The Ark

The Australian Jewish News celebrates 110 years this year. Editor, Dan Goldberg, comments on the independent newspaper that has occasionally conflicted with religious authorities.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Rachael Kohn: Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn and this is The Ark on ABC Radio National.

For over 100 years the Australian Jewish community has been served by an independent newspaper. 'A biographical and authentic record in the interests of Judaism' was the subtitle of The Hebrew Standard, the Jewish newspaper that today bears the name, The Australian Jewish News. A mirror of the community, it reflects the common interests and the conflicts that are grist to its mill. But the challenges which the current editor, Dan Goldberg, faces were there right from the beginning.

Dan Goldberg: Way back in 1842 the Jewish press was opened, and albeit, it was short-lived, but the Jewish community in this country were one of the first to launch an ethnic press. But The Australian Jewish News itself, as a continually publishing newspaper, began in November 1, 1895, and it was called The Hebrew Standard of Australasia, and Alfred Harris was its founder.

As I understand it, he had as most have, an agenda, an idea, a raison d'etre for launching the newspaper which was I guess that he understood that previous attempts had been made and had failed, and he thought he could succeed. But he was very closely tied in with the, I say, established community at the time; but remember, we're talking here 110 years ago, there weren't very many Jews in the country, there were about 10,000 all up nationally, and in actual fact, contrary to the status of Australian Jewry today, in those days many of the Jews lived in rural areas, places like Eden and so forth.

Rachael Kohn: Did they need a newspaper to feel linked as a community?

Dan Goldberg: I would suspect that that would have been one of the reasons, although you would think that in those days, with transport and so forth, it wouldn't have been that easy to distribute the newspaper to far-flung places.

You know, today we call ourselves the glue that binds the whole of Australian Jewry; in those days it would have been a bit more difficult, but certainly they felt that there was a critical mass, enough people to warrant establishing a newspaper.

Rachael Kohn: Well in those days Sydney's Great Synagogue which was founded in 1878 was modelled on the London synagogue. Was that fondness for British culture reflected in The Hebrew Standard?

Dan Goldberg: Absolutely, and in actual fact the Chief Minister of the Great Synagogue, Francis Cohen, from 1904 for 29 years had his sermon published in The Hebrew Standard every week and in actual fact on the first edition of The Hebrew Standard, the rabbi's sermon was on the front page.

So there was a clear nexus between the newspaper and the Great Synagogue. And in actual fact the Great Synagogue was one could say at that time, the bastion, certainly of Sydney Jewry, in the sense that it wasn't just a synagogue, it was a meeting place. It also looked after the burial society at the time, and it had influence throughout the community.

Rachael Kohn: Well that would have meant Francis Cohen, who I gather was a real, loyal, British patriot, would have had an immense impact, I suppose on the tone of the paper.

Dan Goldberg: Absolutely. And again, we're back 110 years ago where the local zeitgeist was entirely different vis a vis, let's say, issues about Palestine for example.

Rachael Kohn: Well he was not sympathetic to Palestine, was he?

Dan Goldberg: Indeed not, and of course the great Sir Isaac Isaacs, who was the first-ever Jewish and Australian-born Governor General, was an avowed anti-Zionist, and that was reflected in the pages of the newspaper. In fact as the newspaper grew, Sir Isaac had increasing influence on the newspaper, and he got his message out.

Rachael Kohn: Well Sir Isaac Isaacs was really part of that early period in the 20th century, when Australian Jews were making a mark. Sir John Monash, for example was the victorious commander in World War 1. Now at that time, the editorship changed to Jonah Marks; was that a period perhaps of greater risks being taken? Did it become more independent?

Dan Goldberg: The newspaper we like to believe, certainly today, was independent in the first place even though there was this nexus with the Great Synagogue. But clearly the meaning of the word 'independent' has changed over the years.

