Professor David Abramson and artist ZsuZsi Hartman at Blake Street Hebrew Congregation. Photo: Peter Haskin

AJN STAFF

AN amateur leadlighter and a Jewish artist have teamed up to complete 10 colourful stained glass windows at Blake Street Hebrew Congregation in Melbourne.

The windows, which reflect Jewish and Israeli themes, were created by synagogue committee member Professor David Abramson together with ZsuZsi Hartman.

The project took three years, with Hartman coming up with the artistic concept and Prof Abramson, a computer science expert at Monash University, putting the windows together.

Prof Abramson said both he and Hartman learned a lot during the process – “she learned a lot about the physical limitations of glass, and I learned a lot about design and colour”.

The windows will be officially unveiled at Blake Street Hebrew Congregation on April 10.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Photo: AJN file

IN recognition of the first anniversary of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, AHRON SHAPIRO evaluates its performance on key issues.

GOVERNMENT FORMATION

Binyamin Netanyahu formed Israel’s 32nd government on March 31, 2009, after the forming agreements between the Likud, Yisrael Beitenu, Shas, Labour, Habayit Hayehudi parties. When United Torah Judaism joined the following day, the coalition reached 74 members, a number which is considered to be quite comfortable and stable by Knesset standards.

In particular, Netanyahu should be recognised for his ultimately futile attempt to bring Kadima onboard for a National Unity Government, and his successful effort to recruit Labour which continues to keep his coalition on a more even keel and impressively stable.
However, Netanyahu’s achievement in forming such a wide government must be tempered by the criticism that he gave away a lot of perks in order to achieve it. The current cabinet is the largest in the country’s history, is comprised of 30 ministers and nine deputy ministers.
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CHANTAL ABITBOL

Hebrew University of Jerusalem's emeritus professor of Holocaust Studies, Yehuda Bauer, speaking at Sydney's Mandelbaum House. Photo: David Gross

A FINAL peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians would not eliminate the rising levels of western anti-Semitism, according to pre-eminent Holocaust scholar Professor Yehuda Bauer.

“Analyses show reasonably clearly that what is being attacked is Israel as a Jewish state, not just as another state, and that the current conflict serves as a trigger that releases people from a politically correct attitude of opposing anti-Semitism,” the academic said in Sydney last week.

The reason for this, he said, is because anti-Semitism is not only a prejudice, but also a “historically ingrained cultural phenomenon” in the Christian-Muslim world that exists latently and can be aroused by a conflict such as the current one in the Middle East.

Prof Bauer, a past winner of the prestigious Israel Prize and professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is currently touring Australia. He will be the keynote speaker at Monash University’s upcoming Holocaust Aftermath Conference on March 14 and 15.

Speaking at Sydney’s Mandelbaum House last Thursday, he told the audience, including University of Sydney chancellor and NSW Governor Marie Bashir, that a multi-pronged approach is required to battle anti-Semitism, including the use of mass communication channels to present the “facts on the ground”.
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Assaf Drori in action during the final. Photo: Peter Haskin

AJN STAFF

FORMER Israeli ATP player Assaf Drori has won the Victorian Jewish Tennis Championships, which were held over the Labour Day weekend in Melbourne.

Drori defeated top grade-1 pennant player Asaf Nagar 7-6, 6-3 in the final on Monday at the Leon Haskin Tennis Centre in Bentleigh East.

Drori trained at the prestigious John Newcombe Tennis Academy in Texas in the early 1990s before going on to play Division 1 College Tennis on scholarship for the University of New Mexico and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

After graduating college, Drori joined the ATP and ITF (Israel’s roof tennis body), where he competed professionally for five years.

Josh Piterman (centre) and cast members from the new Australian production of West Side Story. Photo: Ingrid Shakenovsky

CHANTAL ABITBOL

PERFORMER Josh Piterman may be a good Jewish boy from the right side of the tracks, but he’ll soon be playing it tough when he stars as Tony in the upcoming Australian revival of the Leonard Bernstein classic, West Side Story.

On Monday, the rising star showed a glimpse of the towering vocals that landed him the part, when the musical’s director announced the young cast at Star City’s Lyric Theatre in Sydney.

