At the other end of the

continuum, Temple Emanuel, a progressive congregation in Sydney, offers ‘Breakfast

with the Rabbi’, a continuing education program that presents “a lively and open

discussion about contemporary issues of ethics, spirituality and community”

(Congregation of the Temple Emanuel 2005). This program occasionally tolerates a

modicum of discussion regarding concerns about the Israel/Palestine situation.

Notwithstanding, a tendency exists towards homogeneity of political opinion despite the

ethno-religious heterogeneity of the community itself – that is, diverse types of religious

observance or religiously non-existent (secular). As discussed in Chapter 1, a

widespread embargo exists upon most criticism of Israel. Some debate and/or discussion

are permitted in certain groups, while in other groups none is tolerated at all. These

39

degrees of permitted expression are often linked to the traditional nature of the group;

for example, Orthodox/Conservative religious groups at the extreme Right permit no

critique, while Progressive/Reform/Liberal religious groups allow some discussion,

depending on the attitude of the individual leader (Rabbi). Individual members tend to

be aware of how much they are permitted to express in any particular group, be it

religious or social. The multiplicity and complexity of the Jewish community determines

that opinion is neither monolithic nor confined to any particular stream of Judaism,

although its ‘manifesto’ is largely conservative and right-wing regarding the

Israeli/Palestinian conflict. However, the ‘silencing’ of criticism crosses the boundaries

of Orthodox to Conservative to Progressive Judaism, and in some cases to secular Jews.

The phenomenon of individual, internalised self-censorship as a form of ‘political

correctness’ (Epstein 1995:3-19), or as a mimetic process of internalisation and

repetition (Taussig 1993: xiii47-48), was discussed in Chapter 1.

Australia has a relatively small Jewish community compared with many other diaspora

countries. While a degree of commonality exists in Jewish identity in all countries of the

Jewish diaspora, the Australian community shares more similarities with other small

Jewish communities in the southern hemisphere, such as Argentina and South Africa.

The importance of Israel in strengthening Jewish self-identification and cohesiveness in

these countries is emphasised. Elazar and Medding (1983) describe Australia, Argentina

and South Africa as ‘frontier’ or ‘fragment societies’. Chiswick (1985:20) affirms the

fragility of Jewish communities in small isolated countries of the diaspora that may have

a problem surviving without further Jewish immigration. This in itself would tend to add

to a sense of insecurity regarding fears of ultimate extinction, as Jewish identification

lessens with the increase in the number of generations elapsing from the original

migration from Europe. This anxiety would also tend to create a greater dependence on

Israel for a sense of Jewish pride, identity and peoplehood, confirming that the prospect

for Jewish identity to survive in Australia is poor. Solomon (1980:95) draws a

distinction in the case of Australian Jews living in this type of open society who are both

Jews and Australian citizens, which means that their Jewish nationality is reduced to a

“spiritual affinity or an emotional, historical notion of peoplehood”. Medding

(1973:264) comments that Israel exercises a ‘magnetic attraction’ for Jewry throughout

the world and suggests that this means different things to different people. Medding

40

(ibid) adds: “for those living amongst non-Jewish majorities as insecure minorities, this

represents a psychological normalisation that can only come from living in a majority

society”.

These factors may in part explain the ferocity of suppression of critical debate in many

small Western countries of the Jewish diaspora, including Australia. The fear of

extinction, both through assimilation and anxiety regarding potential anti-Semitism, has

the effect of creating an exclusive, insular community with strong boundaries and rules –

what Rubinstein (cited in Mendes 1997b:67) terms a ‘non-universalistic agenda’ that

rejects any wider commitment to universal ideas or reforms. Observable in the Jewish

community is an underlying fear of ultimate extinction through assimilation and/or anti-

Semitism. While the issues of survival and assimilation are not explicitly articulated as

matters of concern, what does emerge is a relatively overt expression that tends to label

any criticism of Jews or Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’. This attitude is open to an interpretation

of the existence of underlying insecurity and fears. With a population of 33,862 (1991

Census data; cited in Rubinstein, 1995:23), Melbourne has the largest Jewish community

in Australia. The largest number of Jews from Poland settled in this city, and therefore

Melbourne has had a disproportionately high number of survivors of the holocaust.

Aside from Israel, Australia accepted the second highest number of survivors of the

holocaust on a pro-rata population basis (Rutland 1997:256). This demography suggests

that the first generation and their immediate descendants carry the fears, ideologies and

expectations of that terrible past, much like a “trans-generational haunting in which one

generation finds itself performing the unspoken unconscious agendas of the one that

went before” (Rose 1996:31).

As with many other diaspora Jews, many Australian Jews bear a subconscious

experience related to a collective memory of exile, anti-Semitism and not least, the near

annihilation of European Jewry in the Nazi holocaust. While Jews in Australia may have

different characteristics compared to Jews in other Western diaspora countries, I suggest

that many share the same important features of Jewish identity – the deep-seated fears

associated with a return of extreme anti-Semitism. An examination of the psycho-

emotional characteristics of Australian Jews would very likely reveal similarities with

the experience of Jews in the United States, Britain and other diaspora countries. If it is

41

argued that the overwhelmingly significant features of the Jewish experience arise out of

a deep, existential fear regarding the Jewish history of exile, persecution and, most

recently, the Nazi holocaust, an examination of some of these characteristics of Jewish

experience may offer a speculative hypothesis as to the “why” of the strident and

seemingly irrational reactions to any critique of Israel.

Anti-Semitism, assimilation and survival In the sixteenth century, noted Jewish scholar Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak (Rashi) observed

that Jews require a modicum of opposition for survival. Perhaps this view still has

validity in an increasingly secular world with its assimilationist imperatives, particularly

in Western nation-states (Stratton 2000:237). The questions of anti-Semitism and

intermarriage/assimilation indicate the dilemma of ultimate Jewish survival in the

diaspora. The issues related to the global survival of Jewish identity will be examined

further in a review of the literature in Chapter 3. The following section will discuss the

problematic issues of anti-Semitism and assimilation in the Australian context.

Australia experienced a measure of what may be called ‘institutionalised’ anti-Semitism

prior to a 1970s change to the White Australia policy. These policies had racialised Jews

in questioning pre- and post-war migrants/refugees as to their religion and subsequently

imposing a quota on those entering Australia (Rubinstein 1991:146-7). The associated

assimilationist policy and the dominance of the early integrated and heavily assimilated

Anglo-Jewish population led to a long-term cultural invisibility of Australian Jews

(Stratton 2000:239). However, Jews became more visible over time, with the rapid post-

war growth of the Jewish population together with media events that negatively raised

public awareness regarding the Jews in their midst. For example, events such as the

extreme reaction against the decision to give the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize to the

Palestinian activist Hanan Ashwari were well covered by the media, and have served to

bring the Jewish community to the attention of the general population. This strident

reaction was from a vociferous section of the Jewish community who objected to the

decision to present the Sydney Peace Prize to a Palestinian (albeit a moderate and well

known activist) such as Hanan Ashwari. In addition to this contentious domestic event

there was the extensive media coverage of the Israeli incursions into the Jenin refugee

42

camp in May 2002, and more recently, the building of the ‘separation’ wall around the

Palestinian Territories.

The existence of any anti-Semitism in Australia at present may be complicated by

reactions to what may be perceived as the Israeli militaristic oppression of the

Palestinian people. If an individual is looking for a reason to express any latent anti-

Semitic thoughts, the distinction may not be drawn between Israel and diaspora Jews

generally (Rothman 2003). In a paper written 25 years ago on the likelihood of a new era

of anti-Semitism, Hobsbawm (1980:505) observed that, “in the atmosphere of

international crisis and fear of nuclear war, the policies of Israel, as at present conducted,

will not make the life of Jews in the Diaspora easier”. For example, in December 1999 it

was related that in the previous 12 months, 284 anti-Semitic incidents had been reported

in Australia - “the second highest [number] on record” according to an analysis by the

Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) (Brunton 1999). These ranged from

physical assaults and vandalism through to intimidating letters, e-mails and telephone

calls - although the ECAJ acknowledged that none of these caused serious harm or

damage (ibid). Nevertheless, these incidents were sufficient to maintain an existing

mantle of fear amongst many Jews. During the April 2002 crisis in Palestine/Israel,

several synagogues and Jewish establishments in Australia were vandalised. Stephen

Rothman, President of the NSW Board of Deputies recently stated in an interview with

the ABC Religion Report (September 2003) that:

sporadic anti-Semitic incidents have increased, at one stage quite dramatically, till they peaked at about April of last year. They came down again, but they are still at a level which is far too high and at a level which most Australians would find abhorrent.

The other significant concern for Australian Jews is the question of assimilation and the

ultimate loss of Jewish identity – a fear that is sometimes expressed as an injunction

against “giving Hitler a posthumous victory” – ‘the 614th commandment’ of the

philosopher Emile Fackenheim (1970:6). In relation to the Australian Jewish

community, it could be claimed that if an existential fear exists, it is more relevant to the

issue of survival of Jewish identity per se, rather than any existing, significant anti-

Semitism. Brunton (1999) comments on the irony that the highly accepting nature of

Australian society and the relatively low levels of anti-Semitism are also a matter of

43

concern for a number of Jews, who fear that intermarriage and assimilation will

ultimately lead to the disappearance of the Jewish community in this country. It should

be recognised that intermarriage is usually secondary to an existing degree of

assimilation (Salom 2000:9; Ellman 1987). For many Jews, the link between

assimilation and fear is the potential threat to what is considered to be the indivisible

bond between the Jewish religious faith and its history. At the core of the feelings of loss

and regret when a child marries ‘out’ is the fear that Jewish identity at its very basis is

under threat. In accepting societies such as Australia, the second stage of the

assimilation process - ‘structural assimilation’ - has been described as:

a breaking down of the distinctiveness of the group and subsequently the weakening and disappearance of the group culture. This outcome is abetted by intermarriage and in the case of a religious group, conversion to the major faith of the dominant culture (Rutland 1988:141).

In 1991, the intermarriage rate among Jews in the United States stood at 57%, which

represented a greater than tenfold increase in less than 30 years (Sacks 2000:191). The

Australian intermarriage rate is not conclusive because of the potentially large numbers

of Jews who do not answer ‘Jewish’ on the voluntary Census question on religion

(Rutland 1997:293). However, the combined 1996 Census figures for mixed marriages

(male and female) show a 14.1% total of the 34,399 Jewish marriages, representing a 1%

change since 1991 (Gariano & Rutland 1997).

In the recent 2005 Australia-Israel Hawke Lecture, the speaker commented that the

intermarriage rate in Australia was at 25% and rising (Light 2005). Rabbi J. Kamins

(1994:13) observes:

… the truth is that the Jewish people are now not being hated to death, but loved to death. If the intermarriage rates of the United States herald the future for other diaspora communities, the Jewish presence outside the land of Israel will dissipate over the next couple of generations.

These fears, as well as the other identity issues described earlier, are currently guiding

the reactions of a large section of an apprehensive mainstream Jewish community. I

suggest that a strong and uncritical bond exists from many Australian Jews towards

Israel for all of the factors discussed in the preceding sections. This partly clarifies, if not

excuses, the vilification of dissenters in this country.

44

Conclusion

The Australian Jewish community has developed from the earliest nascent period at the

time of Anglo-Jewish chain migrations in the early 19th century, to a flourishing and

diverse community in the early 21st century. This development has been marked by the

critical change from an Anglo-Jewish dominancy to a community comprising many

different ethno-cultural groups. An early resistance to the notion of a Jewish ‘homeland’

or state in Palestine has epitomised this change from an Anglo-Jewish rejection to the

present belief in Israel as the Jewish homeland, together with the accompanying support

for political Zionism. This change has been promoted by the changing demography and

by the events of the Nazi holocaust, both of which had the effect of creating a European

refugee/holocaust survivor diaspora and increasing fears regarding future anti-Semitism.

At a psycho-emotional level, the new state of Israel became the ‘safe haven’ for diaspora

Jews, should the need arise. As a result of these factors, a plurality of Zionist

organisations became dominant and influential in the Australian Jewish community,

frequently acting as the ‘roof bodies’ that represent the ‘voice’ of the community. Along

with the underlying fears of anti-Semitism are the realities of a small but heterogeneous

Jewish community that is fully accepted in the ‘host’ community, thus increasing the

realistic fears of increasing intermarriage, assimilation and ultimate loss of Jewish

identity.

Chapter 3 will review the literature relevant to the major themes of this thesis and

explore the key issues of dissent and silencing from a perspective different to that

addressed in Chapter 1. This will be a portrayal of Jews who have experienced the

phenomena of ostracism and marginalisation because of their individual beliefs, in both

the distant and more recent past. A review of the diaspora-homeland nexus will examine

the many aspects of the bond between the Jews of the diaspora and their purported

‘homeland’. The chapter will review Jewish identity and its negotiation, particularly in

the open societies of the Western diaspora, together with the issues of ‘chosenness’ and

Jews as ‘eternal victims’. The crucial questions of assimilation, intermarriage and

continuity of Jewish identity in the diaspora will also be reviewed.

45

CHAPTER THREE

IDENTITY, DIASPORA-HOMELAND NEXUS AND SILENCING OF DISSENT

Introduction

This chapter will review the literature related to the three core subjects of this thesis:

Jewish identity, the diaspora-homeland nexus and the silencing of dissent. The issue of

Jewish identity is the foundation upon which the others are based. A number of core

questions will guide this review of the literature. They are: Is Jewish identity a product

of religious belief, is it an ethnic identity, or does it have elements of both? How does it

differ in place – does diaspora Jewish identity differ between the many and diverse

countries of Jewish settlement? As this study was undertaken in an Australian-Jewish

diaspora setting, the subsequent discussion will examine the special characteristics of

Jewish identity (‘Jewishness’) within this diaspora, and will, wherever possible, be

focussed on the particularities of the Australian milieu.

The second area for examination is the nature of the Jewish diaspora and the nexus

between this and the state of Israel - the purported ‘Jewish homeland’. The Jewish

diaspora has been called the ‘prototypical diaspora’, with the inference that the land of

Israel (Eretz Israel) is the homeland of the Jewish people. This is notwithstanding the

fact that contemporary diaspora Jews were born in many other countries with many

different cultures and landscapes of memory (Einhorn 2001:710). This question will be

examined together with the meaning of being a diaspora Jew, with particular reference

to Australia, which has been described as an isolated ‘frontier society’ (Elazar &

Medding 1983). It should be noted at this point that there are relatively few recent

published scholarly studies or papers on the unique characteristics of the Australian

Jewish experience. Subsequently, much of this review will examine the relevant

literature from similar diaspora pluralistic open societies such as the United States and

Britain.

46

The third area for scrutiny in this chapter is the primary concern of this thesis – the

silencing of dissent. This section aims to examine several aspects of the silencing or

suppression of dissenting views from Jewish history. This will provide a context for the

study of the contemporary Jewish peace activists who dissent against the policies of the

Israeli government.

Negotiating Jewishness

The historically unique features of the case – for example, the inextricable blending of religious and national elements in Jewish identity, the central place of the Holocaust and of the creation of Israel in contemporary Jewish consciousness… (Kelman 1977:10).

Although Kelman’s definition of Jewish identity was written 30 years ago, it refers to

three salient issues that I suggest still have relevance for many Jews in the diaspora.

The blending of religious and national elements, a focus on the holocaust, and the

creation of Israel each represent significant features of contemporary Jewish identity

(Kelman 1977, cited in Herman 1977:10). Another issue that might also warrant

addition to these essential aspects of Jewish identity is self-definition as an exiled

people. Kelman asserts that there are many ambiguities in any national identity. The

question for scrutiny here is: what are the ‘ambiguities’ that exist under the rubric of

‘Jewishness’? Do these characteristics differ from those described by Kelman almost

three decades ago? Have the problems facing ‘Jewishness’ changed in the present

period 60 years after the holocaust, and 57 years after the creation of the state of Israel?

What are the implications of these for the unique characteristics of diaspora Jews living

as a part of an ethno-religious minority group within a society that is nominally

Christian?

A debate on the nature of Jewish identity has long been in progress. Both Medding

(1977) and Herman (1977) commented on Jewish identity almost three decades ago.

This was a water-shed, post-holocaust period, a few years after the expansion of Israel

following the successful military events of 1957, ‘67 and ‘73 that changed Israel’s

image to a more secure status. At the time, both writers commented on the relationship

of Jewish identity to the ‘towering’ presence and claims of the state of Israel (Medding

47

1977:5). Herman (1977:67) wrote that since the establishment of the state of Israel,

Jews everywhere found it necessary to define their Jewish identity with reference to

Israel. At the time, both Medding and Herman had observed the emerging decline of

religious observance in the pluralistic, secular societies of the Jewish diaspora

(Medding 1977:7). Herman (ibid:54) also discusses the process of secularisation that

contributed to the erosion of Jewish identity, at the same time observing that the secular

Jew is constantly exposed to the pervasive influences of the majority culture in which

he or she lives. Medding (ibid:6) claimed that the Jewish religion as, “the key defining

characteristic motivating force and central focus of loyalties was being overlaid by the

ethnic aspect of Jewishness”.

