South Australia adopts the IHRA definition of antisemitism

July 8, 2022 by J-Wire Newsdesk
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As the elected representative peak body for Jewish South Australia, the Jewish Community Council of South Australia is pleased that the Legislative Council of South Australia recognised the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism on 7 July 2022.

Sarah Game

South Australia’s first Aboriginal Attorney General was personally present to vote on a motion that is important to the Jewish people.

Member of JCCSA Norman Schueler told J-Wire: “I was surprised when I found out that the Australian Jewish Association had approached a local member of Parliament about this motion.  AJA does not have an interest or representation in South Australia.”

Norman Schueler

The AJA used the services of One Nation MP Sarah Game to propose the recognition but the idea was not accepted universally by the parliament.

Both Norman Schueler who has considerable and longstanding connections with the SA parliament and JCCSA president Annetay Sapir-Henderson worked behind the scenes to get the proposal across the line.

Norman Schueler added: “Sarah initiated contact regarding introducing IHRA to SA Parliament. The JCC of SA had this item on their ‘ to do ‘ list but it was our intention to appraise Labor and Liberals post the March election with a view of achieving a joint approach.

As Sarah had commenced,  we worked together with her. I was impressed both by her enthusiasm and the genuineness of intentions. We look forward to working closely with her in the future.”
Sarah Game told J-Wire: “What is important to understand and needs to be clear is that actually the difficulty in getting this passed had very very little to do with me and the brand of One Nation. The difficulty getting it passed had to do with part of the Labor party not wanting it to go through.  There are members of the Labor party who did not want this motion accepted. The idea that I had to be rescued by Norman is in a way true but only because there are members of the Labor party who are absolutely against this motion. Norman was critical in influencing them.
I got half of Labor and the entire Liberal party on side. I wanted to do the right thing by the Jewish community here, despite it being small and despite enormous backlash directed towards myself.
David Adler told me about the IHRA motion but he didn’t ask me to do it. I looked into it and decided I wanted to do it. David never asked for any recognition, in fact he told me any mention of him was not necessary. I of course will always mention him in regards to this because that is the right thing to do. Norman has been very kind to me, he is local and knowledgeable and I have told him that I would very much appreciate his assistance and guidance with future matters which I understand he has agreed to.

Comments

One Response to “South Australia adopts the IHRA definition of antisemitism”
  1. david baden says:

    Congratulations to all those that worked so hard to achieve this result.

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