Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Australia, attended a Shabbat service last at Sydney’s Great Synagogue with his wife. The synagogue’s Chief Minister Rabbi Benjamin Elton met the couple at the synagogue’s gates. The conregation’s roots date back to 1828, 40 years after British colonists first came to Australia. “Their Excellencies had…
A historic synagogue in the Australian outback mining city of Broken Hill was defaced with Nazi and Islamic symbols. The curator of the synagogue arrived at work Monday to prepare for a visit by tourists and found the front of the building had been vandalized. Margaret Price, the coordinator of the Synagogue of the Outback…
Australian lawmaker Josh Frydenberg said the grand mufti of Australia “failed in his leadership” by not condemning the Paris terrorist attacks. Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, the grand mufti, originally expressed sorrow over the deaths of at least 130 people in the wake of the attacks, but did not specifically condemn them. Media reports on the initial…
The number of anti-Semitic incidents within Australia has decreased by 39 percent in the last year according to the latest figures released by The Executive Council of Australian Jewry. The organization attributed this to a spike in incidents in the previous year caused by the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. In total, there…
Melbourne police are considering opening a criminal investigation into board members of a Jewish day school who helped a former headmaster flee to Israel ahead of allegations of child sexual abuse. Malka Leifer, the former principal of Melbourne’s Adass Israel School fled Australia in 2008 ahead of allegations of sexual assault on eight girls at…
An Australian Jewish lawmaker called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to dump the nation’s current policy of rapprochement with Iran. In a statement issued Monday, Michael Danby, a federal Labor member of parliament representing Melbourne Ports, said that Turnbull “can be a friend of Israel or a friend of the dangerous Iranian regime. He cannot…
Wearing a yarmulke and holding a Hebrew Bible, Josh Frydenberg was sworn in as Australia’s Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia. It was the third time the 44-year-old Liberal politician had used the book, called a Chumash, to be sworn in to a government position, but the first time as member of the Federal…
A woman alleged to have been sexually abused by the principal of a Haredi Orthodox Jewish day school in Melbourne has been awarded $1 million in damages. Justice Jack Rush said in Melbourne’s Supreme Court on Wednesday that the actions taken by the Adass Israel School in helping former principal Malka Leifer flee Australia in…
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