Opening the gates of Australian Zionism to the new guard

Jewish organisations that support Zionism but don’t meet formal requirements for membership of the communal roof body will have a way to join the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), if a motion to be put to the organisation’s conference on Sunday passes.

The motion will create a new category of ZFA partners, who commit to the Jerusalem Program, the official platform of the World Zionist Organization, but don’t need to meet membership or national requirements.

ZFA President Jeremy Leibler said the move recognised that the contemporary Jewish community has spawned different kinds of groups from those that established existing communal organisations. This has been particularly evident since October 7, when new groups were able to respond in a more agile and relevant manner.

He cited Project A, which created WhatsApp groups to deal with the October 7 fallout, and the Jewish Climate Network, which has reached out to other environmental organisations to improve understanding of Israel.

“There's a recognition that the way in which our communal organisations are structured was built for another time. Over the last 20 or 30 years, the community has become more diverse and many people have not felt the need to connect via being a member of an organisation. So we haven't captured, in a meaningful, constitutional sense, all these amazing grassroots initiatives over the last many decades.

“After October 7, what we saw was all of that on steroids. We saw groups like Project A and organisations like the Jewish Climate Network doing amazing work in all sorts of walks of Jewish life and in the general community.”

Leibler said the constitutional amendment recognised the diversity of the community and continued his aim to broaden the tent of Zionism.

“I'm not suggesting that I've done it perfectly, but I do feel like we have made significant progress in bringing more people with diverse views around the table and expanding the conversation. I think we created a more nuanced, sophisticated environment where we can engage in our Zionism and what that means to each of us in a meaningful way.”

He said the crisis of October 7 had caused many Jewish people to reconnect with the community, though not necessarily through connecting to traditional Jewish organisations.

“The rationale behind the constitutional amendment is to create, in a bit more of a formal way, a space for people and organisations and individuals who don't meet the technical constitutional requirements to feel more formally part of the conversation.

"It's important not to lose the energy and commitment of these people. Their views matter."

He said the move could be a precursor to a larger restructure of the Zionist roof body, which needed to remain responsive to contemporary iterations of support for Israel. “It goes to our legitimacy as a representative roof body.”

Leibler said the groups that might be brought in under this banner included both more progressive organisations and those on the right of the spectrum, such as some Orthodox groups that have connected more closely with Zionism after October 7.