Today we are one of the truly last few independent Jewish newspapers in the world. But yes, I think you're right, that the link between the newspaper and the Great Synagogue was much stronger in the early, early years, and slowly that link dissipated somewhat. And I think that's also a function of the growth of the community and a certainty that people felt in themselves and in being able to say what they think without being pressured or lobbied to support the Great Synagogue or to support other organisations or institutions.

Rachael Kohn: Well how did the lead-up to World War II affect the paper, given that Mother Britain was now turning German-Jewish refugees away from the British mandated Jewish national home in Palestine. How did that affect the issue of Zionism?

Dan Goldberg: The war in and of itself was obviously a critical point in the development of Australian Jewry.

First of all, and I'll go into how it affected the newspaper in a minute, but prior to the war, Australian Jewry was made up of predominantly Anglo-Jews, and they asserted their...I guess, the Anglicised community here in Australia, was the bedrock of their understanding and their culture and their knowledge. So that set a tone for this community here, which to a degree still resonates today.

But the war was a watershed in this community because as we know the survivors came here in massive numbers, and all of a sudden the Anglo community were greeted with a whole new community who had different cultures, different norms, different expectations, and also a huge historical legacy from the war that they brought with them. And in terms of the newspaper that was witnessed, that was felt and seen in the pages of the newspaper because the Melbourne newspaper which the Rubenstein family were largely responsible for from the '30s, the Yiddish edition started, and that was brought in from the Europeans.

Rachael Kohn: So reflecting the Yiddish speaking survivors who had come from Poland and Russia?

Dan Goldberg: Exactly so. Here you had a situation where all of a sudden the publishers of the newspaper realised that there was a culture and a market, and fundamentally a language which people spoke, that they could turn into a newspaper. And for 60 years, every single week Di Oistralishe Yiddeshe Nayess, the only Yiddish language newspaper in the country, was published. And sadly I guess, reflective of the dwindling numbers of Yiddish, because in '95 it wound up. But at that time in the '30s it began, and of course it increased and as survivors came from Poland and from Hungary and from Europe.

Rachael Kohn: Was that the major difference between the Melbourne Jewish community paper and the Sydney one? Was there more of a reflection of Yiddish culture in the Melbourne one?

Dan Goldberg: I think it's fair to say that there was more, but the Yiddish paper was also brought to Sydney. Of course, the way that people distinguish between the two communities, is that the large Polish survivor community went to Melbourne and the Hungarian survivor community came to Sydney, so you have Little Budapest and Little Bialystok, as it were, and they have different nuances and different cultures and different expectations I guess.

Rachael Kohn: Well when the Sydney paper, The Hebrew Standard became the Australian Jewish Times, that signalled something of a change in attitude didn't it? Because it moved away from that archaic British notion of the Hebrew, and now Jews proudly announced their Jewishness.

Dan Goldberg: I think that's a very good point. The masthead of any newspaper is significant, and the Jewish Times for the first time had the word 'Jewish' in it, and it was openly and proudly the Australian Jewish Times and it lasted for almost 3 decades in that name. The Klein family, Louis Klein, bought the paper in '68 and radically changed it and raised the bar on the newspaper and really set the standard (pardon the pun).

I think by that time, by the time that the immigrants had arrived here, so now we're talking late '50s, early '60s, the Australian Jewish community had gathered steam, gathered momentum; it was no longer a monolithic community of Anglos, it was multicultural in its own sense. There were people arriving from other places as well, and it was growing.

Rachael Kohn: Indeed. From Iran, from Iraq, from India, all over the place. Well when the Melbourne-based Australian Jewish News and the Sydney-based Australian Jewish Times merged in 1987, do you think it was tough to get those two separate communities to think together as one?

Dan Goldberg: Yes, but the architects of the deal, Richard Pratt, who bought the paper at that time, and was largely instrumental in the merger, was wise enough to understand that Sydney and Melbourne Jewry were different in so many ways, so many nuances, so many differences, as we've discussed before, the Poles and the Hungarians and so forth, and therefore they kept two editions of the newspaper. So even though they merged the mastheads and made The Australian Jewish News one masthead, they kept a Sydney edition and a Melbourne edition, two offices, and still to this day we do.

