Bioethicist Peter Singer Wins Top Aussie Honor
Peter Singer, a U.S.-based philosopher and ethicist, was awarded Australia’s highest honor.
The Melbourne-born Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, on Monday was named a Companion of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s birthday awards for leading public debate on global poverty, animal rights and the human condition.
Singer, a vegetarian and a utilitarian, has been controversial for the Jewish establishment, signing a petition in 2010 renouncing his “right of return” under Israeli law and criticizing shechitah, or ritual slaughter, last year as “not the most humane way of killing an animal.”
He was joined on the honors list by Rosalind Fischl, who became the first female president of Sydney’s Great Synagogue in 2005 and is the inaugural president of the Council of Orthodox Synagogues in New South Wales, receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia; and Alice Spigelman, whose citation highlighted her work as a human rights advocate, particularly for women and refugees, named a Member of the Order of Australia.
More than a dozen Jews were listed among the 540 recipients of Orders of Australia, including Michael Zylberman, a champion of the revival of Yiddish in Melbourne, and David Cohen, who co-founded two Jewish schools in Sydney.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.