SAM LIPSKI

“I stand here before you, as the President of the State of Israel, the home of the Jewish people.”

THIS is how Shimon Peres began his speech in Hebrew to the German Bundestag on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2010. This simple declarative sentence made Jewish history.

We live in an age marked by the loss of historical memory. One result is that the word “historic” has lost virtually all meaning. Television newsreaders tell their viewers who can’t remember last night’s news – let alone last week’s – of “historic” and “unprecedented” happenings that will be forgotten by the next bulletin.
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SAM LIPSKI

WHO remembers Joseph Gentilli’s prediction about the Jews of Australia? Who recalls the riddle of the lily pond? And what’s the connection between the two questions and Australian Jewry in 2020?

Gentilli was an Australian-Jewish demographer who, in 1945, and in the shadow of the Holocaust, predicted that by the 21st century there would be virtually no Jews in Australia.
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SAM LIPSKI

ALL I want for Chanukah is a fluffy doughnut with lots of jam throughout, not just a shmir in the centre. I’d also welcome a good seminar on the history of post-Maccabean Judea.

Oh, and one more thing: I don’t want to see a chanukiah alongside Christmas decorations, a tree, or plastic replicas of Santa Claus. Not in a shopping centre, a bank, or a market.
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SAM LIPSKI

YOU’VE heard of “Save the Whale” campaigns and now, if Sunday’s 60 Minutes is correct, “Save the Dolphins” is the next big thing.

But it’s time for AJN readers to focus on “Save the Deli” -– a campaign to be launched this weekend in New York.
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SAM LIPSKI

“Anyone who saves a single soul, it is considered as if he has saved an entire world.”(The Rambam in Hilchot Sanhedrin 12:3, thus following the Talmud Yerushalmi’s reading 4:1[22a].)

“Blessed is He who has given of His wisdom to humanity.”(The Jewish blessing to God on meeting a great non-Jewish scholar.)

A VERY great and blessed man died this week in Dallas, Texas. Indeed, I regard him as the greatest man of our time. He did not save one soul, but a billion of them. And those of countless generations to come. Entire worlds indeed.
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SAM LIPSKI

“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, 2002.

AS Australian Jews, and here is a generalisation if ever there was one, we have more than our fair share of mavens about the Jewish community.
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SAM LIPSKI

LET’S restate an axiom for Israel’s political and military leaders. A nuclear-armed Iran, something that could happen within one to two years, poses an existential threat to Israel. Despite the upheavals in Teheran’s streets since the Iranian presidential election, the nuclear threat will remain. All the key players in the Iranian “opposition” are just as committed to a nuclear future as the “establishment”.

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By SAM LIPSKI

IT was Mark Twain who said: “Everybody’s always complaining about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.” We could say the same about our Jewish day schools and the many families who struggle to afford the fees.

So three cheers for Rabbi James Kennard’s courage (AJN 22/05) in at least doing something about it. He has “committed truth” about the financial and structural crisis facing our day schools. And in going public, particularly now when the economic times are tough, he’s done the community a great service. Read the full story

By SAM LIPSKI

A FEW weeks have now passed since Malcolm Turnbull made history, but nobody seems to have noticed. So on behalf of those who love Yiddish, Anglish and Yinglish, I’d like to make up for a failure to recognise a turning point in Australian culture.

On March 7, 2009, Turnbull became the first Australian Leader of the Opposition to refer to a prime minister in print as “chutzpahdik” i.e. as someone who displays” chutzpah”, another more frequently sighted word, which Turnbull also used. Read the full story

By SAM LIPSKI

BLISS was it in that dawn to be alive”. My heart leapt early one morning this week as I read the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) headline: “Manischewitz promises a Passover with Tim Tams”. Could this be true? The inimitable Aussie biscuit, already kosher in Israel and gaining popularity daily, was about to set a new record as a kosher cookie.

Having conquered the tastebuds of Israel Defence Forces soldiers who reportedly dunk them in tea, which they then sip through the aerated holes, Tim Tams would now adorn the seder table. And why not? After all, an American company owns the Tim Tam maker, the once-iconic Australian Arnotts, and if ever there was a biscuit (cookie) that would sweep the United States coast to coast, this is the one. Read the full story