As early as 1977, the issue of declining religious observance, the impact of

secularisation and the subsequent possibility of the loss of Jewish identity in pluralistic,

secular societies of the diaspora was becoming an issue. Solomon (1980) addressed this

issue three years later, expanding and developing those assertions made by Medding

and Herman from within the distinctiveness of the Australian Jewish community

(although it may be said that these observations would have a wider relevance to

Western diasporas). Although Solomon (1980:93) commented from the Australian

perspective, she describes in detail the predicament of Jewish identity in the English-

speaking world - “open societies” that are based on notions of minority emancipation

with the ensuing secularisation that leads to the “erosion of Jewish identity”.

More recently, in a qualitative study of a group of mixed gender, married Jews aged 39-

85 from the United States, Friedman et al. (2005:81) suggest that:

An American Jew’s ethnic identity is complex, multi-dimensional and highly personal, its strength depending on the individual’s identification with both the cultural heritage and faith.

This description may also apply to Australian Jews, as this particular diaspora ‘open

society’ is closer to that in the United States. Klug (2002:3) refers to Jewish identity in

relation to Israel as, “complex, confusing and fraught with emotion”, while Azria

(1998:26) describes it as, “a source of confusion and misunderstanding”. Azria suggests

that the tendency amongst Jews to define their identity in terms of the state of Israel

produces an environment with a propensity to be intolerant of most criticism of Israel.

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Azria’s observation has relevance for the topic of this thesis: the silencing of dissent in

the Australian Jewish community.

The following section will discuss two important issues in relation to the universal view

of Jewish identity - the notion of Jews as the ‘chosen people’ (as discussed in Chapter

1), and the ascription of Jews as the eternal ‘victims’ of anti-Semitism. The self-

identification as ‘victim’ by many Jews will also be discussed.

The idea of ethnic election (‘chosenness’)

The self-perception of chosenness is ubiquitous across many cultures. Smith

(1992:436) suggests that this is a possible reason why certain ethnic communities

(ethnies) persist in the face of prolonged adversity over long time spans. Ethnic survival

occurs where “successive generations continue to identify with some persisting

memories, symbols, myths and traditions” (ibid:439). Myths of ethnic chosenness not

only underpin peoples and cultures, they also provide title-deeds to sacred homelands

(which may result in ethnic/nationalist wars when there are conflicting claims to the

same territory) (ibid:450). Although not unique, the Jewish people clearly fit within this

definition and with the existing ethnic election myth regarding an historic territory that

strengthens the ethnie attachment by regarding this ‘homeland’ as God-given:

Only the sacred land and the sanctified soil are fit for the elect and they can only be redeemed in the land where their fathers and mothers lived, their heroes fought and their saints prayed (ibid:446).

The point regarding a God-given historic territory has particular relevance for those

Jews who regard biblical Judah/Samaria or the contested Palestinian Territories in this

way. This conviction fits the definition of ‘diaspora restoration’ – the return of a

community back to its ancestral home (ibid:448), where, “the patriot’s sacred duty is to

recover the nation’s authentic past and repossess its homeland” (Connor 1978, cited in

Smith ibid:450). The belief in the ethnic election of Jews holds a great deal of

significance for many Jews, particularly those who are religiously observant. The

traditional theological and core belief of Judaism (that Jews are God’s chosen people)

has served admirably as the tool of ethnic election, and is considered “a prerequisite to

the long term survival of an ethnic community” (Amyot & Sigelman 1996:187). It is

49

claimed here that more humanistic forms of Judaism serve this need less well. The idea

of a chosen people is an essentially religious concept, with the Jewish people (Israel) to

be found in the Old Testament as, “a particularly strong and binding form; that of the

sacred covenant between God and his people” (Smith 1999:336). Such election myths

may also be used against ‘insiders’ who reject the sacred mission and its duties – that

is, the nationalist ideals as well as the religious imperatives that imply the state of Israel

is a Jewish state based on the notion of ethnic election and that it has a national mission

and destiny (ibid:333, 336).

Referring to contemporary American Jewry, Eisen (1990:27) observed that the claim to

election was incompatible with participation in American life. There has been a great

deal of rabbinical debate over its relevance, particularly with Jews aiming to participate

in an open society and with complete self-identification with the state. Mordecai

Kaplan, founder of the Reconstructionist movement, repudiated the doctrine of

‘election’ or ‘mission’ and suggested that Jews direct their energies into creativity and

ultimately spiritual redemption. Thus, “chosenness was discarded for the notion of a

Jewish ethical mission” (ibid:27). Novak (1995:20) also disputes the notion of Jewish

‘election’, maintaining that, “the theological doctrine of the election of Israel has

competitors” in the realms of its more virulent, nationalistic manifestations. Jewish

secularism has affirmed the distinctiveness of the Jewish people to be the result of

election in history, but in this view, election is not an act of God but rather is the act of

the enemies of the Jewish people who have wanted to destroy them (Novak 1995:19).

Arendt (1968:243) agrees, suggesting in the context of the holocaust and totalitarianism

that the doctrine of Jews as the chosen people was radically perverted from a myth for

an ultimate realisation of humanity (a ‘light unto the nations’) into a tool for its final

destruction.

To complete this discussion of the chosenness of Jews and its relationship to the state

of Israel, it is useful to introduce Novak’s (1992:12) pertinent question: “What does our

national restoration bring, and what irresponsibility does it tempt us with?” The answer

is salutary and relevant to the discussion that follows:

The irresponsibility our national restoration tempts us with is closely related to the irresponsibility our survivorship of the Holocaust tempts us with, that is, to

50

define ourselves as essentially the victims of the crimes of others against us (ibid:12).

Following on from the earlier discussion of ethnic election or chosenness is the

important phenomenon of victim ideology, which has developed significantly in the

post-holocaust era but has its origins in a long history of exile and persecution. This

issue will be discussed in detail in the next section.

Jews as ‘eternal victims’

The factors of internalised fear and victim ideation can be viewed as the elementary

drives that result in a cognitive dissonance related to an anxiety of increasing and ever-

present anti-Semitism, despite evidence to the contrary (Shapiro 1998; Selzer 1970:17).

This results in the suppression of any criticism of the state of Israel - what is perceived

to be the Jewish ‘safe haven’:

The sense of insecurity and trauma often informs the heightened or exaggerated reactions among Jews to perceived provocations against sites of Jewish identification. Israel represents one such important site (Mendes & Levey 2005:9).

The victim ideation that is observed in many diaspora Jews had its origins in shaping

the politics of European Jews in the period between the two World Wars. The emphasis

of the Jews as victims was exacerbated by the experience of the Nazi holocaust. The

apparent link between victim ideology and the exaggeration of any minor anti-Semitic

events (or indeed, any reasonable critique of Israel) would be an interesting topic for

further study.

At this point, it is necessary to review the question of anti-Semitism in diaspora

societies, if only to discount it as a significant current concern for the survival of

diaspora Jewish identity (Shapiro 1998; Rothman 2003; Mendes & Levey 2005). This

is not to claim that a very real fear of a return of anti-Semitism does not exist within the

individual psyche, particularly amongst those Jews who have personally or through

family experienced the holocaust. However, much of the literature in relation to Jewish

identity clearly maintains, on the contrary, that the decline of this phenomenon in the

open societies of the English-speaking diaspora has presented other survival problems,

51

such as the loss of Jewish identity through assimilation (Heilman 1995:164; Amyot &

Sigelman 1996:178; Gitelman 1998:116).

There is a dearth of recent studies and literature addressing sensitive issues such as anti-

Semitism in the Australian Jewish context. This has necessitated a closer inspection of

any recent, relevant comment published in the Australia print or radio media. This is a

way of more clearly understanding the Australian Jewish experience in view of the lack

of scholarly analysis. Jewish community debates are occasionally reflected in the

popular media; for example, ‘The Religion Report’ interviewed the President of the

New South Wales Board of Deputies on the subject of anti-Semitism in Australia (10

September, 2003). Mendes and Levey (2005:9) discuss the anomaly of the self image of

Australian Jews who see themselves as an “insecure minority” in contrast to the way

they are viewed by the broader Australian community as “affluent, privileged and

influential”. An editorial in the conservative Australian Jewish News (cited in Porzsolt

2005) notes the contradiction between reality and perception in relation to anti-Semitic

incidences in the Australian Jewish community.

Drawing a comparison with the American situation, according to the 1990 National

Jewish Population Survey, over 80% of American Jews at the time believed that anti-

Semitism was a serious problem in the United States:

Their self definition as Jews was so inextricably bound to battling anti-Semitism that it was extremely difficult for Jewish Americans to believe what the pollsters and sociologists were saying… (Sorin 1997:220, cited in Shapiro 1998).

Shapiro further notes that Jews in America continue to believe they are a beleaguered

people, despite evidence to the contrary. This, suggests Shapiro, also explains why the

importance of minor anti-Semitic events is inflated and why the attachment to Israel

changed significantly following the Six Day War in 1967, with the subsequent

occupation of the Palestinian Territories. This could not be reconciled with the image of

the Jew as a victim: “The Jew was supposed to be the occupied and not the occupying

power” (Selzer 1970:17). Novak (1992:13) points out that a temptation exists to assume

the perpetual ‘victimhood’ status - the notion that there are no gradations in the outside

world, “that everyone out there wants us dead”. Smith (1995:14) maintains that such a

sense of trauma is particularly acute and well documented among the Jews:

52

Indeed, history as martyrology became a common mode of presentation of the Jewish experience, according well with the way in which each new disaster was placed within a religious framework of meaning which could be traced back to the ancient prophetic responses to national catastrophe.

In relation to the significance of the holocaust within Israel, the Israeli writer, Amos Oz

challenged Prime Minister Begin during the war with Lebanon in the 1980s:

There is not and never will be a cure for this open wound in our souls. Tens of thousand of dead Arabs will not heal that wound. Mr Begin… Adolph Hitler is dead and gone… (cited in Segev 1994:400).

Elkana (1988:18) refers to this sad perspective as, “Hitler’s paradoxical and tragic

victory”.

Ellis (2002:65) observes that Jewish identity in the latter half of the twentieth century

has been formed from a nexus between the holocaust and Israel, and that both will be

more distant in experience and geography in the 21st century. Ellis questions: “what

then will be the content of Jewish identity?” The following section will address a

concern identified in the recent literature but not strongly enunciated in earlier papers,

namely, the continuity of Jewish identity in pluralistic diaspora societies.

Jewishness in the diaspora: from assimilation to continuity

In their study of the French diaspora experience, Benbassa and Attias (2004) pose the

question, “Do Jews have a future?” They suggest that this is a question as old as

Judaism itself, and one that the Jews as a dispersed minority have always asked of

themselves. They point out that modernity, with its integration of Jews as citizens into

non-Jewish societies together with the accompanying acculturation process, has meant

that, “it has become much more a matter of choice than of destiny whether or not an

individual remains a Jew” (ibid:1). The ultimate continuity of Jewish identity is seen as

dependent on the rate of assimilation of Jews in the open societies of the Jewish

diaspora - in those societies that experience only limited and mild anti-Semitism, if any

at all. Rubin (1995:xiv) defines assimilation as a process of:

53

seeking integration in a larger society and increasingly taking one’s ideas and customs from it… the ultimate result has taken the form of conversion, inter-marriage, or fully entering another nation or ideological framework.

Legge (1997:473) asserts that assimilation “is measured by the degree to which an

individual has been absorbed by organisations, neighbourhoods, and trends outside the

primary ethnic group”. Diaspora Jews are now more concerned with assimilation as a

result of successful integration into open, multi-cultural societies, than with the

likelihood of any significant anti-Semitism:

As they achieve full integration and great triumphs in all aspects of American life, many argue that Jews qua Jews, have become victims of their own success. From the point of view of Jewish identity, some argue that the community faces a demographic peril as half of its members marry non-Jews, assimilate or drift (Wasserstein, cited in Shain 2002a).

Shapiro (1998) agrees with this statement when he discusses the problem of Jewish

identity and the future of American Jewry in light of liberal politics. In a statement that

is also relevant to Australian Jewry he points out the anomaly that Jews at the pinnacle

of American life “politically, socially and culturally” are facing another threat - that out

of this secular success has developed the potential for eventual assimilation and the loss

of Jewish identity. Other writers commenting on the American situation have agreed

with this concern regarding the threatened loss of Jewish identity. Whitfield (2002)

poses the question of how Jewishness can affect the struggle to sustain identity in a

lifetime of the conflicting demands that modernity entails. Hyman (2002)

acknowledges that Jews in the modern world, with a wealth of available social

opportunities, secular education and social mobility, have experienced changes that

have been accompanied by a decline in religious practice and the waning of the

authority of religious leaders.

25 years ago, Solomon (1980:94) expressed concern for the survival of Jewish identity

in the Australian context when she commented on the decline of religious practice at

the time. She maintained that religion in Australian society was being negatively

influenced by a liberal, open society that relegated it to the private domain: “an

individual’s religion is a matter of public indifference and ceased to be… an essential

guiding force”. However, seven years later, Zeusse (1987-89:17), also writing from an

Australian perspective, maintained that “Jewish culture in the Diaspora is experiencing

54

a world-wide renaissance and local communities are intact and flourishing”. Zeusse

claimed that Jewish life was more diversified and possibly more inviting to even highly

assimilated Jews than other sorts of ‘religious’ or ‘ethnic’ communities might be.

Encel, Buckley and Rutland (1978:70, cited in Zeusse ibid:19) reported that two-thirds

of Australian Jews surveyed at the time were formally affiliated with a synagogue (not

necessarily religious observance), as compared with only half in many American

Jewish communities. However, a more recent and broader survey of the status of

Australian Jews across different communities would be required before comparisons

may be drawn with Jewish communities in the United States.

Findings from a recent study of Jewish identity of young British adults showed that for

a quarter of the group, religious faith was, “fundamental to their Jewish identity; for the

rest, it was a either a smaller part, an optional extra or unnecessary” (Sinclair & Milner

2005:108). The study also observed enormous individual variation in terms of personal

beliefs and adherence to religious laws. Cutler (2003:134) also describes a noticeable

ambivalence around religion amongst secular, young adult Jewish social/singles in a

southern state of the United States. Her findings indicate that although the members

viewed themselves as primarily ethnic, their greatest conflicts and ambiguities were

around the management of the religious aspect of their Jewish identity.

Waxman (1990) argues that there had been a distinct change in the assimilatory trends

of American Jews by 1983. He draws on the words of Calvin Goldscheider (1984) and

Steven M. Cohen (1998), presenters of ‘the new Jewish sociology’, which portrays a

more optimistic picture. Waxman (ibid:34) makes a distinction between most

sociologists of American Jewry and a group of religiously-trained rabbis, over the

future of the American Jewish community. These are rooted in the different standards

of evaluation used by each (ibid:35). These two views, described simply as ‘optimist’

and ‘pessimist’, are viewed as essentially linked to community attitudes around

intermarriage. Waxman (ibid:41) also refers to the work of Simon-Rawidowicz, which

describes Jews as perpetually predicting doom in every generation: “it is a debate

between the empirical, but not necessarily ideological, assimilationists and

survivalists”.

55

The overwhelming trend in the more recent literature is of a waning of religious

observance in pluralistic diaspora communities. This can be viewed as one factor, or an

indicator of a larger and more complex dilemma related to the continuity of Jewishness

in the diaspora. The literature also highlights another factor of concern in the increasing

rate of intermarriage that arises from the economic success and social acceptance of

Jews in Western societies. This issue will be discussed in detail in the following

section.

The intermarriage – assimilation relationship

The link between intermarriage and assimilation is described as a recursive process

where the former is abetted by the latter – that is, intermarriage is usually secondary to

an existing degree of assimilation (Ellman 1987:22; Medding 1968:5; Gordon

1964:80). Mayer (1980:286-287) states that, “it is quite clear that assimilation preceded

rather than followed intermarriage”. A reticence exists within diaspora Jewish

communities on the question of intermarriage. Despite the fact that a measure of

assimilation usually exists with the Jewish partner prior to the decision to marry ‘out’,

there is generally a fear that the nuptials will further the assimilatory process (unless

conversion of the non-Jewish partner is an option). For many Jews, the link between

assimilation and fear is the potential threat to what is considered to be the indivisible

link between the Jewish religious faith and its history. At the core of the feelings of loss

and regret when a child marries ‘out’ is the fear that Jewish identity at its very basis is

under threat. Kamins (1994:13) suggests that the greatest threat to the survival of

Jewish identity in diaspora countries is not anti-Semitism but an intermarriage rate that

threatens to dissipate the Jewish presence outside of the land of Israel. In 1994, 15% of

Jews in Sydney and 8.5% of Jews in Melbourne were currently married to non-Jews

(Report of the NSW Jewish Communal Appeal and Victorian Jewish Welfare Society).

