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OpinionAustralia

The questions we need to ask  

Gen26, the communal survey which opens next month, needs to ask difficult questions about whether Jews consider themselves Zionist and whether they feel represented by communal bodies.  
Nomi Kaltmann
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I was very pleased to read that the Gen26 survey of Jewish community attitudes will open in April. Since 2008, demographers at Monash University in conjunction with the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisations have conducted nationwide surveys across Australia’s community to provide detailed data about the Jewish community in Australia. 

So, I hope that the Gen26 survey this year asks the hard questions, in particular those that will assess whether our mainstream peak federal bodies, like the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), actually represent the views of a majority of Australian Jews. 

The deepest tensions in Australian Jewish life today are not primarily about synagogue affiliation or even Jewish school enrolments, but rather about the widening gap between institutional narratives about who speaks for our Jewish community and who represents the majority of Australian Jews.  

In recent years newer groups have emerged and insist that Australian Jewish institutions like the ECAJ and ZFA do not speak for them. In response, there has been a massive fight between mainstream community bodies and these newer groups, with each accusing the other of not representing the majority of Australian Jews. 

Since October 7, there has been a profound rupture in our community between Zionist and non-Zionist Jews, and time and time again leaders within our peak bodies have reassured us that groups like the Jewish Council of Australia are loud but unrepresentative, a small and marginal fringe. Perhaps theyare. Or perhaps, they actually represent a larger slice of our Jewish community than many assume. 

Imagine the credibility our mainstream bodies would have if they could rest their claims on clear, rigorous national data collected by the Gen26 survey. 

The same logic applies on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Mainstream Jewish institution frequently describe the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) as representing a small, far-right segment of the community. Yet again, I suspect this supposed fringe may in fact be larger than expected.

The truth, is that we have never really tested these claims through robust national data. 

Since October 7, it seems that we are living through a polarising time. The space for moderate positions in vanishingly small, and the extremes on both the right and left have been growing rapidly. Like all Jews, I want to know where the majority of our Aussie community sits. I suspect that Australia’s Jewish community may be far more radically dispositioned on both the right and left than the peak mainstream bodies would like to admit.  

In both the Gen08 and Gen17 surveys the demographers include Israel-related questions, but they tended to be indirect, asking respondents to rate emotional attachment to Israel or describe how important Israel was to a person’s Jewish identity.  

While I can see how these are valuable measures, similar questions in Gen26 would not capture the sharper political and ideological distinctions that now exist in communal discourse in Australia since October 7. 

What Gen26 needs, therefore, are questions that are clear, direct, and capable of producing definitive data. For example, instead of asking Australian Jews only about emotional attachment to Israel, Gen26 could include a straightforward identity classification question such as: 

Which of the following best describes your current view? 

• I consider myself a Zionist 
• I feel generally supportive of Israel but do not identify with the term Zionist 
• I feel neutral or uncertain 
• I feel critical of Zionism 
• I consider myself anti-Zionist 

A question framed like this would provide the kind of clarity our community has never actually had about where a majority of Australian Jews stand on Israel in a post October-7 world. 

Similarly, rather than asking vaguely about satisfaction with Australian Jewish communal life, Gen26 could more precisely assess how Australian Jews feel about our peak representative bodies. For example, Gen26 could ask: 

How well do you feel mainstream Jewish representative organisations reflect your views on major public issues? 

• Very well 
• Fairly well 
• Neither well nor poorly 
• Not very well 
• Not at all well 

Another useful question might be: 

Do you believe a wide range of political perspectives can be openly expressed within the Australian Jewish community without social or professional consequences? 

• Yes, fully 
• Mostly 
• Unsure 
• Mostly not 
• Not at all 

I would like to think our peak bodies are broadly representative, but I suspect that if questions like this were asked directly in Gen26, we might receive answers that significantly reshape our understanding of where the majority of our community actually sits.  

If Gen26 avoids questions capable of assessing how many Australian Jews identify as Zionist or anti-Zionist, how well our peak bodies represent Australian Jews and how Aussie Jews perceive their ability to speak critically on different political issues, it risks producing a beautifully designed and methodologically rigorous study that nevertheless fails to address the core issues that matter most to our community at this particular moment in communal life. 

I do not bring forth these proposed questions to stir the pot. I deeply admire the work of the demographers involved, whose earlier studies gave us extremely valuable insight into patterns of affiliation, migration, education, religious practice, and identity among Australian Jews. I also recognise that it is not easy to operate within a communal environment that is understandably cautious about asking questions that may surface uncomfortable truths. 

But since October 7, with our community visibly fragmenting and newer organisations on both the political right and left insisting that the mainstream does not represent them, we deserve to know, with certainty based on evidence, not assumptions, who actually speaks for Australian Jews and where the majority of opinion truly lies. 

There is, I suspect, a reluctance or fear that asking such questions in Gen26 might reveal a community that is more internally divided, more politically complex, and less institutionally aligned than we have long assumed. Equally, it is entirely possible that the data will confirm that our peak bodies do, in fact, reflect the views of most Australian Jews. 

If Gen26 is to live up to its promise of informing the future of Australian Jewish life, it must be willing not only to count us, but to understand us, even when the answers complicate the stories we have told about ourselves for years. 

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About the author

Nomi Kaltmann

Nomi Kaltmann

Nomi Kaltmann is an Australian lawyer and journalist. Her writing has appeared in major Australian and international publications including Crikey, Griffith Review, Mamamia, Tablet Magazine, The Australian Financial Review, The Daily Beast, The Forward, The Guardian, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency and The Spectator. She regularly appears on radio and podcasts to discuss Australia’s Jewish community, including NPR (USA), CBC (Canada), LBC (London), Call Me Back, Unholy: Two Jews on the News, SBS and The Times of Israel. An influential Orthodox feminist leader and founding president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA Australia), she is a sought-after speaker on religion, interfaith and contemporary Jewish life.

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