ADAM KAMIEN

Todd Goldstein. Photo: Ben Weinstein

AFTER a strong finish to the 2010 season, it is clear that Todd Goldstein is part of new coach Brad Scott’s plans for the Kangaroos this year.

The 201-centimetre ruckman has featured heavily in North Melbourne Football Club’s eye-catching pre-season so far, including a gutsy win against reigning AFL premiers Geelong in the first round of he NAB Cup and a promising NAB Challenge win against the 2008 champion Hawthorn.

Goldstein’s form leading up to North Melbourne’s round one clash against Port Adelaide on March 28 has been solid, with the 22-year-old staking his claim to a spot in the side’s best 22.

“I don’t think I’ve really been this confident in myself before,” Goldstein told The AJN.

“I’m just hoping to cement a spot, get more confident and try to put consistent performances together. I didn’t do that in the first half of last year and that’s what kept me in and out of the side.”

A third-round pick for North Melbourne in 2006 National Draft, Goldstein played 13 senior games in 2009, including the last seven of the season. His breakout performance came against Melbourne in round 19, when the talented big man booted five goals, as well as taking 17 possessions, 17 hit outs and seven marks.

“I know that when I get do get picked that I can perform to the level that’s required. In the first few games I wasn’t really sure whether I deserved it or not, but once you start playing you get a bit more consistent and it really does make the difference.”

But with one of the most inexperienced lists in the AFL, Goldstein’s role at the club has expanded to include mentoring. In his fourth year at the club, Goldstein says he enjoys passing on some of the benefits of hi experience in the system.

“This is my fourth year now and third full pre-season so you do learn a lot in the first few years. If you look at the club we’ve got 32 players who have been drafted in the last four years, so we’ve got a lot of young blokes. I’m still seen as part of that young group, but you definitely pass on your experience to some of the boys and try to help them survive the rigours of AFL footy. It does get pretty hard and does become a bit of a grind if you’re not able to cope with it.”

CHANTAL ABITBOL

A government review into food label is likely to include kashrut in its focus.

KASHRUT authorities have “cautiously welcomed” a federal government-sponsored review of kosher labelling.

Currently being conducted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), the review is part of a sweeping evaluation of food labelling laws sparked by consumer concerns over inaccurate and inconsistent food labels.

A recently released issues paper by the COAG committee stated that there is “consumer desire for clarification of the terms”, including “kosher”.

Starting this week, the committee will kick off its consultation process, inviting submissions and conducting public meetings in capital cities across Australia and New Zealand until May 7. A final report is expected by early December.

Kashrut authorities were this week tentatively optimistic about the review.
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AJN STAFF

Australia's Foreign Minister said more construction in Jerusalem is not helpful to the peace process. Photo: AJN file

FOREIGN Minister Stephen Smith has criticised Israel’s decision to allow the building of more homes in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

Speaking to <I>Sky News<P> on Thursday, Smith called the decision, made on Tuesday, a “bad” one.

“I share the view that this is a bad decision at the wrong time,” he said. “It’s not a helpful contribution to the peace process. It’s not a helpful contribution to the very hard work that’s been going on behind-the-scenes, including from the United States, to try and get Israel and the Palestinian Authority together for so-called proximity talks.”

Approval for 1600 additional houses in the burgeoning area –  where media reports put the average household at seven or eight people – was given by Israel’s Interior Ministry. It is controversial because the building would be beyond the Green Line, but the Netanyahu Government said it never agreed to halt construction in Jerusalem.

The approval followed closely on the heals of United States Vice President Joe Biden’s express support for new, indirect peace talks during a visit to Israel this week. That support is based on the cessation of settlement building in the Palestinian territories. Read the full story

DALIA SABLE

Lion FM will soon be broadcast into Melbourne.

MELBOURNE’S Jewish community is set to have its very own radio station after a temporary licence was granted to Melbourne Jewish Radio.

But it has been no easy feat for the station, named Lion FM, with the founding committee having engaged in a long and arduous application process with the Australian Communication Media Authority (ACMA).

“The application process was extremely difficult and many times people probably counted us out. I have a belief that nothing worthwhile in life comes easily and sometimes you need to dig in and fight for something,” Melbourne Jewish Radio secretary Stephen Fennell told The AJN.