A further description of intermarriage rates based on a revision of the Australian

Bureau of Statistics data will be discussed below.

In Australia, the relatively low rate of anti-Semitism means there is rare gentile

resistance to children marrying Jews: “Today… the real struggle is not against anti-

Semitism, it is about our ability to maintain Jewish continuity” (Leibler, cited in

56

Stretton 1992:23). This statement, made by a conservative leader of the Jewish

community, affirms what has previously been noted and reflects the degree of

awareness of anti-Semitism, intermarriage and Jewish continuity in the Australian

Jewish community within the community ‘leadership’.

Anecdotal evidence from rabbis and community leaders suggests a 25% - 30%

intermarriage rate in 1992 (Stretton 1992:24). A report on the ABS Census figures for

intermarriage in 1991 and 1996 reveals only a very small increase in the number of

Jews married to persons who are declared ‘adherents’ to another religion. The report

only showed an increase of 0.6% (511 persons) of the total from 1991 to 1996. The

author of this report claims that “intermarriage rates in Australia, especially Victoria,

are markedly lower than elsewhere in the Jewish world outside Israel” (Rubinstein

1999:95, 97). As noted in Chapter 2, Census data related to religion is problematic for

several reasons. Rutland (1997:293) notes that large numbers do not self identify as

‘Jewish’ on the voluntary Census question on religion. In the case of Jews who may be

fearful to identify as such, this is possibly related to the relatively high rate of holocaust

survivors in Australia (particularly Melbourne), as well as the anxiety surrounding

potential anti-Semitism as discussed earlier.

An increasing rate of intermarriage between gentiles and Jews in the United States and

other pluralistic societies has alarmed many Jewish leaders who are concerned about

the prospects for Jewish group survival in an open society (Fein 1971:44; Enloe

1996:199; Cantor 1996:426-428). Sheffer (2002:338) suggests that the statistics for

intermarriage within the United States are at 50% of all marriages in which Jews are

partners. Bershtel and Graubard (1992:3) state that for those with a commitment to the

continued existence of Jewish religion and culture, assimilation evokes profound

anxiety. Cantor (1996:426) is also explicit and negative on the subject of intermarriage

and its effects on Jewish continuity, suggesting that the 85% of American non-

Orthodox Jews are:

on a one-way ticket to disappearance as a distinct ethnic group. The message from the 1990 U.S. census is dire, so much so that the rabbinate is reluctant to discuss its significance publicly.

57

These negative viewpoints are an indication of the level of anxiety that existed nearly a

decade ago in the Jewish diaspora regarding continuity of Jewish identity. This level of

anxiety may be interpreted as a reflection of the general anxiety that is enacted through

the silencing of dissent by average Jews cognisant of threats to the survival of Jewish

identity. On a more positive note, Gitelman (1998:126) claims that the greater

incidence of intermarriage has led to greater acceptance by families and communities.

The progeny of mixed marriages – the children and grandchildren of mixed marriages -

are described here as “core” Jews. 1996 statistics from Britain show that 30% of all

married Jews are married to non-Jews, but for Jewish men under 40 years, the figure is

44% (Miller et al. 1996, cited in Gitelman ibid:125-126).

Studies conducted in the 1960s maintained that Jewish assimilation in the United States

had only taken place on the cultural level, in terms of lifestyles, language and dress, and

not on the structural level with respect to friendships and associations (Gordon, cited in

Himmelfarb 1979:250). Assimilation was said to be a temporary phenomenon that

would reverse with the third generation (ibid:250). However, a study conducted in the

late 1970s found that there was a move towards less religious involvement, with more

participants identifying themselves as non-denominational or Reform (Progressive)

than previously (ibid:262). This was associated with a movement toward less

involvement in Jewish life. Himmelfarb (ibid:250) suggests that the problem in

confronting any literature on American Jews is whether to consider them a religious or

an ethnic group. He claims that Jews were developing a religion different to their

grandparents - an ‘American Judaism’ that is social more than religious in activities.

Goldstein and Goldscheider (1968, cited in Himmelfarb ibid:250) also suggest that

contemporary American Jews emphasise the ethnic over the religious components of

their Jewishness. However, in a later book, Goldscheider and Zuckerman (1983:223)

“found no evidence for those theories that associate modernization and ethnic

assimilation”. It can only be assumed that these differing observations suggest that a

generational trend was in process over the intervening 15 years.

Singer (1990:51-54) argues that the sense of identity of assimilated Jews with few

religious or social ties represents a transformation from a mainly religious to a mainly

ethnic understanding of what it means to be Jewish. Amyot and Sigelman (1996)

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address the question of the Jewishness of assimilated Jews in a study that explores the

impact of religiosity and personal contact with other Jews upon Jewish identification.

In this study, assimilation is defined as, “the non-practice of Judaism and the lack of

strong ties with other Jews” (ibid:177). The results suggest that Judaism plays the

central role in defining and maintaining Jewish identity, although close personal

relationships with other Jews play an important role. Amyot and Sigelman suggest that,

“for those who have always had a strictly ethnic view of their Jewishness, some sense

of Jewishness will continue to exist” (ibid:187). This result demonstrates that ethno-

religious participation and social networks are important in strengthening ethnic bonds,

but that they are superimposed over existing ethnic awareness (ibid:187-188). A more

recent study addresses the “religious erosion-assimilation” hypothesis, which holds that

assimilation is more likely among the religiously less observant who are more likely to

form friendships, live and marry outside the Jewish community (Legge 1997:475). This

study provides clear evidence that the major causal factor in assimilation of Jewish

immigrants into the larger society of the United States is the erosion of religious

observance (Legge 1997:484). Gitelman (1998:112) expands on the theme of survival

or typology of Jewish identity in open diaspora societies, stating that Jews in the

diaspora remain an ethnic group but “one that is eroding because its content is

diminishing and its boundaries are blurring”. Gitelman refers to a ‘thin culture’ and

symbolic ethnicity that is replacing the former ‘thick culture’ of Jewish life.

At this point it is necessary to clarify that identity per se is a complex, inherently

changing phenomenon that derives from the social and cultural norms of the society in

which individual Jews live. Hall (1990:225) expresses the notion of identity as, “a

becoming more than being”, and suggests that it is subject to the continuous play of

history, culture and power. Hyman (2002) also asserts that, “Jews constructed a variety

of identities in the modern period”, which derive from the interaction of individual

psychology and experience together with social and cultural norms. Sinclair and Milner

(2005:100) found that all participants in their study demonstrated some sense of social

Jewish identity, but not all agreed that religion was an essential part of their Jewish

identity. The three most important themes to emerge, according to the researchers, were

kinship and connection, awareness of difference, and faith and observance. Their

findings also revealed “how access to such a distinctive identity history appears to be

59

prized in an increasingly rootless world” (ibid:112). Sinclair and Miller interpret this

result as a possible factor in influencing the revival of ethnic interest and awareness

amongst young third generation diaspora Jews around the world.

Having identified and discussed an emerging decline in religiosity in a sampling of

countries of the Western Jewish diaspora, together with the associated increase in

intermarriage and assimilation, it is now important to examine the nature of Jewish

ethnicity. Ethnic identity has been described broadly as, “the psychological relationship

of ethnic and racial minority group members with their own group” (Phinney

1990:499). A distinction is drawn between ethnic and cultural identity - the former

referring to the identification of oneself as a member of a reference group, and the latter

referring to the sharing of values, traditions and attitudes of a particular group

(Friedlander et al. 2000). This definition of ‘cultural identity’ fits with the potential for

an eventual emergence of ‘symbolic ethnicity’, which Gans (1979:146) describes as:

a nostalgic allegiance to the culture of the immigrant generation… a love for and a pride in tradition that can be felt without having to be incorporated in everyday behaviour.

This definition would appear to have relevance for many second and third generation

diaspora Jews, as they move away from a purely religious identification into a more

‘hybrid’ ethno-religious typology. Gans refers to the visibility of symbolic ethnicity,

proposing that although this suggests an ethnic revival, it is more likely to be a “new

form of acculturation and assimilation” (ibid:146). However, this thesis questions

whether the secular aspects of ethnicity can survive past the fourth generation, given

that the increasing intermarriage rate is suggested to produce “hybrid ethnicities”

(ibid:149-150). This view may be extrapolated to the Australian Jewish identity debate,

where, as Solomon (1980:98) suggests, “Jewish identity has become largely sentiment,

loyalty and nostalgia”.

Zenner (1988, cited in Song 2003:14) states that Jewishness/identity is “largely a matter

of individual preference that does not influence these lives unless they want it to”. An

example of this would be the so-called ‘one-day a year Jews’ who go to synagogue on

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). However, Sinclair and Milner’s (2005:110) recent

study of young British Jews reveals that even those participants who declared that

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religion was not important to them, “still expressed a strong social identification with

the Jewish people and felt themselves to be a part of an ethno-cultural group”. This

appeared to the authors to be more than merely a form of ‘symbolic ethnicity’ as

described by Gans. Following a 33 year examination of the topic in American Judaism,

Nathan Glazer’s latest edition of this classic study comes to a definitive conclusion.

Glazer states that in relation to the severity and seeming permanence of the

Judaism/Jewishness split, “for the great majority of American Jews, Judaism remains

an ethnic commitment more than a transcendent faith” (cited in Singer 1990:54). In a

review of Glazer’s work, Singer (ibid:54) poses the crucial question: “what role can

Judaism play for Jews and Jewish life when the content as a religion of faith and belief

is radically reduced?”

Underlying the question of Jewishness within the pluralistic, open societies of

settlement is the pre-existing condition of the concept of the initial diaspora. Anthias

(1998:559) defines a diaspora as, “a connection between groups across different nation-

states whose commonality derives from an original but maybe removed homeland”.

The following section will discuss this definition as it relates to the particularities of the

Jewish diaspora, together with the view of Israel as the Jewish homeland. Chapter 1

outlined a summary of events in Israel since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian

Territories. In order to place the following section into a realistic context that considers

the two extremes - the statehood of Israel and the ‘Jewish homeland’ - it is important to

take these realities into consideration. Azria (1998:26) sums up this paradox:

The uneasy feeling about Israel derives principally from the fact that the traditional, original diaspora image of a spiritual mythic Israel, the existence of which was due to the sole force of faith and tradition… was partly hidden by the present statehood reality of Israel, a political reality [that is] traditionally and historically alien to Judaism.

The following section will explore the relationship between the diaspora and the

Israel/homeland fusion.

61

Diaspora – homeland nexus

There are many competing meanings of the term ‘diaspora’. However, Chaliand and

Rageau (1995:xiii) state categorically that the term holds no ambiguity when used in

relation to the Jewish people. They broadly define diaspora as:

the collective forced dispersion of a religious and/or an ethnic group; the role played by collective memory, which transmits both historical facts that relate the story of the dispersion and a cultural heritage and the will to survive as a minority by transmitting a heritage (Chaliand & Rageau 1995:xvi).

They also suggest that the time factor is critical as to whether a minority that meets the

above criteria, having insured its survival and adaptation, is defined as a diaspora

(ibid:xvii).

Where is ‘homeland’ for diaspora Jews?

On the question of ‘homeland’ for those diaspora Jews born and raised in any one of

many ‘secondary’ or ‘tertiary’ host countries (Sheffer 2002:335), it can be claimed that

the landscapes of youth may be the ‘homeland’ of memory. Einhorn (2000:701) studied

a group of German Marxist women who were forced to flee Hitler’s Germany but were

impelled to return to what they felt was Heimat (‘homeland’) and Vaterland

(‘fatherland’). In this narrative of exile and return, the women ‘migrated’ twice in one

lifetime – the first was a forced ‘migration’ and the second, a voluntary re-migration to

what they considered their homeland:

Returnees speak of ‘Heimat’ and homesickness; ‘Heimweh’ in terms of landscapes and culture of their youth as having been one factor in their return (Einhorn 2000:709).

In the book, The New Nomads, Hoffman (1998:43) writes poignantly on the meaning of

being exiled from one’s homeland, from her own experience as a Jewish–Polish émigré

living in Canada: “we feel ejected from our first homes and landscapes, from our

childhood, from our first family romance, from our authentic self…”. Hoffman

acknowledges that diaspora Jews who have survived a collective exile typically nurture

a powerful idea of home. This ‘home’ exists on two levels; the real communities

inhabited by Jews in various countries, and the symbolic ‘home’ in Israel. This, she

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suggests, is less a geographic and more a spiritual territory; having Jerusalem at its

heart, from which Jews derive their essential identity (ibid:44-45). Hoffman refers to

the work of Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua, who suggests that Jews could have settled in

Palestine as easily as the countries of secondary diaspora they chose:

It was as if they were afraid of reaching their promised land and the responsibilities and conflicts involved in turning the mythical Israel into an actual, ordinary home (cited in Hoffman ibid:53).

Hoffman observes that conflicts have in fact become evident since the founding of

Israel, as in any functioning society. Hoffman’s own experiences exemplify the

experience of many Jews in diaspora countries. Although she has been a Canadian for

40 years (when writing in 1998), she has retained the experience of and the longings for

the homeland of her youth. For Hoffman, Poland is Heimat, although she acknowledges

the symbolism of the Jewish spiritual homeland - Jerusalem.

Although the perception of a homeland may occur on different levels for many first

generation diaspora Jews – the landscapes of birth and youth as well as the

mythical/symbolic Jewish homeland - in reality, a relationship exists between the home

of diaspora settlement and Israel. This relationship will be explored in detail in the

following section.

The diaspora-Israel relationship

Sheffer (2003:230) suggests that the Jewish diaspora has a “strong and continuous

primordial and psychological attachment to Eretz Israel”, but observes that certain

groups in the Jewish diaspora have questioned the ‘centrality’ of Israel. There is an

emerging debate between this position (revision) and the argument for ‘continuity’

(entrenchment) in Jewish communities around the world. Sheffer (ibid:233) further

notes that the effort to reconsider Israel’s role in the ethnic-religious nation is leading to

a re-assessment of diaspora-Israel relations. This has arisen from Leftist and Liberal

segments, as well as the Ultra-Orthodox religious denominations of Jewry. An

exception to this re-assessment is made in the case of Australia and Argentina. Sheffer

(ibid:233) does not offer a reason for these exceptions, but refers the reader to the work

of Rutland (1997) for information on the Australian Jewish diaspora position. It is of

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interest that both the Australian and Argentinean Jewish communities have been

described as “isolated frontier societies”, along with South Africa (Elazar & Medding

1983).

On the question of the centrality of Israel, Azria (1998:26) comments on the “blurring

and source of confusion and misunderstanding” since Israel became a sovereign state.

He suggests that Judaism is essentially a diaspora construct, and is “the output of the

diaspora even though Israel is traditionally held to be the native and emblematic place

of Judaism” (ibid:22-23). Boyarin and Boyarin (2003:85) support this view,

maintaining that, “the idea of diaspora rather than the idea of monotheism, might be the

single most important contribution of Judaism”. Safran (1991:84) highlights the

controversy about whether there is a place for Jews to return to since the re-

establishment of Israel, and whether in this event the notion of ‘diaspora’ can be ended.

The point here is the role of Israel and the extent to which the sovereign state of Israel

is indeed the mythic, ancestral homeland (Azria 1998; Boyarin & Boyarin 2003).

Shain (2002a) examines the Israel-diaspora relationship from the perspective of an

evolving Jewish identity. He refers to Rothenberg’s (1999) observations of a “widening

gulf between the two centres of world Jewry” as a result of a “divergence of identities”.

However, Shain notes that Jewish Americans are influencing the nature of Jewish

identity in Israel and that Israel is reaching out to diaspora voices in an unprecedented

manner. This phenomenon suggests the need for a “deeper understanding of the ethnic

American impact on the identity politics of homelands” (ibid:280). On the subject of

the link between diaspora people and their ‘homelands’, Anthias (1998:568) maintains

that the homeland can be metaphorical rather than territorial, and that the group need

not be identified with a nation-state, but may constitute itself as a population category

or ethnic group:

diasporas may have travelled across territories for a range of reasons… from an original homeland… [they] will continue to identify with the original homeland (or wider ethnic category if there is no territorial homeland) (ibid:561).

This observation has relevance for the Australian Jewish diaspora experience, where

Jews cannot be defined as a national group migrating from a single nation-state

(Stratton 1996:53). Anthias (1998:570) also questions the concept of primordiality in

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the retention of the essential bond to homeland as described by Sheffer (2003:230), and

suggests that the notion of diaspora with its associated reference to ‘homeland’ must

formulate a theoretical conception of ethnicity that avoids primordiality.

