The ECAJ responds to adverse comments by a fringe group to the Senate inquiry into right-wing extremist movements in Australia.

The Senate Legal and Con­sti­tu­tion­al Affairs Ref­er­ences Committee invited the ECAJ to respond to adverse comments made by the fringe “Jewish Council of Australia” at a hearing of the inquiry into right-wing extremist movements in Australia on 17 June 2024.

The ECAJ responded strongly to the “Aus­trali­an Jewish Council’s” mis­char­ac­ter­isa­tion of it as “right-wing” saying (excerpts from the ECAJ’s response):

The fact that the ECAJ is widely recog­nised as the rep­res­ent­at­ive body of the Jewish community nation­ally, and is not captive to either the left or right of politics, is evidenced by the high level of trust and active cooper­a­tion that the organ­isa­tion enjoys with federal gov­ern­ment across a range of depart­ments.

The ECAJ also has deep, long-standing rela­tion­ships with the recog­nised rep­res­ent­at­ives of a range of other faith and ethnic com­munit­ies and indeed as the national rep­res­ent­at­ive body of Australia’s Jewish community, inter-faith and inter-ethnic dialogue is an important aspect

The Jewish Council of Australia thus appears to be a micro-group which rep­res­ents only a thin sliver of opinion on the far-left margins of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community.

Despite the use of the words “Jewish” and “Council” in its name, this group has no claim what­so­ever to represent the Jewish community. No Jewish schools, places of worship, hospitals, aged care facil­it­ies, youth groups, student organ­isa­tions, sporting clubs, cultural groups, organ­isa­tions for women, or for ex- ser­vice­men and women, or Holocaust survivors, or other communal organ­isa­tions come under its aegis, formally or inform­ally.

Download full response

• Download ECAJ’s response to adverse comment (PDF: 1.9MB).

See also

• Homepage for the Senate inquiry into right wing extremist movements in Australia
• Addi­tion­al responses from other Jewish community organ­isa­tions to adverse comment from the “Jewish Council of Australia” are also available as addi­tion­al documents on the inquiry’s page