Ernie shortlisted as the NSW Senior of the Year
Ernie Friedlander continues his stellar work within the NSW Jewish community and other ethnic groups. Now, he has been appointed as one of three candidates for the NSW Senior Australian of the Year award.
Ernie Friedlander
All state division winners will be the Senior Australian of the Year nominees.
The NSW State winner will be announced on Monday, Nov 13th, and the national award will be named before Australia Day.
Austrian-born Ernie Friedlander has spent his life spreading peace. A Holocaust survivor, he uses his extraordinary story of being saved by a German soldier to help change attitudes towards racism and prejudice.
He founded the Moving Forward Together Association (MFTA), a Sydney-based social initiative to create better understanding.
After a 60 per cent spike in racist incidents early in the pandemic, the NSW Governor launched the Stop Racism Now campaign in 2021, teaching individuals how to combat racism. With their track record in designing effective programs to foster communal harmony, MFTA created the 2023 Stop Racism Now social media outreach campaign. It won the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Award for Community Campaign of the Year.
Now 88, Ernie received an Order of Australia in 2007 for his services in combatting prejudice and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors in 2022.
Ernie Friedlander arrived in Australia as a 15-year-old at the end of 1950.
In 1997, he became president of B’nai B’rith NSW and with others, he founded Courage to Care the following year.
Ernie established the Moving Forward Together Association in 2005, and in the following year, he was the man behind the Harmony Day Poster competition, which had over 4,000 entries this year.
2012 was the first year of Ernie’s creation of the Harmony Walk, followed up by a songwriting competition in 2015.
Ernie has been married for 61 years and has three children and five grandchildren.
Ernie told J-Wire: “I am honoured and humbled by seeing our proactive, inclusive and harmonious projects recognised. Most Australians will agree to give any individual a FAIR GO.”
I hope Ernie gets the award. He certainly deserves it.