Much of the literature notes changes in the Israel-diaspora relationship since the 1990s,

since it has been evolving in different directions related to a belief in a comprehensive

Middle East peace. It was expected that this would promote normalisation within Israel,

which in turn would have the effect of releasing the diaspora from Israeli security

concerns (Shain 2002a). Chanes (cited in Shain 2002a) observes that since 2000, “the

Israel agenda of American Jews and advocacy groups has changed radically”, and that

it became clear that there were more issues in the relationship between Israel and

America’s Jews than the physical security of Israel. Liebman (1996:315) comments that

the problem confronting world Jewry is the decline of Jewish commitment and interest

in Israel. He is critical of the radical proposal by Yossi Beilin MK, (Member of the

Knesset 1994), to create a mass organisation of world Jews (Beit Yisrael) to replace the

present structures within the diaspora. Liebman also critiques two other proposals to

restructure Israeli-diaspora relations, emphasising the inadequacy of the then-focus on

the ‘public world’ of fund-raising and political support for Israel, to address the

private/individual commitment of individual Jews (ibid:315). He observes that five new

proposals were offered between 1994 and 1996, all of which reflect the sense that

Jewish commitment is declining and diaspora Jews are losing interest in Israel.

Liebman argues that these reports all tend to assume the existence of ‘diaspora’ and

makes the point that although it is recognised that from a Zionist perspective there can

be no Zionism without a conception of diaspora:

it is increasingly meaningless to the vast majority of Jews who lack a diaspora consciousness. They do not think of themselves as diaspora Jews or diaspora as a meaningful place of residence. They are American or French or Australian Jews (ibid:1996).

Leibman suggests that the concept of ‘diaspora’ in relation to an Israel ‘homeland’ may

be declining in the face of the self-identification of many Jews who relate to their

country of residence as their homeland. Cantor (1993) offered a more optimistic

prediction: that the Rabin-Arafat accord in September 1993 would herald the end of

Zionism, which in turn would result in a dramatic change over the following three

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decades with a diaspora spiritual/religious renaissance. Cantor maintained that, “Jewish

self-identity between 1948 and 1993 depended much more on political Zionism than on

religion”. This identification with an embattled Israel with its pride in its triumphs has

been the hallmark of diaspora Judaism (ibid:11). It was predicted that diaspora Jews

may experience “an aching emptiness which will leave a huge gap in their cultural,

religious lives until the religious renaissance occurs”. Interestingly, writing three years

later, Cantor presents a different and very pessimistic view of the ultimate survival of

Jewish identity, suggesting that “the history of the Jews as we have known it and them

is probably approaching the end”, and:

if the majority of ethnic Jews still maintain their conscious identity as Jews… it will be a Jewish identity much modified and attenuated by interaction with the powerful surrounding cultures (Cantor 1996:425).

Cantor’s bleak view was discussed in the earlier section on Jewish identity and the

concerns regarding intermarriage and assimilation.

An article published in The Economist entitled, “Israel and the diaspora: Poor relation?”

supported the view that Israel had always been helped by Jews abroad, and that the

advance toward peace and presumed prosperity had lost its image of “hardship and

danger that sharpened its appeal”. The anonymous columnist maintained that fund-

raising had become a “powerful bond holding diaspora Jews together… replacing ritual

Judaism as the hallmark of their Jewishness” (The Economist 1994:44). Despite being

offered more than a decade ago, these views regarding the possible diaspora effects of

peace in Israel/Palestine and the predicted end of Zionism may still have some

predictive relevance in view of the more recent changes in that sphere.

Shain (2002b) offers a different analysis of the current relationship between the Jewish

diaspora and Israel, utilising the Jewish and Armenian diasporas to describe the role of

diasporas in “conflict perpetuation or resolution” in their homelands. Shain describes

the role of the Jewish diaspora, particularly in the United States, as “third-level players

in the peace negotiations, determining the fate of their (sic) homelands” (ibid:117).

Shain maintains that Israel declares itself responsible for the well-being of Jews around

the world, and regards the Jewish diaspora (especially the Jewish-American one) as

“one of Israel’s strategic assets” (ibid:119). On the other hand, he suggests that

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elements in Israel and the Jewish diaspora have often clashed, particularly over the role

of religion and the application of religious values to Israeli security and its conduct in

international relations (ibid:121). Shain gives detailed examples of the historic events in

which the Jewish diaspora as a kin society, particularly in the United States, has had an

ongoing, vital and sometimes contrary role in the politics of the Israeli ‘homeland’. He

stresses the importance of this role as a third level in the negotiation and resolution of

ethnic homeland conflicts involving international organisations (ibid:138).

Having examined the ambiguities and the changing nature of the ‘diaspora-homeland

nexus’ with particular reference to the Israel-diaspora relationship, the following

section aims to achieve a contextual understanding of the key topic of this thesis;

namely, the silencing of dissent. It is clear that a link exists between those issues that

have emerged in the examination of Jewish identity, the diaspora-homeland nexus and

the silencing of dissent; in other words, it is necessary to be cognisant of the

background from which the need to suppress dissent arises.

The silencing of dissent – an historical view The following discussion aims to place the silencing of dissent phenomenon in the

historical context of Jewish experience. This section intends to provide a contextual

introduction to the contemporary experiences of the contemporary Jewish peace

activists, which will be discussed in the following chapter. This literature review will

refer to examples of dissent from within the history of Jewish culture, as well as

describe more recent incidences of silencing or ‘othering’ of “the voices of dissenters

over the course of the Zionist century” (Neimark 2003:13).

First, it is necessary to acknowledge the universal nature of the need to conform within

groups. Mill expresses the nature of the pressure to conform as follows:

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread… when society is itself the tyrant… society can and does execute its own mandates… against tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose… its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them… (cited in Acton 1972).

67

Mill, writing in the nineteenth century, was making a considered and valid observation

about the nature of society per se. Although Jewish history and conditions add many

complexities to an analysis of the silencing of dissent within a Jewish society, it is clear

that a common proclivity to conform to group ‘pressure’ exists across all human

societies.

Jewish history has abundant examples of the ‘othering’ of those who dissent from the

mainstream view. The Talmud refers to a notable Torah scholar of 1900 years ago,

Rabbi Elisha ben Abuya, who deviated from the accepted principle of behaviour and

acted instead out of his own conscience. He has gone down in the annals of Judaism as

Acher (the ‘other’): “Acher is other, yet the same, the same but different” (Bradley

2003). The ‘other’ status is accorded to those who dissent from a position of

familiarity; they are Jews but not Jews – ‘pariah’, ‘outsiders’, ‘exiles’. Writing on the

subject of scepticism and dissent in the Jewish tradition, Roshwald (1978:208) also

identifies Elisha ben Abuya as a dissenter:

The open dissent from Judaism of a personality like this must have been a shocking event for his contemporaries… the emerging characteristics of Elisha ben Abuya are those of a man unsatisfied with trodden paths and with customary interpretations of the Law, who was trying to fathom the basic principles and explore the tenets of faith.

Roshwald further asserts that throughout its long development, Judaism has exhibited a

peculiar capacity to combine a large degree of consistent adherence to a nucleus of

beliefs and practices, with a tendency to question and occasionally dissent from them

(ibid:212).

As a major dissenter from the basic belief of Judaism (monotheism), Baruch (Benedict)

Spinoza (1632-1677), the son of a Portuguese Marrano6 family, compared the ideas of

the emerging enlightenment with both Christianity and Judaism and developed an

opinion of his own (Trepp 1962:247). Spinoza, now recognised as a central figure in

the history of philosophy, was placed under a ban (kherem) by the Sephardic

6 ‘Marrano’ refers to those Jews in Spain and Portugal who converted to Christianity under the threat of death. Many of these became ‘secret Jews’ who eventually left Iberia and the threat of the Inquisition for Amsterdam and the Low Countries when Spanish rule was eliminated there by 1579. By the end of the 16th century, the first synagogue had been built in Amsterdam, sparking a return to Judaism by many of the former Marranos.

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Amsterdam community in 1656 for his belief that God and Nature are one (pantheism).

The community considered his view to be nothing more than a disguised form of

rationalist atheism and it was therefore considered heretical. In the same period, Uriel

da Costa and Juan de Prado were also banned for their dissenting views, in which they

questioned some of the fundamental principles of the Jewish faith. Da Costa had

written a book in which he argued that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was

not biblical in origin. As a result, he was excommunicated and the book was burned

(Potock 1978:359). Da Costa eventually sought penance, but soon afterwards

questioned the divine Law of Moses and ceased to practice as a Jew. He was again

excommunicated and sentenced to 39 lashes and the humiliation of having to prostrate

himself upon the synagogue threshold for the members of the congregation to walk

over him. Finally, humiliated by his excommunicators, isolated and lonely, Da Costa

committed suicide (ibid:360). Juan de Prado publicly recanted his unorthodox views –

questioning whether Moses wrote the Torah or if Mosaic Law took precedence over

natural law. These views were shared by Spinoza, but de Prado continued to espouse

them privately (Gerber 1992:201; Sachar 1995:295). It could be said that the two

sceptics, Da Costa and de Prado, were effectively silenced. However, Baruch Spinoza,

now generally accepted as the founder of modern secularism, withdrew from the

community; as a result, his name has lived on in history while the uncompromising

beliefs that resulted in his excommunication have largely passed away (Gerber

1992:200-201; Jacobs 1995:482).

Before taking this inquiry into a more contemporary context, it is necessary to present a

salient observation that is very close to the topic and to the participants in this study –

that is, Jews who find themselves on the outside of their people because of their

dissident stance. Of relevance is Roshwald’s (1978:214) observation that Judaism tends

to be much more tolerant of an individual’s scepticism or even dissent than that of a

sectarian movement whose deviation, although minimal, will cause greater hostility

than an individual who poses fundamental questions:

The deviation of those who share the fundamentals of faith is experienced as a splitting of the nucleus, a peril at the very core of the Jewish community.

The ‘outsider’ or deviant member is a familiar figure whose very familiarity threatens

to disturb the group’s sense of inner unity and reliability by rejecting the group’s “core

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beliefs and common concerns”, thereby challenging the imperative for absolute loyalty

(Zukier 1996:1117-1118). Zukier (ibid) also maintains that the “familiar outsider” is

more threatening because he/she destabilises and challenges the group’s “collective

consciousness”. According to Zukier:

the dominant group may use the outsider to reaffirm its foundational values by casting the outsider’s violations as a moral scandal, in punishing them, and in mobilizing members against the enemy.

Zukier’s statement suggests a possible underlying impetus that may in part motivate the

‘silencing of dissent’ phenomenon in the Jewish milieu. This analysis appears to fit the

contemporary circumstances where Jewish peace activists (the familiar outsiders) are

apparently ‘punished’ for their divergent views and actions by the dominant group (the

Jewish mainstream/establishment), who demand considerable loyalty to what they view

as their core beliefs and common concerns.

To complete this brief examination of dissent in Jewish history, it is essential to address

more contemporary dissenters, particularly in relation to Zionism and the state of Israel.

These dissenters have suffered a type of exile because of their opposition to political

Zionism and its predicted defensive outcomes (Arendt 1948:187). In the early days of

the Zionist idea, the notion of a nationalist state was strongly opposed by thinkers such

as Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginsburg – 1852-1927), Martin Buber (1878-1965) and others,

all of whom supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine built on the basis of a renewal of

Jewish culture and ethics – a spiritual and cultural Zionism living in co-existence with

the indigenous Arab people. These ideals have been swept away and largely forgotten

in a post-holocaust world with its defensive imperatives. Judah Magnes (1877-1948)

and Reform Jews in the United States disputed the idea of an independent political

Jewish state, as they considered America their home and believed that, “Reform Jews

were to be at home among the nations where they lived” (cited in Ellis 1990:58). It is

necessary to add that this position was maintained prior to the realisation of the Nazi

holocaust and when, “by the 1950s the voices of Jewish dissent were quieted” (cited in

Ellis ibid:58-61).

There have been many Jewish dissenters in response to the development of the

expansionist and defensive policies of the state of Israel. Writers such as Noam

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Chomsky (1983) and Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht (1983) both exercised powerful

foresight in their work as to the outcome of Israeli antagonistic policies. In turn, both

writers have met with extreme vilification for their stated opinions. However, Ellis

(1990:69) views them as the “prime carriers of the tradition of dissent”. Feuerlicht

(1985) has called herself “the unknown Jew” because of the attempted suppression of

her book in the United States. She has written an essay published in the Washington

Report (May 27 1985) on her experience of this suppression. Other writers of this genre

include William Zukerman (1885-1961), who authored a number of editorials in

‘Jewish Newsletter’ from 1948, and Jacob Neusner, a professor of Judaic Studies, who

in the 1980s wrote a series of startling commentaries for the Washington Post and the

International Herald Tribune (cited in Ellis 1990:69-70).

This discussion of contemporary Jewish dissenters who have experienced vilification

for their views must include Hannah Arendt, a writer who expressed very strong views

against the proposal for a Jewish state in Palestine. Her view was that the Jewish ‘state’

could only be erected at the price of a Jewish ‘homeland’7:

The victorious Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded inside ever-threatened borders, absorbed with hysterical self-defence to a degree that would submerge all other interests and activities… (Arendt ibid:187). The birth of a nation in the midst of our century may be a great event; it certainly is a dangerous event (Arendt 1950:221-22).

However, Arendt received greater censure for her views on Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi

war criminal, during her coverage of his trial in Jerusalem. The censure was based on

her descriptions of Eichmann as merely ‘banal’ and ‘bureaucratic’ rather than sinister

or overtly evil; her analysis of the European Jewish Councils (Judenräte) and their role

in the Nazi program; and her questions regarding the nature of the trial and the political

reasons for it:

Arendt’s analysis of Eichmann led to two startling and controversial judgements: that Eichmann, having a bureaucratic mentality, carried out the laws of his state without differentiating between right and wrong, and that the corruption of the

7 The concept of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was supported by Hannah Arendt, Judah Magnes, Martin Buber, Ahad Ha’am and others who believed that it was of great importance to maintain a cooperative relationship with the indigenous Arabs of Palestine. These Jews were largely opposed to notion of a Jewish state and made predictive warnings about the likely outcomes, should this occur (see footnote 3, Chapter 2).

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Nazis affected other countries and societies, including the Jewish victims themselves (Ellis 1990:166).

As a result of Arendt’s views in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of

Evil (1963) “a great storm erupted in the Jewish community… for which she was

condemned in the Jewish press” (Feldman 1978:15). Arendt was damned, vilified and

criticised for what she was presumed to have said and the manner in which she said it

(Bernstein 1996:1). The controversy over her book caused Arendt much pain and grief

and caused her to feel it was like a “modern excommunication” (Feldman 1978:32, 47).

Initially, Arendt’s reports from the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem were published as a

five-part report in the New Yorker, but even before the instalments started appearing,

they had created a scandal (Bernstein 1996:158). It was pre-emptively and incorrectly

rumoured that Arendt exonerated Eichmann and blamed the Jews for their own

extermination. The accusations levelled at her were the usual contemporary allegations

of ‘anti-Zionist’ and ‘anti-Semitic’, along with claims that she distorted the facts and

trivialised the holocaust with her aphorism, “the banality of evil”8: “Arendt was

attacked, threatened, vilified and excoriated” (Bernstein 1996:158). It is not possible to

extensively describe Arendt’s meanings or provide a detailed analysis of her

controversial assessments here; these have been widely covered in the literature

(Bernstein 1996) and in a collection of essays and letters (Feldman 1978). When

Hannah Arendt died, she was out of favour with the Jewish community and only very

few of the eulogies that usually follow the death of such a prominent figure appeared in

the Jewish press (ibid:7). Arendt was convinced that her cardinal sin in the eyes of the

Jewish establishment was, “to tell the truth in a hostile environment” (Laquer 1996,

cited in Feldman 1978:278).

Conclusion

This chapter has examined three themes central to this thesis. A review of the literature

on Jewish identity has revealed a general concern about the emerging decline in

8 The term “banality of evil” has come into common usage because of the observations made by Hannah Arendt in reference to Adolph Eichmann. “Eichmann was neither perverted nor sadistic; he was terrifyingly normal. He was a new type of criminal who commits his crimes under circumstances that make it impossible for him to know or feel what he is doing” (cited in Bernstein 1996:160).

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religious observance, together with a subsequent anxiety regarding assimilation and the

survival of Jewish identity as a result of an associated increase in intermarriage rates.

The discussion of the diaspora-homeland nexus has identified and explored a changing

relationship between these two focal points of Jewish life. The accepted belief in Israel

as the mythic homeland of diaspora Jews has been examined in terms of the actuality of

Israel as the Jewish ‘homeland’ in view of the successful settlement and assimilation of

diaspora Jews from diverse birth homelands. The issue of the future role of the diaspora

has been discussed with reference to several writers who have questioned the centrality

of Israel to diaspora Jews.

