<H2><b>JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF VICTORIA - "UNREPRESENTATIVE SWILL" - TO QUOTE PAUL KEATING</b></H2>

The Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) does not represent the Jewish community of Victoria - never has and never will. The name is of course a total misnomer!

Aleph - the gay Jewish group - has approached the JCCV numerous times to become a member of that "organisation" for want of a better word!

JCCV has refused every time and made nasty homophobic excuses which should be unacceptable at any time.

The question is, why does Aleph wish to be a member at all? Unless it is a question of funding, it seems to be an exercise in futility to even attempt to hold dialogue with such a group of nasties.

Aleph has functioned for many years without affiliation to JCCV, and if it has done so in the past, why not in the future? Unless it has some religious or zionist reasons for wanting this relationship, there seems to be no valid reason for any connection between the two organisations.

Here is the article which was in the MCV issue470 of 7 January 2010:

Jewish reference group questioned
Written by Ron Hughes

Plans for the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) to set up a GLBT Reference group have been met with scepticism from GLBT Jewish group, Aleph.

In a press release, JCCV president John Searle stated that on December 16 members of the Jewish GLBT community had agreed to setting up the group to “bring disconnected Jews back to [the Jewish] community”.

Michael Barnett of Aleph Melbourne accused Searle of being disingenuous.

“The decision to set up a reference group was taken at a meeting to which Aleph wasn’t even invited,” Barnett told MCV. “We had a meeting on December 3 which turned out pretty horribly. Subsequently Searle emailed me and said he didn’t want to deal with me any more.”

In the email – seen by MCV – Searle accused Barnett of continuing to “criticise, undermine and discredit the JCCV”.

“At our meeting Searle plainly stated that the Jewish religion had one specific viewpoint on homosexuality – it doesn’t condone it,” Barnett said. “That completely ignores the diversity of opinion among conservative and progressive Jews.”

Barnett said he believed Searle was in an “unfortunate situation”.

“[Searle] is trying to do his best by everyone, it seems, but really he’s trying to do his best by the orthodox community, which is where most of the funding comes from.”

Barnett said until the issue of orthodox intolerance was addressed things would not improve for GLBT Jews.

“It’s not about bringing people back into the fold, it’s not about being nice to us,” Barnett said. “It’s about tackling a huge issue [intolerance].”