Chantal Abitbol
JCS appeal chairman Stephen Green. Photo: AJN file
SYDNEY’S Jewish leaders are calling the terrorist attack on Mumbai’s Chabad House a “wake-up call” and are renewing calls for the community to donate to an ongoing security capital appeal aimed at upgrading the physical protection of Jewish communal sites.
Within days of the coordinated attacks late last month that left 172 people dead in the city -– including the couple who ran the Chabad centre, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg -– the Council for Jewish Community Security NSW (JCS), which launched the appeal in September, said it had seen a spike in donations, but the $20 million target was still a long way off.
“Fundraising could always be better. So far, the appeal is halfway towards its target,” JCS appeal chairman Stephen Green told The AJN.
“If people have hesitated, now is the time for them to commit.”
One of the causes leading to the community’s lacklustre response, organisers said, is the current global economic crisis.
Perhaps more troubling, according to Jewish Security Capital Appeal executive director Ken Lander, is that people don’t appear to be taking the threat seriously.
“We’ve had difficulty in some quarters convincing people that the terrorist threat is real … notwithstanding the endorsements of the Commonwealth and NSW governments, and the NSW Police,” he said.
“It’s the Australian way [to say] ‘It’s not going to happen. She’ll be right, mate.’
“What Mumbai has demonstrated is that terrorists specifically went out to target a soft Jewish target.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president Robin Margo said the Mumbai attacks “underline the necessity and urgency of our community’s security capital appeal”.