The issue of the silencing of dissent has been discussed with particular reference to

Jewish history, with the aim of providing a wider description of that phenomenon than

the existing situation where Jewish dissent is focussed on the policies of the state of

Israel and the rights of the occupied Palestinian people. This section has revealed an

inclination within Judaism to oppose and exile those viewed as disloyal from within its

own ranks. Also discussed here is the observation that human societies generally have

the tendency to seek conformity, and that this inclination is not unique to Jewish

groups. This section identified several figures from Jewish history (from the beginning

of the second century to recent times) and discussed their dissent and its subsequent

repercussions. Linking contemporary Jewish dissenters with a tradition of notable

dissent from within Judaism and Jewish history could be seen as paradoxically placing

Jewish peace activists back into the realms of the Jewish ‘fold’. This anomaly

notwithstanding, the fact remains that at this point in history they are considered to be

disloyal deviants or exiles from the group’s “core beliefs and common concerns”

(Zukier 1996:1117-1118).

Chapter 4 will discuss the results from the interviews with Jewish peace activists and

identify the key concepts that emerged from the data. These will be analysed and

discussed in the context of relevant themes from the literature. The aim of this chapter

is to offer a description of the experiences of contemporary dissenting Jews who have

placed themselves outside of the establishment consensus of ‘core beliefs and common

concerns’; which has in turn invoked attempts to silence their voices.

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CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

Introduction The following data analysis will address the principal research questions formulated to

guide this study. These questions sought to investigate the issue of dissent in the

Australian Jewish community and the experiences of Jewish peace activists within an

ethno-religious mainstream. Data was generated by means of a questionnaire

(Appendix C), which was sent to potential respondents at the time of the initial

selection process. A series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews followed, based on

those questions and subsequent responses. The data from these interviews is presented

in separate sections in this chapter.

First, the chapter will discuss an estimation of the mainstream community from the

point of view of the activists studied, and assess the role of political Zionism in this

particular diaspora setting. This will be followed by an examination of the issue of

Jewish identification by these activists who are largely excluded from the mainstream

community because of their dissenting views. With the knowledge that their opinions

are proscribed, dissenting Jews must decide how best to relate to the Jewish mainstream

– whether to distance themselves or to stay involved but remain silent. This chapter

discusses the difficult choices made by these activists. The role of religion and Jewish

ethics in the respondents’ lives is of prime importance, as it relates to the issue of

Jewish identification. This pivotal aspect of identity will be discussed under three

separate headings: ‘dissent and identity’, ‘ethics and dissent’ and ‘religion and identity’.

Related to the questions of dissent and Jewish identity, as well as ethics and religion, is

the fundamental issue of diaspora loyalties - in this case, loyalty to the state of Israel, as

discussed in Chapter 3. Sheffer (2003:230) observes that, “some diaspora communities

will adopt different loyalty patterns during different periods of their development”. It

could be claimed that the Australian Jewish diaspora is currently experiencing a period

of intense loyalty to its ‘homeland’ Israel because of a variety of internal and external

74

factors (discussed earlier in this thesis). These questions are linked and overlapping

within the theme of the negotiation of Jewish identity for those who dissent from the

dictum of am echad (one nation), which entails uncritical support for Israel. As

discussed earlier, the meaning of being a dissenter from the ‘core beliefs’ of one’s

‘tribe’ presents many difficulties. Predominant amongst these is the negotiation of

Jewish identity within a community that largely defines Jewish identity in reference to

Israel (Herman 1977:67; Medding 1977:5; Cantor 1993:11). The tendency among Jews

to define their identity in terms of the state of Israel gives rise to an environment with a

propensity to be intolerant of most criticism of Israel. The issue of Jewish identity and

that of the pressures for group conformity are inexorably linked to the state of Israel in

this sensitive area of diaspora loyalty. In view of these problematic factors in identity,

this chapter will discuss the position of the studied Jewish peace activists in the broader

Jewish community. How this group of Jewish peace activists perceive the mainstream

community, as well as their political positions regarding Zionism, would tend to dictate

their potential positions within that mainstream community. The matter of inclusion or

exclusion within a Zionist-leaning community would largely depend on the attitudes of

activists to these questions. As Rubinstein (1991:5) observes:

today’s [Australian] Jewish community is Zionistic to its core and overwhelmingly views support for Israel as arguably its major raison d’être and chief focus of non-religious identity…

Elazar and Medding (1983:339-340) agree with this statement, adding: “if they are

Jewish today, there is in some way a Zionist dimension to their Jewishness”. They

further observe that regardless whether Jews of this community see themselves as

Zionist, they have become Israel-oriented. These observations exemplify the nature of

the mainstream Jewish community from which this group of activists have largely

become marginalised.

It was my intention to explore the activists’ perspectives on the then-topical issues of

the increase in suicide bombings and the subsequent severe reactions by the Israeli

government. By and large, mainstream Jews hold a Manichaean viewpoint and consider

that the increase in suicide bombings is evidence of the malevolence of the Palestinians,

rather than a symptom of a much larger problem (Ellis 2001). Consequently, they may

believe that any extreme measures taken by the Israeli government to solve this

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problem are fully justified. I hypothesise that the responses of activists to suicide

bombings and the subsequent Israeli reactions would literally define the exclusion

boundary that separates Jewish peace activists from the organised mainstream

community. Any silencing practices would most likely emerge on the sensitive subjects

of Palestinian resistance and Israeli oppression. Subsequently, those with a different

and deeper understanding of the problem would need to make the choice between self-

silencing and distancing from those potentially challenging situations. The issue of the

causal psycho-emotional stimulus of those Jews who seek to silence and prohibit

critical debate of Israel was not directly addressed in this study; however, several

respondents spontaneously commented that their understanding was that it arises from a

position of intrinsic fear.

The activist construction of the mainstream Jewish community

How the activists view the wider Jewish community that rejects and silences their

opinions is of interest to the question of any potential for acceptance and/or inclusion.

In one question, respondents were given three options to describe their challengers:

‘conservative’, ‘heterogeneous’ or ‘other’. An overwhelming majority chose to identify

the mainstream community as ‘conservative’. Naomi felt that 80% of the community

could be called ‘conservative’, while Fred put the percentage figure at 90% or more,

and observed that he found it very strange to be able to split off one’s general values

from one’s nationalist self/ethnic identity. Fred viewed the conservatism as largely in

relation to Israel/Palestine and suggested that they may be, “liberal in relation to

anything else”. Several other respondents who chose the ‘heterogeneous’ option also

identified the conservatism as largely related to Israel/Palestine, indicating their

recognition of the diversity that exists in the mainstream community. Cynthia, an

activist who has remained within the Progressive religious community and declared that

she is committed to remaining there, maintained that “politically, they are ultra-

conservative”. She confided that, “I have tried so hard to be a part of it and be a gentle

voice and thought I did it well for a while but… I am this fringe dweller”. Uri thought

the Australian Jewish community conservative for various reasons, pointing out that

gay groups are not accepted in any official groups, and that non-conservative Jews tend

to move out of the community.

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A distinction was drawn between ‘culturally/socially conservative’ and ‘politically

conservative’ by those respondents who described the Jewish community as

‘heterogeneous’. One respondent pointed out that in terms of social practices and

beliefs, ‘heterogeneity’ best described the mainstream community, but said that, “if we

are talking about politics, that’s different”. With regard to conservatism in the Jewish

community, Mendes (2005) writes:

Jews also tend to be surprisingly liberal on social issues. They don’t share socially conservative views on drugs, feminism, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, refugees or Aborigines. In many cases those same Jews who support Ariel Sharon and denounce Arab terrorism are passionate supporters of an apology to the Stolen Generation…

Katrina also remarked on the influence of the ‘roof bodies’ in the Australian Jewish

community:

Yes, they are on the Right – they are conservative… when I talk about the Australian Jewish community – it’s the organised community… the community has got people that speak on its behalf that are not representative…

This phenomenon has been noted in the literature by Docker (1991:151), who states

that, “internal criticism, let alone external criticism of Israel will, it appears, lead to

being marginalized, purged, ostracized and eliminated by the community’s fearsome

‘roof bodies’”.

Bronwyn also commented on this subject based on the insights she gained from

mainstream Jews and others during her involvement in a confidential listening post at a

pro-Israel Rally:

.. so that’s where I think there is this sort of real conservative voice and there is a huge diversity of opinion actually on an individual basis, and that is what the Australian Jewish community is, not just the leadership… but diversity is harder and harder to express as things get harder over there…

This ‘listening post’ was an activity that was able to obtain valuable information from

within the mainstream during the challenging period in 2002 when Israel made an

incursion into the Palestinian Territory of Jenin. This event was well covered by the

media - the shocking television images sparked an international outcry and undoubtedly

confronted many Jews with the harsh realities of the occupation and with Israeli

militarism. The information gathered via this confidential access to the thoughts of

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individual mainstream Jews, indicates that there may well be more diversity of opinion

within the mainstream community than is overtly demonstrated.

On the issue of conservatism and heterogeneity within the mainstream community,

respondents drew a clear distinction between ‘social/cultural conservatism’ and

‘political conservatism’. The assertion was made that while mainstream Jews are

largely socially heterogeneous, they are by and large politically conservative. This

political conservatism raises the question of Zionism in the mainstream Jewish

community, and the activists’ dissent against the Zionist policies enacted by the Israeli

government.

The question of Zionism

In order to examine the activists’ positions in relation to the organised Jewish

community, the subject of Zionism was discussed and activists were asked to indicate

where they viewed themselves in a religion/secular category. The reconciliation of their

Jewish identity in view of any silencing attempts will be discussed in more detail

below. The two questions to be explored here concern the notion of the potential for

any ‘fit’ within a conservative mainstream community, where support for Zionism is an

unspoken rule (Mendes 2000:459; Rothfield 1991:526). Of significance is how these

respondents categorise themselves on a political spectrum in relation to Zionism. The

options on the questionnaire ranged from the less-specific ‘Anti-occupation only’, to

‘Left-Zionist’, ‘Non-Zionist’, and the unequivocal ‘Anti-Zionist’. The ‘Other’ category

also produced some interesting results, with respondents offering categories not

suggested on the questionnaire.

Interestingly, only one respondent explicitly chose the ‘Anti-Zionist’ category – this is

an accusation frequently used by mainstream critics in an effort to silence dissent

(Bernstein 1992:12). One quarter of the group chose the ‘Non-Zionist’ category. For

example, Uri said that 15-20 years ago he would have classified himself as an ‘Anti-

Zionist’ but now considers his position ‘Non-Zionist’, saying, “I have mellowed”. Gary

said that he believes that the term ‘Anti-Zionist’:

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has been taken over by the Right who have changed and transformed it from the principles that I believe in from the Anti-Zionism of the 1930s and 1940s…

More correctly, Gary would identify himself as a combination of “Non-Zionist, Anti-

Zionist and Post-Zionist”. Peter was very definite in his choice of the ‘Non-Zionist’

option, linking this with a belief in the two-state solution. It is interesting to note that

those who chose the ‘Non-Zionist’ option were all members of the more resolutely

public activist group, while those who chose the Left-Zionist option were members of

an activist group that remains largely focussed within the mainstream religious

community. There was some ambiguity in the remainder of the responses. The largest

number of respondents chose the open ‘Other’ option or stated categories of their own

choice such as, ‘Spiritual/Cultural Zionism’; ‘Post–Zionism’; ‘Pro-Israel/Anti-

Occupation’ and ‘Unsure’.

The question regarding political position has demonstrated that ambivalence exists in

this sensitive political area. Benbassa and Attias (2003:81) describe the hesitation

around identifying oneself as Anti-Zionist:

the trauma of the Nazi extermination played a fundamental role: it became difficult, for many Jews, to remain aloof from – or a fortiori hostile to Zionism.

To add to this psycho-emotional constraint, to identify as Anti-Zionist within a

community that holds a strongly pro-Zionist and conservative stance, would be to place

oneself further outside the margins of that community and invite unpleasant invective

and further exclusion. Brettschneider (1996:41) describes the situation in the American

Jewish community in the 1970s, where “difference was perceived by those in power as

a direct threat to the overall identity and interests of the community”. Thus, it could be

claimed that the United States Jewish community of the 1970s was somewhat similar to

the contemporary Australian Jewish community.

In reference to the subject of the ‘victim’ identity of many Jews as discussed in Chapter

3, Wertheimer’s (1997:27) observation that Jews who do not sympathise with this

victim perspective are “inauthentic Jews who betray the essence of Jewishness” is of

interest with this study group. Was my initial assumption that these dissenters would

not view themselves as victims a correct one? I interrogated this hypothesis obliquely

through the question, asking whether the increased incidence of suicide bombings had

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changed respondents’ attitudes to political position, religious affiliation and opinion of

the mainstream community in relation to their previous responses. Half of the group

replied that they had not experienced any change in their stated attitudes. This

suggested that they were largely distanced from a victim outlook or, as described by

Benbassa and Attias (2003:18), an: “instrumentalising anti-Semitism – a step that some,

alas, took all too easily”. The comments from those who claimed ‘no change’ in their

opinions suggested an appreciation of the systemic antecedents to suicide bombings.

Uri made the comment: “since the second Intifada started… people throwing stones and

sharp shooters picking them off to kill them – what do you expect?” Gary was

unequivocal in his response:

the suicide bombings are symptoms of something much, much bigger… either way, you don’t go and kill yourself and other people unless there is something horribly, horribly wrong…

Katrina agreed with this view, saying that she thought the suicide bombings were a

symptom of a much larger problem and that those who identify them as the problem are

missing the bigger picture. Philip observed: “I think suicide bombings are just a really

sad reflection of what’s been going on for a long time – it’s not a – in some ways it’s

brought to a head but it hasn’t really changed anything…”

Paradoxically, the other half of the respondents who agreed that suicide bombings had

changed their attitudes, all reported the changes as positive ones, such as increasing

their personal awareness of the gravity of the situation. This in turn created the resolve

to be more active, together with an increase in pessimism regarding an ultimate

resolution through a peace process or the two-state solution:

Gary: I think my position has changed in the sense that I am more conscious of my

need to be active - on that particular issue – yes it changed in terms of my activities – my political position hasn’t changed that much… the suicide bombings are symptoms of something much bigger and I think it’s more the complete collapse of any possibility of a two-state solution…

Peter: Yes, it’s made me more pessimistic and made me even more convinced that

the two-state solution which I think is the just solution… and within the realms of possibility… has receded in its possibilities…

Melanie: Yes, I think that everything between these two sides has become - there is

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more rigidity and less give on either side – with a few exceptions but overall – the suicide bombings are a symptom of despair…

Bronwyn: Well, I sort of put “no” there, except that I have a stronger position – but

my position is stronger… it feels more urgent and also what I thought was possible four years ago – may be not possible to have a Jewish and Palestinian state next to each other anymore… To further explore the activists’ position in relation to the then-current political position

in Israel/Palestine, they were asked whether their former viewpoint had changed when

the Israeli government had escalated their responses to Palestinian resistance. As with

the question regarding suicide bombings, half of the respondents stated that their view

had not changed, but that there had been a confirmation of their fears:

Peter: It’s not changed – it’s confirmed my worst fears… and confirmed my previous assessment…

Philip: Again, not really because I have always seen, unfortunately, the militarism of the Israeli government… Bronwyn: It really hasn’t changed but it does feel more urgent everyday – it feels like it can’t get any worse and then it gets worse and the tragedy of the whole picture – not just in relation to the government policy but the whole picture is devastating – so I think my position hasn’t changed but my ability to my thinking that activism is going to make a difference… As with respondents’ change of position regarding suicide bombings, this question

evoked a similar paradoxical response amongst those who said “yes – my position has

changed”. The change expressed was typically an increase in personal resolve:

Gary: I think that in a sense it has increased the need for people to stand up and say “look, you are not doing this in my name”... the view on my role has changed – created a resolve to act…

Katrina: I think it has changed in that I am more determined to speak out – like until

recently it was just like, “Oh! yes, it’s another thing I care about” but now it’s, “no it’s not good enough – you’ve got to have a Jewish voice that accepts some responsibility and says “it isn’t right” and is public about it… it’s made me more determined to speak out and not just think these thoughts in my head but actually say it…

Elise: Yes, it has changed – it makes me angry - makes me upset – I feel stronger

about it than ever before that withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza in

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time… as long as one maintains an occupier’s consciousness, it’s very difficult to maintain an ethical position…

The questions that asked if the respondents had experienced any changes to their

dissenting views as a result of suicide bombings and Israeli reactions revealed a range

of deep concerns vis á vis the Israel/Palestine conflict. However, if these activists view

the mainstream community as largely conservative and with a rigid Zionist outlook on

those issues of dire importance to them, the question arises as to how they negotiate

their Jewish identity. Do the respondents experience attempts to silence their dissenting

views and how is this managed in any contact with the mainstream community?

Jewish activists and the silencing of dissenting voices

In view of the constraints on those who dissent from the views of the Jewish

mainstream, the question is raised: how do these peace activists negotiate their Jewish

identity from the margins of that community? The question of identity will be discussed

in more detail below, following a description of the attempts to silence the voices of

these respondents. Sunstein (2003:6) states that those who disclose facts that contradict

a group consensus “might well be punished… face ostracism or at least have some

difficult months”.

