Three years later Arafat’s intifada erupted, and Israel’s response pushed some Australian Jews yet further away from the Jewish State. Then, in 2001, Ariel Sharon, infamously dubbed by the world’s media as “the bulldozer”, was elected in a landslide.

The gap has been bridged (Photo: Tal Shahar)

Combined, these events prompted a “disengagement” of some Australian Jews from Israel, says Dr.. Ron Weiser, borrowing arguably the most common — some would say controversial — term in the current Zionist lexicon.

Those who tried to blame the whole of Israel for the Maccabiah disaster caused “the first disengagement”.

“Then there was another disengagement which started approximately with the election of Sharon (in 2001).

“I don’t think people disengaged because of the fear factor (of the intifada), as much as the philosophical factor: They didn’t see that this was an Israel they wanted to be associated with,” Dr.. Weiser says.

Although he says Australian Jews are now re-engaging with Israel — he describes the actual disengagement from Gaza last year as “the icing on the cake” in terms of the “re-engagement” — Dr.. Weiser warned of the “next looming disengagement”, this time by some of the Orthodox Jews in Australia.

“Sections (of the Orthodox) are mouthing the same sort of things that we saw from different people five years ago,” Dr.. Weiser told 350 delegates at the biennial Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) conference in Sydney in April. “We need to uncover their eyes and free their minds ... to the miracle in front of them.”

But in an extensive interview, Dr.. Weiser pointed to several major achievements during his 10-year tenure that he says have contributed to the “re-engagement” of Australian Jewry with the Jewish State.

“This year we sent 45 per cent of kids who graduated from Jewish and non-Jewish schools to Israel,” he says. These 655 youth are the largest group in the history of Australian Jewry, says Dr. Weiser. “We’ve re-engaged by getting people to go to Israel. Young people are interested in going to Israel again; they can experience Israel for themselves instead of just being influenced by BBC and CNN.”

But it’s here — while lauding the importance of the youth, whom he describes as “the barometer of a community’s health” — that Dr. Weiser strays from the practical to the philosophical.

“(Theodor) Herzl would almost be turning over in his grave if he saw what was happening to Zionism today. There’s been a paradigm shift. Herzl’s Zionism was predicated on the disappearance of the Diaspora, except for maybe small pockets of Orthodoxy.

“Today, Zionism sees as one of its roles — after aliyah — the preservation of the Diaspora, the renaissance of the Diaspora. There is Jewish Zionist education in the Diaspora, not for the benefit of Israel, but to save the Jewish people.

“Aliyah is still important but the whole concept changed,” he says. “With the reversal of the paradigm of Zionism, it is the preservation of Jews everywhere, in Australia and in Israel (that is our aim).”

He points to the establishment of the national biennial Jewish educators’ conference, last held in 2004 and attended by more than 400 Jewish studies and Hebrew teachers, as a major achievement.

“It is now the premier Jewish educational conference in this country,” he says, adding that participants come from New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and across Australia. “We’ve had four of them. It’s definitely a centrepiece (of my tenure).” Indeed, Yad Vashem sends two professionals at their own expense, he notes.

Teaching Hebrew at Jewish schools has been further enhanced by the adoption of the Neta system by six Jewish schools in addition to Sydney’s Academy BJE, he says. “For the first time these schools have an actual proper curriculum syllabus for teaching Hebrew in high school.

“I am convinced it will raise the status (of Hebrew) in schools because it will be taught more professionally,” he says, although he admits the level of Hebrew among most Australian Jews, especially graduates of Jewish schools, is generally poor.

In addition, he cites the program he pioneered to enlist Jewish studies teachers from almost all the Jewish schools on a two-year program run by Hebrew University to learn how to teach contemporary Israel. Indeed, when asked about his regrets, Dr. Weiser says of all his innovations “this is the one project that I won’t see completed”.

Zionist camps, run through the vast majority of Australian Jewish schools, help to bring Israel to Australia, he says. It’s a program that began 22 years ago but which has now expanded across the country.

“Part of that disengagement process was the people did not see Israelis; it was easy to demonise Israelis because you only saw them on TV in a conflict vis-a-vis the Palestinians; but if you actually rub up against them you see they are ordinary people with ordinary concerns; it de-demonises them.”

