Changing TimesHow The AJN broke a barrier in 2000

Joshua Levi

N the year 2000 Hillary Clinton became the first First Lady to march in the annual Gay Pride rally in New York, the United Kingdom lifted the ban on homosexual people serving in the armed forces, hundreds of thousands marched on Washington for equal rights and in Sydney, for the first time, there was a Jewish float in the annual Mardi Gras parade.

Author Diane Armstrong and Holocaust survivor Susie Wise were joined by 160 Jews from Australia, South Africa, Israel, the United States, UK, Germany, Sweden and New Zealand on the “Stars of David Come Out” float.

Wise told The AJN at the time that “gay and lesbian people are expected to hide who they are and be ashamed of it, in the same way that I had to hide my Jewishness”.

At the time, it was heralded by the World Congress of Jewish Gay and Lesbian Organisations treasurer Mike Kook as “larger than any other Jewish gay and lesbian event in the world”.

Social media didn’t exist, smart phones hadn’t been invented and so it fell to AJN editor Vic Alhadeff to make a watershed decision for the community.

Alhadeff, now the CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, decided that the float deserved front-page coverage.

Within hours of the newspaper hitting the stands, Alhadeff received a cryptic summons to a combined meeting of the Sydney Beth Din and the NSW Rabbinical Council.

After consulting with various colleagues, he made a decision not to attend the meeting.

The Sydney Beth Din said in a statement that a Jewish newspaper has to be receptive and sensitive to the voice of Torah.

“A responsible Jewish newspaper cannot and must not give the impression that everything some Jews do is automatically a legitimate Jewish activity,” Rabbis Raymond Apple, Selwyn Franklin, Moshe Gutnick, David Rogut and Yoram Ulman said.

“The issue is how a Jewish newspaper should handle some Jewish people’s participation in the Mardi Gras. It is thus a question of Jewish journalistic ethics.”

At the same time, NSW Rabbinical Council president Rabbi Moshe Gutnick said that the coverage of the Mardi Gras “did not fit with traditional Jewish values and our expectations of a Jewish family newspaper”.

In two subsequent editions of the newspaper, more than 200 letters to the editor, from across the world – which is unprecedented in the century-long history of the paper – were received.

At least 25 prominent communal members, including judges, academics and community presidents, placed a quarter-page advertisement in the newspaper, supporting the right of Jewish gays to be gay.

Alhadeff also explained his decision to publish the Mardi Gras photograph on the front page and defended his refusal to attend the meeting of the Beth Din and the Rabbinical Council.

“Our task is to reflect and cater for the entire spectrum of the Jewish community,” Alhadeff wrote.

“That means every Jewish individual – Orthodox, Reform, republican, monarchist, heterosexual, homosexual, left-handed, right-handed.

“That means covering Jewish news as it pertains to, and reflects, the entire Jewish community.”

The Sydney Morning Herald sent a reporter to interview Alhadeff, publishing a front-page story on the issue, while Geraldine Doogue dedicated an entire program of ABC TV’s Compass to the subject, interviewing Rabbis Benzion Milecki and Moshe Gutnick, a Jewish lesbian couple and Alhadeff.

The AJN was duly shortlisted for the Mardi Gras Non-Gay Media Award, along with the ABC and The Sydney Morning Herald.

The AJN won the engraved perspex award – and received a standing ovation from the 400-strong crowd in recognition of the fact that it had taken a human rights stand.

“Months later, I received a call from Dayenu chair Malcolm Davidowitz, inviting me to a meeting,” Alhadeff recalled.

“Everyone present spoke about how the episode had proved to be a watershed in changing public understanding of what it meant to be gay, shifting community attitudes and even improving relationships among family members.

“It was a humbling experience as I had had no idea of the impact of what I had done. It was simply a question of doing the right thing; if people were gay, it was their business.

“Of the numerous controversial stands I took during my 18 years on The AJN,” Alhadeff added, “the one of which I remain the proudest was going to the barricades on behalf of the right of Jewish gays to be gay.

“Our collective victory lies in the reality that there has been a Jewish float every year since that episode – apart from a hiccup in 2006 – and no one makes a fuss. Because it’s no-one else’s business.”