Respondents to this study reported that they had experienced prohibition of any

contradiction of the group consensus in several ways. Respondents were asked whether

they had experienced any attempts to silence their opinions in their contacts with Jews

outside of activist groups. Most respondents agreed that they had experienced this.

These experiences varied between the mild and implicit to the more explicitly

threatening. Anna related her ‘cautious approach’, saying that if she makes a statement

that is perceived as not pro-Israel, she has to defend her position: “I have to be very

careful how I do it and to whom”. Peter described the subtle nature of the silencing

messages as an effort to not only silence dissent, but at a more subtle level to, “co-opt

and neutralise dissent” from those activists who remain in the organised Jewish

community. Several high profile respondents had also experienced serious ‘silencing

attempts’. Brenda describes a distressing phone call that she received following the

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appearance of her name in the media and the subsequent lack of support from a

mainstream body whose brief it is to investigate such matters:

Yes, Writ Large – following an advertisement in a paper by [a women’s peace group] I got a phone call from an older woman with a European accent [who]said, “you whore, you should have been burnt in the concentration camp gas ovens”. When I took this to [a relevant Jewish mainstream authority] they were unimpressed and unsupportive.

In a later discussion with Brenda regarding this telephone incident, she felt that it was

more a symptom of a “psychological disturbance in the community” rather than a

deliberate, organised attempt to silence her. She saw this caller as a “victim of the

community zeitgeist promoted by the communal power figures”. This analysis would

agree with the view that there exists a link between fears of future anti-Semitism, Israel

as a potential safe haven, and the need to suppress any criticism of Israel:

The sense of insecurity and trauma often informs the heightened or exaggerated actions among Jews to perceived provocations against sites of Jewish identification. Israel represents one such important site (Mendes & Levey 2005:9).

A second attempt to silence Brenda’s opinions was made when an offer to appear on a

television panel discussion about Jerusalem was withdrawn. Brenda was told that she

wouldn’t be needed and that “it had been said that you weren’t credible”. This message

was conveyed to her by a junior producer who she thought had “let the cat out of the

bag”. A more senior producer later denied this and told a different story. Sunstein

(2003:77) discusses the problem of non-conformity by ‘earliest’ disclosers or dissenters

as being especially severe because they are conspicuous and individually identified and

therefore easy to isolate for reprisals: “if people… disclose facts that contradict an

emerging group consensus, they might well be punished” (ibid:6). Ronit, another high

profile outspoken activist, tends to speak out to a greater extent than most other

activists and is highly regarded amongst Palestinian solidarity groups to whom she

often presents papers and talks. However, the wider Jewish community has had some

influence in attempting to silence her point of view. Ronit spoke of hate mail and phone

calls as well as refusals to print her articles and the cancellation of speaking

arrangements.

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Cynthia has remained to a large degree within the more Progressive sections of the

broader Jewish community, refusing to isolate herself: “I don’t want to keep myself

distant – take part and see”. She said:

It mostly began when I was a columnist for nearly six years and I used to write sweet little stories… then it became more political as time went on… to encourage the community to show compassion toward the humanity of Palestinians… the editor told me a couple of times I was repeating myself… he later asked me to cover a news story on a community Forum Panel discussing “Who owns the Jewish community?” with [community leader’s name]… I wrote a very fair analysis I thought – just news… the editor later changed this, making it more unbalanced and when this was questioned by the communal leaders, the editor scapegoated me and didn’t own up that it was his editing that was biased… In the end I was asked to leave with an e-mail saying, “you have reached your use-by date – thanks a lot”. I felt very hurt by it…

As discussed earlier, Sunstein (ibid:6) suggests that those who disclose facts that

contradict the group consensus may be punished, face ostracism or lose their jobs. On

another occasion, Cynthia was called in to see the Israeli Consul-General after she

wrote something that was “very moderate in my opinion”:

After three hours of filling up my head with his talk… it ended up that he was very subtly trying to convince me that “you can’t trust the Arabs”. Although he was very charming and approachable I felt like he wanted to change my mind - but also because of him being the Israeli Consul-General... even the act of going in there when you have to be searched and your bodies felt and you know, you wait for a long time and are finally summoned – it’s intimidating… I feel stymied, I have no voice anymore – I feel crucified…

Regarding the issue of how Israel attempts to control diaspora opinion, Sheffer

(2003:234) asserts that one of the reasons for ‘diaspora dissatisfaction’ is the increasing

resentment of Israel’s blatant attempts to manipulate diaspora Jews. Cynthia further

observed: “I am finding that the community is so fearful right now and that there is no

place for any dissent at all – not even a hint and so I don’t feel safe at all”.

Melanie also participates in the Progressive aspects of the Jewish religious community

and was involved as a speaker in the forum, “Who owns the Jewish community?”

described earlier by Cynthia. Melanie commented:

the whole Forum thing – we weren’t silenced but there was a big battle getting to do it in a mainstream Jewish venue… it’s not a culture where there is a lot of

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open debate… [you] must always be victim to what the Jewish community wants… it’s difficult and I struggle with it a few times…

Melanie also described her involvement in a public event to support Israel, when the

2002 Jenin incursions were making headlines. She described setting up a confidential

‘listening post’ together with her colleagues. A sign was erected: “What do you think

about the situation in Israel?” and people at the Rally were able to express their views

on the current situation. She said that of the 40 people who had spoken with her and her

colleagues on that day, many confided that they were concerned about what was

happening in Israel/Palestine but would not feel comfortable sharing their feelings with

other Jews at the Rally:

look, not everyone here would say this but I do have real problems with what is happening over there, but I can’t say it…

Sunstein (ibid:74) describes ‘reputational cascades’ in which, “people think they know

what is right, but nonetheless go along with the crowd in order to maintain the good

opinion of others… silencing themselves in the process”. Sunstein describes this

‘cascade’ process as arising out of information that people ‘think’ is right. That is,

people who care about their reputations tend to follow those who seem to know what is

right. This explains why “unpopular or dysfunctional norms may survive even in the

presence of a huge, silent majority of dissenters” (Kuran 1995:63-64, cited in Sunstein

ibid:74). This also partly explains the seeming conformity of many Jews who, given the

chance to speak in confidence, will express their real concerns.

Self-silencing/censorship

One respondent, Peter, raised the subject of self-silencing or self-censorship early in the

series of interviews:

… and there is also the problem of self-internalised censorship… if I am going to be a part of a nice warm Jewish group there is no way I can stick my neck out and articulate my deviant views on the Israel/Palestine issue.

Peter’s comment on self-silencing is a good example of Sunstein’s (2003:79)

descriptions of the way people silence themselves: “in groups connected by bonds of

affection, friendship and solidarity… members are unwilling to state objections for fear

that these will be disruptive of the group’s internal norms”. It is of interest, however,

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that Peter finally withdrew altogether from the Jewish religious group in which he had

been participating (see below).

One of the interview questions asked respondents if they had experienced any attempts

to silence them. A few respondents who answered “no” to this question qualified their

negative answer in different ways, implying that they knew that the silencing

phenomenon existed, but believed they personally had not been externally silenced.

However, it is evident from the responses that three respondents had silenced

themselves for different reasons. Gary had an interesting explanation of community

silencing methods:

No, I am conscious of my being… you hang around with people you like… I am conscious of it but it’s not as explicit as that… I think the whole point about exclusion is not that you have an apartheid system… to exclude a set of voices… you have a corporate-controlled media – it’s simply a set of gates and if it doesn’t get through one gate, you get to say something and it doesn’t get through that gate…

Uri - a respondent who is well known in the Jewish Left, but whose employment places

some constraints on what he can say or write publicly - stated that:

There would be occasions when I know who pays my wages… I am sure there have been occasions when if I had independent means I would have said different things – [it is] not fair to say that I have experienced attempts to silence me.

Loury (1994:428) notes that those in minority positions often silence themselves or

hold no weight in group opinion. This, he suggests, is a type of political correctness.

The following are responses from two participants who remain within the Progressive

religious community. Elise, a respondent who remains within a Liberal/Progressive

religious community, spoke of her lack of confidence in speaking out, saying that she

doubts her own ability to stand up against differences, so sees herself as limited: “I get

palpitations… I suppose I devalue my own opinions as well”. Katrina revealed that in

one situation, a new Rabbi had told her that her activism was wrong and that she should

keep reading, but within a small group situation she had silenced herself:

… in a course for interfaith couples with my husband there was a whole session dedicated to Jewish relationship with Israel… I sat there in uncomfortable silence and endured it.

However, in another situation – a television interview - Katrina had been publicly

outspoken. This would imply that more pressure to conform exists in small, friendly

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groups than within the anonymity of a television interview. Sunstein (ibid:81) describes

this phenomenon as “pluralistic ignorance”, where people silence themselves so as to

avoid the disapproval of others. Although some respondents denied any successful

external ‘silencing attempts’, they did reveal various modalities of avoidance or self-

censoring, as described by Sunstein (ibid:9, 29, 79, 81).

The question of how these dissenters deal with interactions within the mainstream

community is crucial to their self-identification as Jews. The previous section described

how a majority of respondents have either experienced attempts to silence their

dissenting views or have silenced themselves in some way in order to maintain

friendships, employment or group contacts. In the interviews, respondents were asked

how they act in view of the knowledge that their opinions are largely proscribed in the

mainstream community. Do they distance themselves from potentially problematic

situations or do they choose to participate but remain silent on contentious issues? The

responses revealed that both of these strategies – or a mixture of them - have been

employed. Peter described his distancing from a situation that was producing anxiety:

I certainly distanced myself - the way that I did that was I resigned from the Shule… I can’t co-exist in this community in the way and what I want out of it while this situation is going on, so I resigned from the Chavurah…

Although Peter previously made an observation about “the problem of internalised self-

censorship”, he ultimately chose to distance himself. In this case, a decision was made

not to self-censor but to distance from a potentially confronting situation. Other

respondents revealed a variety of individual personal strategies, styles and views in

coping with the participation/self-silencing dilemma. For example, of those who

decided to remain involved and to speak out, Uri said that he “makes an effort in the

opposite direction and try to involve myself and put my case”. Brenda said that she

feels very committed to talk to the Jewish community about these issues: “I think

ultimately it is a rigid neurosis… at a certain point you have to challenge it”. There

were also mixed responses to this question, like that given by Fred: “in all sorts of

situation I do speak out but I don’t have the courage that I should have”, and by Philip:

“I would say that given my journey I am feeling that I have the right to speak my mind

in the Jewish community”.

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Many of the respondents revealed diverse ways of dealing with this predicament. Those

who had decided to try to stay involved with the mainstream community tended to

report that they knew when to remain silent, at least to some degree. Melanie admitted

that she found it personally very difficult, saying that it keeps her silent and that she

gets very nervous when going to Jewish gatherings: “on a personal level it makes me

feel that I am not a good Jew…” A few of the respondents reported that they had dealt

with their mainstream community interactions in spontaneous ways, according to what

is happening or how confident they feel at that moment. Therefore, they had utilised

both approaches to avoiding uncomfortable situations. Bronwyn made the comment: “it

feels like I haven’t been able to explore what I think… you can’t have a discussion or

dialogue”, while Elise described her method of coping with the silencing messages: “I

often distance myself – I stop going to certain things and keep silent…” Anna spoke

with concern:

Look, I have done both – when it becomes too difficult and I feel that I am not being understood or feel that it is pointless, I distance myself – I withdraw - sometimes I confront people – when they bring up something… I think people just don’t want to know…

It is apparent that the majority of the respondents have experienced some form of

‘silencing’ of their voice and/or opinions. A majority of respondents also reported that

they had utilised self-silencing or the avoidance of certain situations as a strategy to

deal with interactions with the mainstream Jewish community. This outcome confirms

that the axiom of the ‘politics of silencing’ do exist in the Australian Jewish

community, as claimed by Mendes (1997:65).

The following sections discuss the link between the decision to speak out as an activist

and/or to distance oneself from the mainstream, and the struggle for personal

identification as a Jew. The conflict between activism and Jewish identity is largely

resolved through an inherent conviction in what is accepted as ‘Jewish ethics’ – the so-

called ‘ethical imperative’ of Judaism and subsequently of Christianity: “a Judaism,

which though secularized, remains Jewish” (Benbassa & Attias 2003:129).

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Jewish identity and the role of ethics and religion in peace activism

With regard to the notion that activism/dissent can be viewed as a legitimate expression

of Jewish identity, Ellis (1999:46) states that the resistance to injustice is raised within

the evolving tradition of Jewish dissent:

This tradition is long and, as with remembrance and the liturgy of destruction, is found in the origins of the Jewish people.

The previous chapter discussed other figures from the “tradition of Jewish dissent” in

the distant past and more recent history. The respondents to this study were asked

whether in view of the silencing practices they had experienced, they consider their

activism an expression of their Jewish identity. A majority of respondents agreed with

this proposition.

The notion that a link exists between Jewishness, humanism and activism appeared to

have primacy with the group of Jewish peace activists. Respondents described their

activism in a variety of ways that depict a Jewish humanist identity: “it’s a part of the

whole humanist Jewish tradition”; “my activism is a part of being Jewish”; “I am doing

what I am doing as a Jew… a light unto the nations”; “I feel comfortable in my identity

as a Jewish person and behaving in the way I am… I think there is something about

maintaining a level of human rights… as a Jewish person”; and, “in what other sense

am I a Jew?” It can be said that the majority of respondents who agreed that their

activism is an expression of their Jewish identity, linked this with some aspect of

religious or traditional belief such as Tikkun Olam (to heal and restore the world) or

simply to how they see themselves as part of a Jewish humanist tradition:

This desire for alterity and this desire for justice are… characteristic of a Jewish way of relating to the world that still has strongly religious elements… I see it as a Judaism which, though secularized, remains Jewish (Benbassa & Attias 2003:129).

Benbassa and Attias observe that “Jewish ethics, if it exists, is the religion of those who

have lost all religion – the religion of the irreligious” (ibid:128). As Ellis (2000:1140)

comments, some Jews are concerned about the loss of an ethical compass in a Jewish

life heavily identified with Israel: “the sight of Israeli helicopter gunships firing

missiles into populated Palestinian cities is a great contradiction in Jewish ethics”.

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Issues of Jewish identity are raised for those Jews who show concern over the events in

Israel in their name as diaspora Jews.

The respondents to this study were asked whether they view their activism as linked to

Jewish ethics. Naomi quoted the Mishnah9 in relation to the recent tearing up of olive

trees on Palestinian land: “you can hear a scream from one end of the land to the other”.

Her comment relates to the removal of Palestinian olive groves by the Israeli Defense

Force in order to provide room for the “security wall” to be built and to remove

potential hiding ground for Palestinian ‘terrorists’. Katrina pointed out that when

speaking to a Jewish group she makes a point of highlighting the reason she is doing

what she is doing: “I always link it to Jewish values and that sort of idea”. She added,

“but you know, to talk about Jewish ethics and what they are these days in the world of

non-Jews, wouldn’t be too crash hot”. Here, Katrina suggests that non-Jews viewing

Israel’s oppression of Palestinians may have a problem with the idea of Jewish ethics.

Reactions from other respondents indicated a similarly high awareness of Jewish ethics:

Elise: I suppose I do link them… I suppose I do have a belief in a level of humanity

and there is something for me about being a Jew as being first and foremost a humanist and that is how one regards the ‘other’ and has respect for other people and their humanness… it’s sort of a primary belief.

Bronwyn: For me it’s the stuff I love about being Jewish – is the integrity and the

Tikkun Olam… you know Jews have been at the forefront of liberation movements forever… there is such a strong history both in the religion and in the culture of making things right and maybe that’s from being an oppressed group for so long and surviving and wanting the same for other groups that are being mistreated…

Philip: Yes, I think the whole… I think that really the whole non-violence thing is

very much part of Jewish ethics… the Zealots took militarism to such an extreme that they almost destroyed the whole of Judaism… so that the rabbinical developed “passive non-violence”…

A majority of respondents enthusiastically agreed with the link between Jewish ethics

and their individual dissenting decisions – the decision to make a stand based on beliefs

such as non-violence, peace and justice. Ellis (2000:1140) contends that “most Jews

9 Mishnah (‘teaching’) refers to the digest of the ‘Oral Torah’ compiled around the end of the second and the beginning of the third century CE.

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who protest injustice are in exile, looking for spirituality and leadership that is lacking

in their birth community”. These words echo a lack of any relevant guidance in many

Jewish religious institutions. Of course, there are exceptions to this generality: three

respondents to this study described two congregations in the city of Sydney where there

is some acknowledgement of the realities in the Israel/Palestine conflict and a

willingness to discuss this within contained limits.

Having discussed the role of Jewish ethics in the decisions dissenters have made that

have subsequently resulted in their exclusion from the mainstream Jewish community,

the question then arises as to the role that formal religion plays. Chapter 3 discussed a

general decline of religious observance as an identity marker in open diaspora societies.

