I com­mence by acknowl­edg­ing the pres­ence of com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers: Pamela Hup­pert, Dr Michael Briner, and David Paratz AM Life Gov­er­nor, Queens­land Jew­ish Board of Deputies. I thank Jason for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come here and spend a few days with you all. I am so grate­ful for the work that the Queens­land Jew­ish Board of Deputies does. It is eas­i­er in Mel­bourne and Syd­ney, where there are larg­er com­mu­ni­ties, fund­ing, resources and staff. It is so much hard­er in a small­er com­mu­ni­ty, and I recog­nise the extra­or­di­nary work of the Queens­land Jew­ish Board of Deputies in lead­ing the Queens­land Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

When com­menc­ing the role as nation­al Pres­i­dent (in Novem­ber 2023), I said that the ECAJ has to go to the com­mu­ni­ty and not the oth­er way around. One of my roles has been to vis­it Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties around Aus­tralia, to lis­ten and to learn from them. No sin­gle per­son has all the solu­tions. We can all learn from each oth­er.

It is in that con­text that I am delight­ed to cel­e­brate 160 years of Jews con­tribut­ing to, and being part of, the State of Queens­land.

Why is that mile­stone impor­tant to cel­e­brate? Why is it not just a date? The answer lies in the way I described it – “con­tribut­ing to, and being part of.”

Jason gave me a list of famous Jew­ish Queens­lan­ders. Per­haps that can be cir­cu­lat­ed lat­er. But I want to give you a per­son­al obser­va­tion. It will be inter­est­ing to hear your thoughts on what I am about to say. It con­cerns the con­se­quence of those very many con­tri­bu­tions and involve­ment.

Last night, I saw some­thing spe­cial, some­thing unique to this place. Some­thing I guar­an­tee you will not see in Syd­ney, Mel­bourne, Ade­laide, Can­ber­ra or Perth (I still have to vis­it Hobart and Dar­win in this role, but I will).

What I saw was a fundrais­ing event for the Queens­land Holo­caust Muse­um. Full house. Ani­mat­ed audi­ence. Joy­ful occa­sion. This is the dif­fer­ence to your south­ern col­leagues: about 90% of the atten­dees – sup­port­ers of the Holo­caust Muse­um – were not Jew­ish. Lead­ers in the fields of judi­cia­ry, pol­i­tics and com­merce. I spoke to many peo­ple in the room. They told me of their love for Israel – not tol­er­ance, not appre­ci­a­tion, love. They told me of their respect and admi­ra­tion for, and friend­ship with, the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty – friend­ship. And they told me that the anti­semitism we were expe­ri­enc­ing in Aus­tralia now, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Mel­bourne and Syd­ney, was a dis­grace.

They were not sor­ry and qui­et­ly sup­port­ive, as we some­times hear from non-Jews down south. My impres­sion was that they were angry – angry that their coun­try of Aus­tralia, was expos­ing their friends and col­leagues to dis­crim­i­na­tion and hatred sim­ply because of who they are. I prob­a­bly heard some of the strongest com­ments against the Fed­er­al government’s fail­ure to pro­tect Aus­tralian Jews, as I have heard any­where.

As a nation­al Pres­i­dent, I want to tell you what I saw. A Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty – small, but so inte­grat­ed into its broad­er com­mu­ni­ty that the Gen­er­al Queens­lan­der com­mu­ni­ty was vocal in its back­ing. One ques­tion came from the floor: “we are all here tonight to sup­port the Muse­um. But how can we do more more?”. Note the plur­al: “we”.

I want to hear more from you, from inside the com­mu­ni­ty. But let me tell you, from ini­tial impres­sions, your 160 years has worked a mir­a­cle of inte­gra­tion, and a mod­el, that I have not seen else­where in Aus­tralia.

Be proud of that. Be proud of who you are. Queens­land Jews. 160 years strong.

I toast the Queens­land Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.