Yom Kippur thoughts

Rabbi Raymond Apple shares his thoughts. Read more

May you live in interesting times

Wrongly attributed as a Chinese curse, this “blessing” is more relevant than ever as Jews prepare to welcome a New Year. Read more

Dry Bones: These days

These days Read more

An open letter to Thomas Friedman

Dear Mr. Friedman, Read more

Nazi salute ban is just part of ridding our society of hate symbols

With welcome news that legislation in Victoria has now banned the “Nazi Salute” a new standard has been set for Victorian and Australian society…writes Perry Q. Wood. Read more

Podcast: L’Chaim to Life – Jason Steinberg – Brisbane’s Queensland Holocaust Museum and Education Centre

Morry Frenkel speaks with Jason Steinberg, President of the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies and Board Chair of the recently opened Queensland Holocaust Museum and Education Centre, about the history and aims of the museum. Read more

Welcome to Country Ceremony needed to re-unite Israelis

The introduction by Israel of a Welcome to Country ceremony – similar to that which has existed in Australia since 1973 – could be just the circuit-breaker needed to reunite a bitterly divided Israeli society – as all 15 judges of Israel’s Supreme Court ponder the issue of judicial reform on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. Read more

Carmina Burana-Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Orchestra

A music review by Shirley Politzer Read more

From Australia’s Jewish Past: Rosalind Philippa Phillips (Linda Phillips) – Composer, journalist, music critic and musician

Linda was born in Melbourne on 8 June 1899 to Joseph – of Russian descent – and Augusta Phillips. Read more

NYT ignores Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution at its peril

The continuing failure of The New York Times (NYT) to inform its readers of the existence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) in the fifteen months since its first publication on 8 June 2022 breaches the solemn pledge made to NYT readers in 1996. Read more

Teshuvah is for everyone

No moment in Jewish history was as breathtaking as the revelation at Sinai. Read more

Feintooner

This week’s cartoon: Little Authority of Horrors Read more

The cruel lessons of the Oslo debacle remain unlearned

We’ve seen this movie before. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas says something awful and antisemitic. Read more

The utopian Jewish life of ‘You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah’

This week, I joined fellow Jewish educators, tweens, and countless other Jews and Jew-curious Netflix binge-watchers and entered into the world of middle-school drama and coming-of-age angst encapsulated in “You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah”…writes Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath. Read more

Dry Bones: Another Soros

Alex Soros seems to be more George Soros-y than his father. Who knows what he’s capable of doing with all that money? Read more

You Don’t Have To Be Jewish

Veteran West End theatre couple Linal Haft and Buster Skeggs will return to the stage together for the Australian premiere of the legendary musical sketch comedy revue You Don’t Have To Be Jewish. Read more

On the other hand

Customer service in Israel has in the past been a rather patchy affair. Read more

Death of a Salesman

A Melbourne theatre review by Alex First Read more

Tubular Bells for Two

A  music review by Alex First Read more

A Nazi speech in Ramallah tells a much larger tale

Last Wednesday, a spat between Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch and Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan caused an international uproar. Read more

Musk vs. Greenblatt is the unspeakable vs. the uneatable

The cage fight now taking place between the U.S. Anti-Defamation League and the world’s richest man Elon Musk is, as Oscar Wilde might have observed, a contest between the unspeakable and the uneatable. Read more

Dry Bones: ‘Thomas the accuser’

In response to reports of progress in normalization talks between Jerusalem and Riyadh, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman begged U.S. President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to not allow themselves to become Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “useful idiots.” Read more

Days of pain and joy

We are now in the Jewish month of Elul. In the Northern Hemisphere, we say goodbye to the ‘lazy hazy crazy days of summer’, as the song goes. Pleasure is over, back to business. Read more

Shabbat Nitzavim and Vayeylech: Secrets

This week’s Torah includes this sentence. “The hidden ( secrets) belong to our God and the revealed things are for us and our children forever. To carry out all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 29:28). Read more

Nicola Benedetti performs Marsalis

An SSO review by Shirley Politzer Read more

Par for the course

The Jewish year may be winding down but Jews and Israel continue to dominate the news one way or another. Read more

Antisemitism won’t be stopped by censoring Musk’s X

Elon Musk may have thought that he was being shaken down by the American Anti-Defamation League. Read more

Debunking the Palestinian statehood myth, one fact at a time

There has been so much discussion and debate within Australian Federal Politics lately, particularly within sections of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) about the inevitability, legitimacy, and recognition of “a Palestinian State within pre-1967 borders” that I felt compelled to set the record straight in relation to what I consider to be some critical historical falsehoods and myths being regularly espoused and circulated to support such claims. Enough is enough. Read more

From Australia’s Jewish Past: Joan Mavis Rosanove – a trail blazing Australian lawyer

Joan was born in Ballarat, Victoria, on 11 May 1896 to Mark Lazarus, a barrister and solicitor, and his wife Ruby. Read more

Want to know about the cantor’s prayer in the Rosh Hashanah service?

Read more

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