Rachael Kohn: Well it's not only the Melbourne and Sydney split, but the Jewish community is diverse in many other ways. How challenging has it been for the newspaper to maintain a commitment to independence even if covering certain issues means that one has to reveal the conflicts within the community?

Dan Goldberg: It's a daily struggle and it's fundamentally premised on the fact that we are unique in the sense that we are at the same time an independent newspaper, but we are also a community newspaper, and the pressures of being a community newspaper means that we have the health and wellbeing and welfare of the community at heart. But at the same time as an independent newspaper, we believe that the community, the public, have a right to know, and that we should not censor any of the news and we should not even dilute the news for them. And so therefore, almost on a daily basis, we are lobbied by everyone, from all walks of the community, be they religious, secular, left, right, political, Zionist, non-Zionist.

Rachael Kohn: So nobody knows the Jewish lobby as well as The Australian Jewish News knows it?

Dan Goldberg: You said that, not me. But you could argue absolutely. Look, I don't mean it in a sinister way, let's not exaggerate the word 'lobby', but everybody has a vested interest. So for example, there is a lot of politics going on in the Sydney Jewish community for example at the moment over two issues. One is a battle between the Jewish National Fund and the United Israel Appeal. It's a turf war, it's about politics, it's about fund-raising, it's about egos essentially. And there's another war going on in the Orthodox world in Sydney over the school, the Kesatora???? school which is the ultra-Orthodox school, which two days ago had an AGM where they voted to amend their constitution, and the Sydney Beth Din, which is the Jewish High Court, at the eleventh hour, issued an injunction to prevent them from taking the vote, and the school decided in any case to take the vote and won overwhelmingly.

Now ordinarily if somebody were to reject the advice of the Sydney Beth Din, the Jewish High Court, that's one thing, but for the ultra-Orthodox community to reject a ruling, not advice, a ruling by their own High Court, that is a massive statement, and so I have been inundated and these two stories are in this week's Australian Jewish News. I've been inundated this week with phone calls from people from all corners, with all agendas, trying to influence their position, and that's the way it is.

Rachael Kohn: Gosh. Well one of the stories that preceded your arrival as Editor was the issue of Jews in the Gay Mardi Gras.

Dan Goldberg: Yes. It was in 2000, I was actually working at the time in the Melbourne office of the newspaper, Vic Alhadeff was my predecessor here in Sydney, but I remember it very well. What happened essentially was that the Editor, Vic Alhadeff, decided that because it was the first-ever Jewish float at a Mardi Gras, that he would run that photograph on the front page, and it sparked a furore in the community.

Immediately the Orthodox end of the community were outraged, the fact that in Leviticus homosexuality is basically outlawed, and for a Jewish newspaper not only to be promoting it but to be presenting it on the front page was an abomination to them, and they immediately launched a campaign which ended with, talking of the Jewish High Court, ended with the Sydney Beth Din, the High Court, ordering the Editor, Vic Alhadeff, to come to be reprimanded.

He in his wisdom, rightly I believe, declined and did not go, because this newspaper is independent, we are a Jewish newspaper, and we are not under the auspices of the Jewish High Court. But it created a line in the sand in a sense, because what happened was, there was a backlash, and all rational Jewish people from all walks of life, but modern Jewish, suddenly got up and wrote letters and campaigned and started defending the fact that whether or not you agree with gay Jews or not, that they shouldn't be shunned, that they shouldn't be marginalised, that they shouldn't be rubbed out or censored. And still to this day, that whole scenario resonates. And in actual fact only this week there's a columnist, one of our columnists has written on the gay issue.

Rachael Kohn: Dan Goldberg is the Editor of The Australian Jewish News which began operations 110 years ago this month.

Next week on The Ark, the fate of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal. That's The Ark, with me, Rachael Kohn.

Further Information

The Australian Jewish News
http://www.ajn.com.au/pages/history.html