Australian’s Chani Charak aged 16, a student at Kesser Torah school in Sydney and Chaya Leah (Lele) Kaltmann aged 17, a student at Beth Rivka Ladies College in Melbourne, competed in the 52nd World Bible Quiz which was held in Israel with the theme of “Kibbutz Galuyot” (ingathering of the Diasporas). …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. For many years, the trend in reporting on world affairs seems to increasingly be that Israel is held to different standards than those which apply to its neighbours.  Earlier this week, the BBC’s Middle East …

Written by Hayley Hadassin for the Zionist Federation of Australia. The Zionist Federation of Australia’s Israel Program SHUK came to Sydney and Melbourne and was a tremendous success. As the largest Israel programs fair held in Australia it was a great opportunity for people thinking about participating on short or …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. In medieval England, a separate court was established with the purpose of providing redress for people in a fair and just manner. Over the years, this Court of Star Chamber evolved as a judicial body …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. The long awaited and much-anticipated Israeli elections took place on Tuesday with an outcome that was somewhat surprising for many. In the lead-up to the elections, practically every poll released had the Zionist Union (the …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. As we all would be aware by now, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a controversial speech to a joint session of Congress in the United States last week. The controversy actually began several weeks …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. The Israeli elections are getting close, and with only three weeks to go before polling, the entire country is in full campaign mode. There has been plenty of analysis about the different parties (of which …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. During Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge, the United Nations Human Rights Council (the one that routinely has some of the world’s worst human rights offenders on its rotating membership) announced it was to launch an …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. All four of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors.  I heard snippets of their stories my whole life but it was always difficult for me to truly imagine how it all began, how it continued, and …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. It is usually around this time of year that I write a piece summing up the year in Israel, filled with highs and lows, the difficulties and the triumphs. As I reflect on 2014, it …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. How to win a Walkley Award – Step 1: Become Middle East Correspondent. Step 2: Write incessantly against Israel. Back in 2010, Fairfax’s Paul McGeough won what used to be considered as one of Australia’s …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. 29 November 2014 These days when you consider the information you take in when looking at a newspaper article or an item on a website, everything often boils down to the headline which attracts the …

Joint Statement from the Zionist Federation of Australia and the Zionist Council of Victoria on the announcement of Walkley Awards Finalists   31 October 2014 The Zionist Federation of Australia and the Zionist Council of Victoria are deeply concerned that two blatantly biased pieces of journalism from the Gaza conflict …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. A story published in the Associated Press last week in which a Hamas spokesperson confirmed that Hamas fires rockets from residential and heavily built-up areas barely created a ripple around the world. This is precisely …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. Romanticising Hamas Yesterday’s Australian featured an article by its Middle East Correspondent John Lyons entitled “Hamas proposal for Israel peace plan”. The story came entirely out of the blue and must surely be a journalistic …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia.. Last Tuesday evening (AEST), just hours before the latest ceasefire in the region was due to expire, terrorists in Gaza fired three Grad rockets which landed near Be’er Sheva and Netivot. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said …

Israel Advocacy Update. Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia..On 23 July, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to launch an independent inquiry into what it called “purported violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”. I am …

  The 2014 ZFA Jewish Educators’ conference is approaching and we are thrilled to have a rich programme of interesting, diverse and exciting topics. The conference will be held at Mt. Scopus College, Melbourne on 17-18th August. We have 82 presentations, 16 international presenters and 48 local presenters, providing something …

Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia. Over the past four weeks since Operation Protective Edge began, we have been subjected to images shrouded by the fog of war. We hear stories of destruction in Gaza, plumes of fire, rockets and missiles, dead bodies. A cartoon from …

    Written by Emily Gian. Media and Advocacy Director, Zionist Federation of Australia. “You have no idea how scary it is to realise we have no idea what is underneath us”. So began a conversation with a friend who lives in one of the Kibbutzim on the border with …