It’s a quite a coup for the Melbourne-bred singer who, at the age of 24, will be headlining his first major musical production.

“It’s been my dream role since I can remember,” he told The AJN. “It’s musical theatre’s Romeo. I feel like the luckiest guy ever.”

The musical – set in New York in the 1950s and based on Shakespeare’s tale of two star-crossed lovers – will kick off a six-week run in Sydney on July 1. The production will then make its way to Melbourne, opening at the Regent Theatre from August 20, before embarking on a tour of the rest of the country.
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Chloe Beder, Amanda Rotberg and Judith Aldor celebrate Purim in Melbourne. Photo: Peter Haskin

PURIM fever swept Australia this week with schools and shuls hosting celebrations from Friday until Monday.

Mary Rothstein, pictured on her 106th birthday holding her wedding photograph from 1935. Photo: Peter Haskin/AJN file

DALIA SABLE

MARY Rothstein, who is believed to be Australia’s oldest Jew and possibly the world’s oldest Jew, will celebrate her 109th birthday on Saturday.

Born in Russia on February 27, 1901, Mrs Rothstein could possibly hold the international title of oldest Jew, following the death earlier this month of Switzerland’s Rosa Rein, a few weeks shy of her 113th birthday.

A high-care resident at Jewish Care, Mrs Rothstein is active and coherent, enjoying regular bingo and word games and participating in many of the activities on offer at Gary Smorgon House, where she recently moved from the Smorgon Nursing Home.

Twice a grandmother and six times a great-grandmother, Mrs Rothstein knows all her family by name and remembers the months of their birthdays.

Daughter Ruth Cavallaro credits her mother’s longevity to her active life, telling The AJN that her mother “was always on the go [and] loved to keep herself busy”.
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A scene from The Merchants of Bollywood, which is currently touring Australia.

ZEDDY LAWRENCE

WHILE we’re all familiar with the role played by Jewish movie moguls in building the American film industry -– with names such as Goldwyn and Meyer synonymous with the early days of western cinema –- less well chronicled is the contribution of Indian Jewry to Tinseltown’s equally successful Asian counterpart. And not just behind the camera, but on the big screen itself.

Stateside, of course, during Hollywood’s golden age, nice Jewish girls such as Theodosia Goodman and Betty Joan Perske were recreating themselves as all-American celluloid stars Theda Bara and Lauren Bacall.

As for the boys, Issur Demsky and Emanuel Goldenberg were reborn as Kirk Douglas and Edward G Robinson. However, it wasn’t just in Los Angeles that obviously Jewish names were being set aside by the acting elite.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the exotically named Sulochana, translated as “the beautiful-eyed one”, raked in the rupees as India’s highest paid movie actress.
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Professor Gerald Steinberg. Photo: Peter Haskin

AJN STAFF

PROFESSOR Gerald Steinberg rates the “soft-power” threat against Israel as high as the military threat posed by Iran, or by Hamas and Hezbollah.

The danger, which he called “the threat of demonisation and delegitimisation”, has become more visible since the release of the Goldstone Commission Report in September last year.

“It’s like a virus that is spreading and it is an enormous concern in Israel,” Prof Steinberg told The AJN, adding that the Goldstone report was the trigger that “made Israelis wake up”.

The president of NGO Monitor – a group that holds non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to account over their stance towards Israel – said he had noticed an increase in soft-power tactics by Israel’s enemies for a number of years.

Soft power includes propaganda, information campaigns and measures such as optional boycotts by trade unions, which attempt to influence outcomes without resorting to a military, or hard-power, campaign.
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A boy at the child education centre in the refugee camp in Haiti. Photo: Isranet

JERUSALEM – IsraAID has opened a child education centre in the Petionville Refugee Camp, the largest refugee camp in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

The centre is housed in tents donated by the Israel Defence Forces that had served the IDF field hospital. Up to 250 children at time can use centre.

The Israeli team is also providing medical-post trauma treatment to thousands of refugees in the camp, working closely with other agencies.

Since the earthquake hit Haiti, three IsraAID member teams have been operating in various locations in Port-au-Prince providing emergency medical aid, post trauma and relief distribution assistance.

ISRANET