Two separate studies undertaken in Britain and the United States have identified

ambiguities surrounding religious identity (Sinclair & Milner 2005:108; Cutler

2003:134). Ellis (2003:145) observes that “many Jewish dissenters have left Jewish

religiosity all together, speaking their dissent in strictly secular terms”. Respondents to

this study were asked how they would describe themselves as a Jewish person on a

continuum of secular to religious observance. Half of the group definitively described

themselves as secular – that is, not aligned to any Jewish religious group. The question

of symbolic ethnicity, in which some special Jewish festivals and events may be

observed, was not explored. Gans (1979, 1994) describes a “symbolic

ethnicity/religiosity that includes the acknowledgment of certain important ‘ethnic’ or

religious symbols”. This description would be consistent with secular Jews who might

observe some Jewish festivals, and therefore could be seen as ethnic Jews or as fitting

the depiction of ethno-religious Jewishness (as discussed in Chapter 3). Gans argues

“that for acculturated American Jews, participating in traditional Jewish religious

behavior is no longer salient to their perceptions of what it means to be Jewish” (Gans

1994, cited in Cutler 2003:8)

This description of ‘Jewishness’ fits with Uri’s statement: that while he is “second

generation secular”, he did have a “religious fling” when he was around ten years old.

He maintains that being Jewish is more than a religion. Fred claimed that he had been

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an unbeliever at the time of his Bar Mitzvah10. Melanie stated that she didn’t have a

religious upbringing and is not currently religious, but that she does identify with being

Jewish. Other respondents also clearly stated a secular Jewishness:

Brenda: Secular yes – no adolescent detour… central Europe was very different to Eastern Europe – there was a real divide culturally… Naomi: I have always been secular – German Jews before the war were very assimilated…

Deutscher (1968, cited in Boyarin & Boyarin 2003:114) suggests that “modern Jewish

radicals who do not practice the Jewish religion nevertheless can represent an

appropriate way of enacting Jewishness in the contemporary world”.

There appeared to be some ambivalence regarding the question of religious identity, as

described in a study by Cutler (2003:134). Conducted in the United States, Cutler’s

study found that although respondents viewed themselves as “primarily ethnic”, they

expressed their greatest conflicts and ambiguities around the management of the

religious aspect of their Jewish identity. Interestingly, the three respondents in the

present study who described themselves as participating in the more liberal strand of

Judaism (as members of a Progressive congregation) were more explicit in their

religious and/or spiritual choices (although these were based on individual, personal

reasons):

Katrina: We were secular until I was 12 years old – I was about Bar Mitzvah age and I went to Temple… and I was so impressed that I told my parents that is

what I wanted to do... so it went on from there… Bronwyn: I guess I am involved with a Progressive synagogue but most of my inner

life and what I get from to do there… but I guess I grew up very secular and I don’t have a spiritual perspective on the world… I do love ritual and I like a lot of discussion around religion but I don’t have a religious perspective…

Anna: Progressive/Reform very clearly… the bottom issue for me is that I am

accepted on equal terms as a male… so the bottom line is being called up to the Torah and being able to read from the Torah…

10 Bar Mitzvah (‘Son of the commandment’) – at the age of 13 years, a Jewish boy reaches his religious maturity: he is responsible for his actions and hence obliged to keep the precepts of the Torah.

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The choice of ‘Jewish Renewal’ was not provided in the questionnaire, but it proved to

be an important aspect of religious identity for two respondents. Jewish Renewal is a

liberal and spiritual interpretation of Judaism that includes modalities from other faiths

such as Buddhist meditation. On the subject of Jewish Renewal, Brettschneider

(1996:17) observes: “[it is] demanding the exploration of new paradigms, new

relationships in the community, and a new communal politics”. Several larger

Progressive synagogues offer Renewal as a separate service beyond their regular

services. Two of the respondents attend those services. Peter describes his identity as

follows:

Basically, the way I see my religious affiliation – I see myself as a Jewish Renewalist alienated from the Jewish community… one of the things that attracted me to Jewish Renewal was its openness to using techniques and teachings from other religious traditions…

Philip describes his religious journey from Orthodox to secular to Jewish Renewal:

My understanding of Jewish Renewal [is] that it’s come out of people from Jewish backgrounds, sort of being involved in things like Buddhism and Sufism and Yoga – they seem to be the streams and they have come back into Judaism with a different perspective… well I grew up Orthodox and then I went secular for much of my life…

These results are similar to Cutler’s findings (2003:134) that an ambiguity existed

around the question of religious identification in half of the study group. For example,

although none of her studied group (a singles social group) were strictly Sabbath

observant and only a few were occasionally Sabbath observant, they did not consider it

appropriate to arrange Friday night (Sabbath) activities as a matter of “respect”

(ibid:134). The other area of ambivalence around religious identification was the choice

of vegetarian (i.e. kosher) food at any secular activities, even though most members eat

pork and ham. Cutler (ibid:136) claims that her data suggests that questions of Jewish

identity and practice continue to exert a strong influence over even those who identify

as secular Jews. The strong influence of ‘Jewish identity and practice’ was not

examined in the present study, although all of those who chose to describe themselves

as secular, explicitly identified as Jews. Both their position as marginalised and

ostracised from the Jewish mainstream and the self-identified link between their

activism and their Jewish identity suggests a strong Jewish identification - as Melanie

said: “in what other way am I Jewish?”

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The query that addresses the position of peace activists in the Jewish community poses

the question of how this group might ‘fit’ in a community that views dissent as

equivalent to opting out of the community. In the Jewish community in the United

States, “when rank-and-file Jews expressed dissenting opinions, they were virtually

disinvited from the Jewish community” (Brettschneider 1996:4). The dictum of Lo

lifney ha-goyim (‘not in front of the Gentiles’) implies that dissenting openly in the

broader host community is akin to giving comfort to the enemies of the Jewish people

who seek the destruction of the state of Israel. In the face of this prohibition on most

criticism of Israel, these peace activists seek to define a compelling place on the

margins of the mainstream community that condemns them.

The silencers of dissenting voices

A major research question guiding this study was in relation to the underlying factors

that influence many mainstream Jews to prohibit any critical discourse on the subject of

Israeli policies. Chapter 3 discussed the literature that links this question with the

diaspora-homeland nexus; for example, the traditional view of the ‘mythic Zion’ or

homeland, together with the associated psychological-symbolic attachment of a

recently traumatised people to a perceived homeland. Benbassa and Attias (2003:155)

discuss the ‘imagined homeland’ of diaspora Jews, noting that “there are two kinds of

nostalgia: that of the Israeli who is far from home, and the more mythical, more

imagined nostalgia of the Diaspora Jew who dreams of Israel”. This imagined safe

home together with the victim ideation of many diaspora Jews (as discussed in the

previous chapter), amounts to an insecurity and fear in which, “any criticism of Israel is

felt as a real wound” (ibid:156). This tendency toward insecurity and fear in safe

diaspora societies has been described as “cognitive dissonance” – the gap between

reality and the perception of reality (Shapiro 1998).

The respondents to this study were not directly asked for their opinion on the subject of

mainstream motivations for the silencing practices they experience. However, six of the

respondents made spontaneous comments in the interviews, and used the word or

concept of ‘fear’ in relation to the silencing patterns of their mainstream adversaries:

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Ronit: I distance myself but I see the political views of the Jewish community as based on ignorance and misunderstanding… I think it’s fear-based which leads to a kind of arrogance – that we are somehow different than others …

Anna: They are stuck – they are caught… I think there is a fear of anti-Semitism that one day everything that they have is all going to happen to them again… they can’t handle criticism…

Brenda: I think ultimately it’s a rigid neurosis – “oy vey, they are coming for us again”.

Katrina: Yes, they are scared – I think it’s fear… not just of being marginalised if you

do speak out but fear of what happens to the Jews if there is no Israel… Cynthia: … that tries to keep the silence because they are so unsure of themselves – they are feeling so threatened they can’t speak out and don’t want anyone else to speak it… it’s too terrifying… I am finding that the community is so

fearful right now and that there is no place for any dissent at all – not even a hint and so I don’t feel safe at all...

The observations from activists who have been marginalised and silenced – the

“familiar outsiders who destabilize the group’s collective consciousness” (Zukier,

1996:1117-1118) - provide a profound insight into the narrative of diaspora Jewry at

this point in history, with its univocality on the question of the “imagined homeland”

(Benbassa & Attias 2003:155,173).

Conclusion This chapter has examined how Jewish peace activists experience the implications of

their different political positions on the Israel/Palestine issue, compared to the majority

of their ethno-religious community. The chapter has discussed the central question of

Zionism and how activists describe their individual political positions vis á vis this

designation and in the context of their marginalisation from an essentially Zionist

mainstream community. There appeared to be a degree of ambivalence around the

question of Zionism, which is thought to be linked to sensitivity around the Nazi

extermination and any criticism of Israel (Benbassa & Attias 2004:81).

The critical difference between Jewish activists and the organised mainstream implies

that there is little room for a dissenting minority within a larger and dominant

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mainstream community that is intolerant of any ‘deviant’ discourse or debate that

differs from their ‘core beliefs’. The tension largely exists in the area of political

discourse rather than as a difference in attitudes to contemporary social issues. This is

perceived as a form of cognitive dissonance. Another area of disagreement between the

mainstream community and activists is the attitudes to suicide bombings and the

reactions of the Israeli government. The respondents in this study overwhelmingly saw

the suicide bombings as a symptom of a much larger problem and reported that the

increase in bombings had not significantly changed their positions or attitudes. Any

changes that were noted were typically of a greater concern and personal despair for the

Israel/Palestine situation and a resolve to act more in the way that they had done. These

opinions would tend towards further exclusion from the mainstream community. A

conclusion that may be drawn from this result is that this group of activists do not

identify themselves with a victim ideology that would view most Palestinian resistance

as an example of the malicious victimisation of Jews.

The chapter also discussed the level and type of silencing attempts that respondents had

experienced from a largely ‘conservative’ community. A majority of the interviewed

group agreed that they had experienced this practice from the mainstream community.

Incidences varied from implicit ‘not for discussion’ messages to what could be termed

severe bullying. Those respondents who stated that they had not been explicitly

silenced, actually revealed some degree of silencing or self-censorship in their

responses. The chapter also explored the effect of silencing on behavioural decisions,

with all but two of the respondents acknowledging that they either distance themselves

from or remain silent in any interactions with the mainstream Jewish community. These

results support the view that an effective ‘politics of silencing’ exists in the Australian

Jewish community (Mendes 1997:65).

The question of self-identification as Jews was approached via discussions with

respondents regarding how their activism is perceived. The chapter also explored the

subject of religious identification and views regarding Jewish ethics as associated with

the activists’ dissent/activism. Activists were asked whether they link their activism

with any Jewish ethics. The majority of respondents answered enthusiastically in the

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affirmative, with a few respondents offering the specific ethic to which they related.

Interestingly, two respondents stated that they identified with Judeo-Christian ethics.

The study group presented a picture of predominantly secular Jews who largely view

their activism as an expression of their Jewish identity and have a strong instrumental

awareness of the Jewish ethics of justice and human rights. These ethical values appear

to be the underlying impetus that guides them to speak out in defiance of the core

values of their people, despite the exclusionary consequences described in this chapter.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS - IN DARK AND TROUBLED TIMES

In times of trouble, troublemakers abound, and throughout history Jews have produced many… perhaps that ongoing lineage is about to end in the defence of the indefensible and in the strategies, both national and local, to denounce through character assassination those who witness for an alternative way forward. If the forces of conformity and contrived unity in the Jewish world succeed in quieting the troublemakers, the way forward may seem dim, for isn’t the “troublemaker” one who sees an alternative? (Ellis 2000).

The Australian community at large would tend to see the Jewish community in their

midst as relatively monolithic and speaking with one voice. When I have been asked by

non-Jewish Australians for the title of my research study and answered, “the silencing

of dissent in the Australian Jewish community”, I find my response is frequently met

with a puzzled look and an “excuse me?” I usually avoid the explanation that the

Jewish community is highly hierarchical and that tension and conflict exists around the

question of Israel. Instead, my standard response is a brief, “yes, it is a controversial

topic”. Before I break the silence on that particular subject, I experience a momentary

inner feeling of discomfort - perhaps a brief lo lifney ha-goyim (‘not in front of the

gentiles’) experience that astounds me every time.

At the beginning of this thesis I identified myself as an ‘insider’ – a Jewish peace

activist who has experienced the personal need to keep silent on the subject of Israel

and to eventually withdraw from those situations where I felt unable to speak my

considered thoughts and views. I constructed the questionnaire used in this study from

my own observations and experiences, and was deeply gratified when several

respondents said to me that “these are great questions”. As I began this investigation

from a position of personal involvement, I will not shy away from that theme in these

concluding paragraphs.

To date, there have been no critical studies undertaken to examine the experience of

contemporary Jewish dissenters who make a stand against having their opinions

dictated by the ideological hegemony of the Jewish community leadership. As

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previously observed in relation to the Melbourne ‘roof bodies’, this suppression of

views involves:

... using the power of social and organisational pressure to excommunicate (marginalise, purge, ostracise, eliminate) Jews whose opinions it does not approve of … (Docker 1991:156).

This study goes a part of the way to describe the heterogeneity that currently exists

within the Australian Jewish community on the question of the state of Israel and

Zionism. Importantly, it describes the thoughts and experiences of those Jews who have

been “marginalised, purged and ostracised”.

In this study I have gained and described an understanding of the life experiences,

thoughts and reactions of other Jews who have chosen a path diverging from a

mainstream community that largely defines itself in relation to the state of Israel. This

definition of uncritical Israel loyalty, together with the remembrance of the holocaust,

has been described as a replacement for what has become a global decline in religious

observance. Cantor (1993) notes the phenomenon of diaspora Jews who have bonded

around fund-raising for a beleaguered Israel, to the extent that this philanthropic

activity often replaces the practice of Judaism. This identification with an embattled

Israel and pride in its triumphs has been the hallmark of diaspora Judaism. According to

Cantor (1993), “Jewish self-identity between 1948 and 1993… depended much more

on political Zionism than on religion”. Arising from this perspective is the view that

Israel may not be criticised, nor the Palestinian people described in any way than

‘Other’. This description subsequently leads to the implicit injunction that those who

fail to comply are to be demeaned, silenced and excluded – the ‘character assassination’

referred to by Ellis (2000). Within these restrictive circumstances, Jewish dissenters

attempt to define their Jewish identity in a meaningful way.

Ellis (2000) articulately depicts the experience of dissenters or “troublemakers” as

studied in this thesis. This description bestows a different analysis on their activism

than the narrow and derogatory words that are often used and that imply disloyalty to

their Jewishness. In the place of ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘self-hating traitors’ is the broader

vision of “those who witness for an alternative way forward” in times of trouble. I have

used Ellis’ words as a way of affirming the issue of Jewish identity as expressed by the

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respondents to this study. Although the majority of the dissenters claimed to be secular

or expressed some ambivalence about their religious identity, they largely considered

their activism an important aspect of their Jewish identity. Furthermore, there was an

overwhelming agreement for the proposition that linked their political views with

Jewish ethics. This disparity between a declared secular outlook and the recognition of

the importance of Jewish ethics/Jewish identification through activism suggests that, in

fact, a resilient strand of ‘Jewishness’ exists in those activists studied. As one

respondent simply said in relation to her activism, “in what other sense am I a Jew?” If

the distress of ‘character assassination’ and the marginalisation by one’s own people is

taken into consideration, it can be assumed that the ‘thread of Jewishness’ is an

enduring one, which validates Ellis’ earlier statement. Hopefully, this is a resilient

strand that will continue to repudiate Ellis’ concern that:

if the forces of conformity and contrived unity in the Jewish world [will] succeed in quieting the troublemakers, the way ahead would seem dim, for isn’t the ‘troublemaker’ one who sees an alternative? (Ellis 2000).

It would seem clear that this cohort of dissenters, having already withstood alienation

and censure, will continue to stand against the forces of “conformity and contrived

unity” (ibid). Respondents expressed no ambivalence on the question of commitment to

peace activism. On the contrary, there was a general feeling of re-commitment to their

activities as a result of the increase in suicide bombings and the ramifications of Israeli

governmental retaliations.

The literature has revealed widespread concerns about the loss of Jewish identity

through a decline in religious observance, intermarriage and assimilation. In many

ways, this can be interpreted as a loss of Jewish continuity. On the other hand, these

largely secular and assimilated ‘dissenting voices’ withstand ostracism and character

assassination in order to demonstrate loyalty to a humanist/ethical Jewish identity. Ellis

(2000:1140-1141) speaks of those who dissent for justice and human rights in this time

of trouble as: “Jews of conscience travelling into exile”. He questions whether this is

where the Jewish covenant is to be found - today in exile, witnessing the decline of

Jewish ethics?

