Sunday, July 3, 2011

Open letter to Zeddy Lawrence editor of the Australian Jewish News

Zeddy,

While I agree you are most conciliatory to deal with on a personal level, the paper you edit is not very Jewish at all. Does it really represent the Jewish community? Certainly not the majority. The majority is not in favour of gay marriage as a basic human right, nor is it in favour of pandering to Muslim extremists. The Jewish News's reason for existence is not to serve Jews, Judaism, or the Jewish community, but to make a profit, even at all of our's expense, especially the frum. Unfortunately, it's like having a neurotic relative, and we are stuck with your paper as a forum to reach large numbers of Australian Jews with our messages, regardless if it represents our way of life and views or not. Do not mistake our (the silent majority's) reluctant participation in your paper as support of your editorials or perspective.

Ironic you say you  feel you were maligned in this blog when you are the editor of a paper that engages in diatribes, specifically against religious Jews, on a regular basis. Remember how the AJN besmirched Rabbi Engel from Adelaide, who by the way was found not guilty of all criminal charges. Why never any front page apology for that? Because he is Orthodox?

Your projection of the death of the Australian Jewish community should cause you to take stock of the paper's direction since the only faction of Jews in Australia that is growing and has a bright future is the Orthodox. Maybe you should stop biting the hand that can and will feed you?

As far as the coverage of Lion FM is concerned, I am happy you printed my letter but, I understand there were quite a number of other letters on my side of the fence that were not published. Still, my letter does not compensate for the biased and one sided reportage of the past year. Come one Zeddy, surely you can do better than this!