Deborah Stone

1 week ago | thejewishindependent.com.au | Deborah Stone

Three of the four novels shortlisted for the National Library of Israel's Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature are debut novels – and the fourth is only the author's second novel. While last year's winner was the controversial non-fiction book, Palestine 1936 by Oren Kessler, this year the judges have returned to the prize's traditional fare, choosing novels that explore various facets of contemporary, historical and even possible future Jewish lives. The prize will be announced later this month.

1 week ago | thejewishindependent.com.au | Deborah Stone

An Israeli online monitoring organisation has identified 80 anti-Jewish posts related to Australia's election campaign. The posts peddled antisemitic stereotypes such as claiming Jews control Australia and exert undue influence on government. Some framed immigration policy as a tool of Jewish control, accusing both major political parties of being complicit in advancing this agenda.

2 weeks ago | thejewishindependent.com.au | Deborah Stone

Pamphlets distributed in two Melbourne electorates with a high proportion of Jewish voters have deeply upset Australian Jews this week. It follows other cases of weaponising Jewish issues this election campaign, with recent attacks on Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Wentworth independent Allegra Spender. A pamphlet distributed in the heavily Jewish area of Caulfield by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network attacks the Liberal party for "Giving the Jews everything they want".

2 weeks ago | thejewishindependent.com.au | Deborah Stone

This week, over 1.7 million people watched Ethan Klein and Hasan Piker debate Israel and Palestine on YouTube. Both hugely popular internet personalities, the former friends once hosted a political podcast together, The Leftovers, on Klein’s successful YouTube channel, the H3 Podcast. In October 2023, the pair debated the Hamas massacre, and the wider Israel/Palestine conflict, during a volatile episode titled ‘Israel vs Gaza.’ The next month, the podcast went on hiatus, never to return.

1 month ago | thejewishindependent.com.au | Deborah Stone

From one angle, Josh Burns looks like the ideal candidate for the substantial proportion of Melbourne’s Jewish community who live in Macnamara, the electorate including Caulfield, St Kilda, Ripponlea and Balaclava. Burns, 38, grew up in Caulfield and lives in St Kilda, went to Mount Scopus College, and played basketball for Maccabi, where he was a rare beast as a 1.91 metre (6ft 3) Jewish boy. Plus he has the advantage of incumbency and being a Labor MP in a safe Labor seat.