The recently formed Jewish Council of Australia – a strident critic of Israel – is accused by other Jewish groups of misleading people about who they represent.
As the war in Gaza threatens to escalate into a broader confrontation between Israel and Hamas’s state sponsor Iran, a fierce battle is raging within Australia’s Jewish community over identity, their relationship to Israel, antisemitism and who speaks to their concerns.
“I am not saying they shouldn’t be quoted but it should be clear who they represent and that they are not a mainstream Jewish organisation,” he said. Schwartz said the council was named, in part, to acknowledge its resonance with a historic, left-wing Australian Jewish organisation – the Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism. “We are a council of experts on racism and antisemitism.”
Beyond the three executive officers, the membership of the council is not publicly disclosed, although it publishes the membership of a separate advisory committee that includes publisher Louise Adler and lawyer Josh Bornstein. “This idea that someone is critical of Israel or Zionism is somehow antisemitic and that legitimate criticisms of Israel are being shut down by accusations of antisemitism is one of the reasons the council was formed,” Schwartz said.
On the same day, the Melbourne Law School building where Schwartz delivers lectures was plastered with anti-Israel stickers with a red cross through the Star of David. “When this initiative is described as the Jew haters council, I can’t but deduce that any suggestion that there’s a diversity of opinion is to be refuted.”
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