Media must sort the wheat from the chaff when reporting Jewish advocacy groups

The haphazardness of who is approached, and the weight they are given, reflects a lack of judgment and care.

In the old days, though not necessarily the good old days, when the Australian media wanted a comment from advocacy groups in the Jewish community, they went to the accepted leadership and advocacy groups – that is, if those groups hadn’t already shared their views with them.

Those groups? The representative groups such as Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (NSW JBoD), Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV); and the advocacy groups who are not representative but have gained the ear of the media - the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) and the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)

There were always a lot of smaller groups, representing more specific perspectives, inhabiting the landscape. They rarely got much notice, rendered largely invisible by an “old media” world where journalists and advocates knew who was who, and by a relatively stable Israel-Palestine conflict.

But the advent of social media, a clutch of younger media gatekeepers, a severe lurch to the far-Right in Israel and rise of extremist, antisemitic groups have seen a new range of Jewish advocacy voices appear on the mainstream radar.

Some will welcome this as an overdue unbottling; others may look at it with dismay, concerned that these voices do not “represent” the mainstream Jewish community, if there is such a thing.

The past month has been a good example. When news broke in January that NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet had worn a Nazi uniform to his 21^st birthday party, Nine News went to the NSW JBoD but it also did a TV interview with Jews for Jesus, a small fringe group disconnected from other Jews, which has been around for years and seen widely as a source of humour but not much else.

Nine must have regretted the decision because it has taken down the interview and any links to the group.

Then there is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The heated debate over whether the IHRA definition will inhibit criticism of Israel by tainting it as antisemitic has generated substantial coverage in Jewish media. As various public institutions have adopted it, a number of smaller advocacy groups have become vocal in opposing the definition.

The Guardian reported last week (February 6) that a “coalition” of five groups sent a letter to university vice-chancellors urging them not to adopt the IHRA definition. The groups are the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS), Independent Australian Jewish Voices, Jews Against the Occupation, Loud Jews Collective and the Tzedek Collective.

It prompted this Tweet to the Guardian reporter from Josh Feldman, a community and Israel advocate: "You may want to note that the Jewish groups opposing IHRA comprise about 3 and a half Jews in Australia. Barely anyone in our community has heard of them."

Well, they are small, they are left-wing and they are not representative. But that should not disqualify them from entering and trying to shape public debate. The issue here is not that they were quoted but that the article did not give the position of the larger community bodies due prominence, so readers could properly assess the range of views within the Jewish community.

And then last week (February 9), The Australian reported that “the Indigenous voice to parliament debate has split Australia’s Jewish community, with prominent representative associations at odds over the referendum”.

The ADC and ECAJ have both publicly supported the Uluru statement from the Heart and the Voice but “the Australian Jewish Association ... condemned the actions of other Jewish bodies for supporting a Yes vote, saying it had “major concerns” on potentially “racist” amendments to the Constitution”.

The Australian described an apparent relevance contest between the ECAJ and AJA. “The Executive Council of Australian Jewry claims to be the officially elected representative organisation and voice of the Australian Jewish community … but the AJA claims to dominate when it comes to community engagement, attendance and social media presence,” its report said.

But there is no division between the Jewish representative groups over the Voice - because the AJA is not representative.

As The Jewish Independent has reported in detail, the AJA is a private, far-Right advocacy organisation that doesn’t recognise Palestinian rights to land. Although it is entitled to air its voice in the public square, it has done so by attempting to portray itself as a representative voice. This tactic has helped it make its way into the media mainstream – aided by a clever choice of name (Association) which implies it somehow represents other groups.

The list of Jewish advocacy groups mentioned in the examples above contains something to annoy people across all parts of the community. Voices from the hard Left, from the far Right and more.

At one level, the airing given to these groups outside the establishment bodies reflects the impact of change on the ground in Israel, Jewish life and political discourse. Indeed, The Jewish Independent was set up to “broaden the conversation” in debate about Israel, Australia and the Jewish world.

Diversity, in theory, is to be welcomed. And if it pushes the big boys into giving more acknowledgement of different views in the Jewish community, that would be a good thing.

But at a time when anyone can Tweet their views at will, or engineer a contrived photo opportunity, the media carries a special responsibility. Journalists should neither follow blindly the mainstream bodies, nor uncritically promote whoever talks loudest or most provocatively.

Interviewing Jews for Jesus about Perrottet is feeble, describing the AJA as representative is lazy and misleading. Journalists need to conduct proper research and take extra care that voices and views are included on merit, not because of expediency.

The apparent haphazardness of who is approached, and the relative weight they are given, reflects a lack of research, judgment and care by media outlets. And we know where this can lead.

Illustration: Avi Katz