“Some 18 months after we began this process, here we are about to begin our maiden broadcast. This is such a great achievement for the community.”

Expected to be broadcasting full time within the next six weeks, Lion FM will cater to different listening groups. It will include a mix of news and current affairs, light entertainment, music and special interest programs.
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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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Orthodox ceremony under the chuppah. Photo: AJN file

NAOMI LEVIN

ORTHODOX rabbis have met with Jewish women’s rights advocates to discuss the anomaly of agunot — women whose husbands will not grant them a Jewish divorce.

The meeting was held in Melbourne last week between the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) and the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia (NCJWA) – and the person who brought them together was Israeli lawyer Sharon Shenhav, an advocate for women’s justice within Jewish law.

Following the meeting, Shanhav told The AJN she was pleased that local rabbis are taking the plight of agunot seriously through the recent introduction of pre-nuptial agreements.

“Agunot are absolutely still relevant and a problem,” she said of the phenomenon, which has lasted for centuries.

She heard from the rabbis, who represented Chabad, Mizrachi and modern Orthodox congregations, that the pre-nuptial agreements — which must be strongly recommended to all couples married by an Orthodox rabbi in Victoria — have been issued more than 600 times already, with only one couple expressing disagreement with the document.
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US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell. Photo: AJN file

WASHINGTON — US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell has announced the start of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mitchell will broker the indirect talks, which over the next few weeks will have him shuttling between the Palestinian territories and Israel.

“We’ve begun to discuss the structure and scope of these talks, and I will return to the region next week to continue our discussions,” Mitchell, who has been in the area since March 6, said in a statement released Monday afternoon (March 8).

“As we’ve said many times, we hope that these will lead to direct negotiations as soon as possible.”

The Palestinians have refused to engage in direct talks until Israel places a freeze on all settlement construction, including eastern Jerusalem. Israel has only partially frozen settlement expansion.

On March 8 Israel announced approval for the construction of 112 new apartments in a West Bank settlement, a move that angered Palestinians who had just agreed to the new round of indirect talks.

Mitchell addressed the concerns in his statement. Read the full story

AJN STAFF

WHEN news broke that the passports of three Australians had allegedly been forged as part of the al-Mabhouh assassination, all eyes turned to Melbourne, where the three came from.

Although all now live in Israel, Joshua Bruce, Nicole McCabe and Adam Korman were all born -– and the former two educated -– locally.

Bruce, a graduate of Leibler Yavneh College, spent a year in Israel after finishing high school in 1998.

He later returned to the Jewish State, settling and spending the past seven years learning at an Orthodox yeshivah.

Bruce’s mother Sarah told the media she was “totally surprised” that her son’s passport had been used fraudulently.
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A page from one of the machzors, which date back to the early 18th and 19th centuries.

NAOMI LEVIN

TWO ancient prayer books have made their way out of hiding in Hungary and into Yad Vashem’s archives – via Australia.

Melbourne couple Andrew and Erica Romer were following in the footsteps of Erica’s Hungarian ancestors, when they happened across the books more than 20 years ago.

In a story that sounds like a Hollywood cliche, they met an old friend of the family who gave them the ancient machzors (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayer books).

Honoured to receive the responsibility of looking after the historical books, the Romers kept them safely in their home before meeting a Yad Vashem executive, who suggested they donate them to the Holocaust museum.

The tale began during the couple’s visit to Budapest in 1989, when they visited an old Orthodox synagogue in the city’s backstreets.
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Mat Sherwin in action.

ADAM KAMIEN

MATT Sherwin is in the top handful of club cyclists in Victoria. He has consistently been at the peak of the A-grade competition in recent years, and is a walk-up start at any club in the state.

So his choice to saddle up for the fledgling Maccabi Cycling Club (MCC) is remarkable.

His decision wasn’t based on the standard of cyclists at the Maccabi club -– there are few riders that can go with him –- nor was it a choice based on prestige or resources.

MCC is a club on the move. It is one of the fastest-growing Maccabi clubs and while it has been developing exponentially since its inception late last year -– thanks to an explosion in the sport’s popularity among Melbourne Jews –- it is still very much in its infancy.

In fact, Sherwin’s motivation for choosing Maccabi isn’t really based on competition at all.

“Cycling offers so much more than a competitive element,” Sherwin told The AJN.
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