Life-long Zionist

Ron Weiser’s first foray into Zionism was at Bnei Akiva as a young teenager. The son of Holocaust survivors who helped found Coogee Synagogue, he considers his late mother as a “special inspiration”.

He was chair of the Zionist Youth Council of New South Wales (1975-79), although he did not spend a year in Israel until 1982, when he worked as a dentist. He returned to Zionist leadership positions, taking on the presidency of the State Zionist Council (1992-96).

But no position was more challenging than his role in the aftermath of the Maccabiah bridge disaster. Aside from the personal tragedy and trauma for the four victims and their families, the Zionist movement suffered as well.

“We were feeling it in funding and feeling it because people were not sending (people to Israel),” he says.

Dr. Weiser set out four aims: to ensure proper punishment for the perpetrators; to ensure Maccabi World Union (MWU) accepted responsibility; to ensure lessons were learnt; and proper compensation paid to victims.

“People went to jail for terms of greater lengths than they would have got in Australia,” he says. Moreover, the Knesset committee of inquiry — which he addressed twice — was “historic”, he says, because it was “instrumental” in drawing up regulations for holding public events in Israel.

Further, both MWU president Ron Bakalarz and chair Uzi Netanel were forced to resign. And in the fight for compensation, Dr. Weiser was pivotal in getting the Israeli Government to agree to participate in the payment.

The major victims received a total of about $20 million. “The amount of compensation that was paid out was greater than what they would have received in Australia,” he says.

While many would have — and did — turn their backs on Israel, Dr. Weiser says it was “an inspirational story” for him because he saw Israelis “who cared deeply about Israel’s relationship with Australia”.

“We’ve not only recovered and repaired — we’ve gone further,” he says, describing the massive Australian contingent to last year’s Maccabiah Games as “the closing of the circle”.

What about aliya?

Will he make the ultimate move one day and join the estimated 10,000 Australians living in Israel whom he describes as the “cream of Australian Jewry”? “I haven’t ruled out aliya,” he says. So perhaps it was telling that he decided to celebrate his 50th birthday in Israel last year, with a party attended by family, friends, MKs, diplomats and members of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organisation.

Notably, it was also under Dr. Weiser’s tenure that the ZFA opened an Israel office, which also caters for the olim. Indeed, it’s hardly surprising given Dr. Weiser’s philosophical view that Israel is the epicenter of the Jewish world.

 “It’s the solar-system model; Israel at the center is the sun, we are the planets, the Diaspora community is orbiting her, and we are held together by the gravity, by that Jewish tug, and we are exchanging light and heat with each other,” he says.

The future

So where to from here? Dr. Weiser has been appointed to four of the Jewish Agency’s committees: education, Jewish experience of Israel, budget and finance (of the education committee), and the unity of the Jewish people. “I’m really touched that I’m one of the very few people ever invited from Australia to be involved at this level,” he says.

Looking back on more than three decades of Zionist activity, Dr. Weiser says: “The biggest benefactor of all this (Zionist activity) is Australian Jewry. Most Jews in Australia are actually in a post-halachic phase, not a post-Zionist phase. The factor that will have the largest impact on their future Jewish identity is Israel. “I’ve gone around this country saying to people that if they trash Israel they’re causing increased assimilation in this country because if young Jews are not proud of Israel ... they won’t want to be part of the club.”

Of course, he acknowledges the power of the media, especially in influencing public opinion against Israel.

While defending the right to criticise, he says a “red line” was crossed during the intifada when critics began “undermining the moral right of Israel’s existence”.

“The line was crossed... and we lost Jews here in Australia. The canard that Israel had lost its way rose in prominence ... that Israel in theory was good, but Israel in practice was bad.

“The ZFA fought this anywhere and everywhere we found it. We fought it because it was wrong. We fought it because it was damaging to Israel, and we fought it because it was damaging to the future of Australian Jewry.”

The success of this battle, he concludes, has helped lead to the “re-engagement” of Australian Jews with Israel. It’s a legacy, no doubt, that will characterise his decade-long tenure.