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The key topic of this thesis is the silencing of dissent within the contemporary Jewish

community, as well as throughout Jewish history. This phenomenon has been discussed

in two ways; first, through the analysis of contemporary thought, coupling it with an

impetus towards conformity that exists in most human societies; and second, from

within Jewish history, by describing the experiences of prominent Jews who have

spoken their ‘truth’ in the face of opposition, despite attempts by an influential Jewish

‘establishment’ to silence them. The studied group of dissenters largely agreed that they

had been silenced and/or had silenced themselves for a variety of reasons. However,

they also agreed that they see their activism as a main source of identification as Jews

and that they regard this stance as linked to their understanding of Jewish ethics and

identity. Given these crucial differences, as well as their largely non-Zionist political

position, there is little potential for their inclusion in a contemporary, organised Jewish

mainstream that rejects any diversity of opinion.

A further significant aspect of this lack of ‘fit’ with the organised mainstream is the

difference in attitudes and analysis of the meaning of Palestinian resistance, as

demonstrated by the extremity of suicide bombings. While much of the mainstream

community would interpret these extreme forms of resistance as anti-Jewish

persecution, the dissenters differ in their acknowledgment of the complexities of the

situation. This circular systemic analysis accepts that the severe results of this type of

extreme Palestinian resistance is as a consequence of a ‘big picture’ in which the

policies of the Israeli government play a part - as one respondent said: “suicide

bombings are a symptom of something much, much bigger… you don’t do that unless

there is something horribly, horribly wrong”. The activists accept a different analysis

from a mainstream community that largely demonises Palestinians and views their

defensive resistance as evidence of anti-Jewish malice:

and the assertion that the violence only comes from the other side because there is something wrong with them, they’re evil, they’re bad, Islam… (Ellis 2001:4).

This disparity in beliefs, together with the apparent victim ideation held by many

mainstream Jews, would be an interesting topic for further study. The victim

phenomenon, together with observations made by the activists, suggests that the

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mainstream community is motivated by fear, and that a psycho-emotional dynamic

drives the silencing of dissenting views in the Australian Jewish community.

Possibilities for further research and limitations of this study

Throughout this thesis I have made assumptions about the underlying factors involved

in the silencing of dissent in the Australian Jewish community. This thesis proposes the

existence of a link between personal fears regarding a resurgence of anti-Semitism in

the diaspora, and support for Israel. I am hypothesising that this deep-seated anxiety

results in unquestioning support for Israel: “as an insurance policy, should life in the

diaspora ever become untenable” (Bernstein 1991:43). These linkages ultimately

translate into ‘silencing’ practices with an inability to hear any critical discourses. One

might also include within that chain of linking factors, the possibility of guilty feelings

from those who can be best described as “long distance Zionists” (Hobsbawm

1980:504; Gitelman 1998:120). While these questions are clearly complex and multi-

faceted, there are no existing studies that provide an explanation of the aetiology of the

suppression of dissent. It would be pertinent to pursue a study of mainstream Jews that

examines the hypothesis that fears of anti-Semitism result in a silencing of dissent of

Jewish activists.

Another other area that may warrant further investigation is related to the hypothesis

that this group of Jews does not hold a ‘victim’ outlook regarding the subject of

Palestinian resistance or a return of anti-Semitism in the diaspora. This hypothesis is

based on the respondents’ reactions to the increase in suicide bombings and the

subsequent extreme Israeli reactions. However, it is necessary to study this assumption

more rigorously before it can be categorically claimed. Furthermore, it would be useful

to investigate the attitudes of dissenting Jews to anti-Semitism. It would prove

interesting and illuminating to compare any fears or concerns related to this subject

with the views of mainstream Jews.

Having discussed a number of possible directions for further research, it is now

necessary to describe a limitation encountered in undertaking this study. While the

interviews proceeded with few difficulties, a problem was initially encountered in the

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small number of available potential respondents, as a result of the relatively small pool

of activists in the city of Sydney. Although most of those whose names were initially

provided to me had agreed to become involved, the scarcity of Jewish peace activists

made it difficult to find a large enough group of respondents to study. A similar study

could be undertaken with a larger sample group in Melbourne, which has a larger

Jewish community. This may reveal some slightly different community dynamics

because of a difference in demographic features. As this research study was narrowly

focussed, a broader range of questions may also bring forward other interesting trends.

Another limitation for this study was a lack of comparative studies in the area of small

group Jewish dissent. This, together with a dearth of relevant literature in this relatively

unexplored area (as discussed in a previous chapter), also presented some limitations.

and in the end…

How will history relate the story of the dissenters of the “Zionist century”? (Niemark

2003:13) In the future, will they still be described as “traitors, Israel-bashers and self-

hating Jews” (ibid) or will their efforts to consider the position of the indigenous Arabs

of Palestine be minimised like those early Jews – Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, and

Judah Magnes to name a few - who sought a Jewish homeland but not a Jewish state?

These Jews are largely remembered by contemporary mainstream Jews for different

reasons, as if their struggle was an anomaly rather than a legitimate anti-Zionism. The

history of Zionism does relate the story of a spiritual/cultural Zionism and the effort to

build a Jewish homeland rather than a Jewish state, but this became an anachronism

with the revelations and subsequent imperatives of the Nazi holocaust.

The other side of this story is the ‘split’ that exists within the Jewish community; as

Ellis (2000) terms it, “Jews v. Jews”. One wonders what the outcome of this split will

be. Within that schism there are those who dissent openly, as well as those who do so

more obliquely by drawing attention to the demise of a value-oriented and ethically-

concerned tradition. The latter are usually highly credible Jews from a liberal religious

orientation, who fulfil a valuable role in highlighting the contradiction between Jewish

religious belief and the ‘corrupting’ events in Israel/Palestine. One example is Rabbi

Michael Lerner, who has maintained this stance as editor of the journal Tikkun

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(‘repair’) despite death threats against himself and his family. Another is Chief Rabbi

Jonathan Sacks, from a less ‘liberal’ religious orientation, who spoke of the

incompatible stance of Israel with “the deepest ideals of Judaism” (cited in Freedland

2002). Finally, there are those Jews who take the position that Israel is not to be

critiqued or opposed on any level. The disparity between these two groups of Jews

appears broadly to be around the question of human rights – for the latter group, the

claim for rights is made for ‘us’ but not for ‘them’. The question is raised: do we have

the greater right because of the horrors of the 20th century? This issue again presents the

argument of a victim ideation born of past trauma underlying the virulent opposition to

dissenting views in the Jewish diaspora. Elkana (1988:18) refers to this phenomenon as

“Hitler’s paradoxical and tragic victory”. He further observes that if the holocaust had

not suffused national consciousness so deeply, the conflict between Jews and the

Palestinians would not have led to so many aberrant reactions. Elkana was responding

to the “excesses” committed by Israeli soldiers in the territories, reaching the

conclusion that what motivated Israeli society’s attitude toward the Palestinians was not

personal frustration, but rather a deep existential fear that was nourished by the

willingness to believe that the whole world was against the Jewish people - the ‘eternal

victim’ phenomenon (cited in Segev 1994:503). Does not this tragic circumstance also

apply to those who silence dissent in the Australian Jewish community?

I will end these concluding thoughts with a positive hope for a future change to the

‘paradoxical and tragic victory’ discussed earlier. Georgi Plekhanov (2005) the

translator of Marx’s writings into Russian, talked about the role of accident in history –

the role of an individual or individuals who emerge in what Arendt (1968:ix) has called

“dark times” to offer illumination and a way forward:

Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that illumination may well less come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering and often weak light that some men and women in their lives and their works will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given them on earth… Eyes so used to darkness as ours will hardly be able to tell whether their light was the light of a candle or that of a blazing sun. But such objective evaluation seems to me a matter of secondary importance which can be safely left to posterity (Arendt 1968).

Recent history has more than a few examples of this hope and belief at work. The end

of the discriminatory apartheid system in South Africa and the fall of communism in

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Russia and Eastern Europe are just two examples of how rapidly and completely long-

term oppressive systems can be changed by the actions of committed individuals and a

critical mass of supporters. Finally, it is necessary to refer to the black civil rights

movement in the United States, which gained impetus in 1955 when a weary black

woman, Rosa Parks, refused to comply with a segregationist regulation to sit in the

back of the bus and give up her seat to a white man. This stubborn and courageous act

gained the subsequent support of Dr. Martin Luther King, whose enduring words “I

have a dream” became a turning point and symbol in a long struggle for justice. Like

Martin Luther King, I too, as a Jewish peace activist ‘have a dream’. Although this was

not explicitly discussed with the respondents to this study, on re-reading their

transcripted interviews I am sure there would be a reasonable measure of agreement.

In the preface to this thesis I referred to a paper that had profoundly influenced my

personal decision to move openly into the role of Jewish peace activism. I achieved this

in the first instance by convening a group of Jews and Palestinians who were working

together and attempting to build bridges of understanding and tolerance in the diaspora.

My second contribution is embodied in this research study, through which I have aimed

to bring awareness and understanding of the experience of other Jews in the same

position. The paper that set me upon this path and implanted a dream and a goal for the

future, also discusses the possibility of an eventual “Reconciled Peace” in an

Israeli/Palestinian bi-national state. This process has most recently been seen with the

‘truth commissions’ forums in South Africa and Latin America. Humphrey (2000:326)

asks:

Can suffering be used to bring people together to promote mutual recognition of loss and injury rather than continue to separate them in the dual nationalist projects forged on isolation and distrust of the Other?

Humphrey contrasts this with a “Defended Peace” (ibid:325), where the great power

imbalance between the Israelis and Palestinians may force a settlement in which the

weaker side would give more concessions, thus producing an illusory peace. The

question must be asked - is this a utopian dream? Without entering into the current

debate between the relative efficacy of a two-state solution or a bi-national state, I can

only comment upon this matter here in favour of the latter option. However, I

acknowledge that there is a long way to go before any process of reconciliation can be

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undertaken between Israelis and Palestinians in a bi-national state. An expectation or a

dream of final reconciliation through the acknowledgment of the suffering each group

has experienced over the last 58 years is a worthy goal to aim towards – as suggested

by Ellis (2000), “a witnessing for an alternative way forward”.

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APPENDIX A INFORMATION SHEET - RESPONDENTS

“Peace activism and the Negotiation of Jewish Identity in the Australian Jewish Community”

I am conducting a research study for the Master of Philosophy award at the University of Queensland titled, “Peace Activism and the Negotiation of Jewish Identity in the Australian Jewish Community. This project is undertaken under the supervision of Dr. Zlatko Skrbis and Dr. John Bradley in the School of Social Science. The aim of the project is to gain an understanding of the experience of Jewish Peace Activists in Australia. The emphasis of this study is to assess how these Peace Activists reconcile their Jewish identity in view of their position as dissenters to the generally accepted view. I would like to invite you to participate in this project by reading and completing a questionnaire that will be sent to you in advance of a semi-structured interview that will provide an opportunity to discuss the questions and answers in more depth. The interview may be taped. Appointments for the interview will be made to suit your availability. It is expected that the interview would involve approximately two hours of your time but this is flexible. I undertake to assure you that your responses will be received without judgement and that confidentiality will be fully observed. Participation in this study is completely voluntary and all information collected will remain entirely confidential and only used in the final analysis of the collected data. Your name/identity will not be linked to any of the information that you have given. Upon request a transcript of your interview will be made available. I undertake to supply you with information about any publications and the results of the study (Master of Philosophy Thesis) should you wish to access this. Please note that this study adheres to the Guidelines of the ethical review process of the University of Queensland. Whilst you are free to discuss your participation in this study with the researcher contactable on (07 3254-0592, if you would like to speak to an officer of the University not involved in this study, you may contact the Ethics Officer on (07) 3365-3924. It is possible for you to withdraw without prejudice from the study if you decide that you no longer wish to continue. If you have any questions regarding this project do not hesitate to contact me (07-3254-0592), or my supervisor, Dr. Zlatko Skrbis (07 3365-3176) or the associate supervisor, Dr. John Bradley (07 3365-2980). I look forward to hearing from you.

Margot Salom Masters of Philosophy Candidate – School of Social Science. University of Queensland, Brisbane.

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APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE

Personal Information:

Age Group: 18 - 30

31 - 43 44 - 56

57 - 75 76 +

Gender: Male: Female: Occupation:

Place of Birth:

Parent’s place of birth: Mother: Father:

Religious Affiliation: (Self-identification) 1. How would you categorise yourself as a Jewish person?

(a) Secular (b) Progressive/Reform

(c) Conservative

(d) Orthodox

(e) Other

Peace activism:

2. Would you describe yourself as a Jewish Peace Activist?

(a) No

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(b) Yes

3. How would you characterise your involvement in Jewish peace activism?

(a) High (b) Moderate

(c) Low/Marginal

4. What type of activities associated with peace activism have you participated in?

(a) Public silent vigils/protest marches/rallies/public speaking

(b) Group meetings

(c) Letter writing/emails

(d) Other

5. How would you categorise your position in the political spectrum?

(a) Anti-occupation only (b) Left Zionist

(c) Non-Zionist

(c) Anti-Zionist

(d) Other

6. Has your position/opinion changed since the recent Intifada with the increase of suicide bombings?

(a) No

(b) Yes; if so, how changed?

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7. Has the recent escalation in Israeli governmental policies re. Palestinian resistance changed your views? (For example, IDF incursions into Palestinian Territories, house demolitions; rocket attacks into populated areas and the recent building of the separation wall/barrier).

(a) Not changed (b) Yes, if so, how changed?

The Australian Jewish Context

8. How would you describe your view of the Australian Jewish community?

(a) Conservative

(b) Heterogenous

(c) Other

9. Have you personally experienced any attempts to silence your voice/opinion by other Jews? If yes, describe your experience. What was your reaction to this experience?

10. How does the knowledge that your opinions are largely proscribed in the Jewish community affect your decisions at a personal level?

(a) Consider keeping silent or limiting what you say in certain situations. (b) Distancing yourself from those situations (i.e. Jews with opposing views)

(c) Other

110

11. How do you reconcile your identity as a Jew in view of the above? (a) See your activism as an expression of your Jewish identity. (b) Other

12. Do you link your political views with any Jewish ethics?

(a) No (b) Yes - How?

13. Apart from your involvement in the above, are you involved in any other human rights activism? If so, which issues?

(a) Asylum Seeker/Refugee (b) Anti-war

(c) Aboriginal rights

(d) Other

14. Do you receive information from any Israeli Peace Groups? If so, which ones?

(a) Women’s groups (Women in Black; Bat Shalom; Jerusalem Link) (b) Other Israeli Human Rights groups (Gush Shalom; B’tselem; New Profile;

The Other Israel)

(c) Other

13. Are you linked to any of these groups? If yes, how does this benefit you?

(a) By maintaining an acceptable link with the Jewish homeland?

111

(b) By increasing your contact with Israeli Jews of a like-mind, i.e. reducing personal isolation.

(c) By increasing feelings of contributing to a cause you believe in.

(d) Other

112

APPENDIX C LETTER OF INVITATION

Dear ………… I have been given your name by [Brenda – contact person] as someone who may be interested in participating in the above research that I plan to be conducting over the last 3 weeks of May. I would like to personally invite you to participate in this research which is focussed on Jewish peace activists and the reconciliation of Jewish identity in view of the silencing of dissent in the wider Jewish community. I think that [Brenda] has emailed you the relevant Information Sheet and the

Questionnaire for your information. If you agree to be involved in this research project I can send you the hard copy of these documents by ordinary mail. I plan to audiotape the interview. At that time I will also ask you for the names of any other Jewish peace activists that you think might be interested in being involved in this research. If you have any questions not covered in the Information Sheet please feel free to

contact me, either by email margfshalom@iprimus.com.au or by phone: (07) 3254-0592 Mobile: 0405 627 177 Hoping to hear from at your earliest convenience.

Best wishes,

Margot Salom

(Candidate for Masters of Philosophy)

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APPENDIX D CONSENT FORM

Respondents/participants

I have read the Information Sheet for Respondents concerning the research study entitled “Peace Activism and the Negotiation of Jewish Identity in the Australian Jewish Community.”

PLEASE CIRCLE AS APPROPRIATE: I understand the nature of the project and

(a) give agreement to participate in this study

(b) decline to participate in this study. I understand that all information collected will remain completely confidential and understand that participation in this study is voluntary and that I have the right to decline and/or withdraw from this project if I decide to do so. I am aware that this study has been cleared by the human ethics committee of the University of Queensland (in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council’s guidelines.) I also understand that I am free to discuss my participation in this study with the project supervisor (Dr. Zlatko Skrbis, Tel: (07) 3365 3176) or the associate supervisor, (Dr. John Bradley, (07) 3365-2980) or with the University of Queensland Ethics Officer on (07) 3365 3924.

NAME OF PARTICIPANT: (PLEASE PRINT) ……………………………………………………

SIGNATURE OF PARTICIPANT: ……………………………………………………

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