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JOIN President Geraldine Jones (2nd left) during her recent trip to Israel, pictured here with "Israeli Women of the Wall"

LETTER FROM JEWISH AUSTRALIA No.62 3rd December 1998  RETURNING TO THE WALL - CONTINUITY THROUGH EDUCATION.

It is not long since my return to Australia from almost two months in Israel. My previous visit, as a tourist, had been short, impressive and exciting. This time there was an added spiritual dimension as I was able to learn and pray with leading Jewish women scholars. This enriched my stay and strengthened my sense of oneness with our people.

My initial contact with the women was, unsurprisingly, through the internet. It is, however, my involvement here in Australia with the worldwide, Israel-generated renaissance in Jewish learning, education, research, and theology that allowed me to feel at home with my Israeli sisters.

Since 1992 my knowledge of Judaism and Jewish affairs has been greatly facilitated by involvement with the Global Jewish (computer) Network and the Melton Adult Education program. These foster the growth and development of "independent" scholars who continue to learn and share their learning with family and community.

Independent scholarship is a natural outcome of the Shalom Institute which runs programs such as INFocus and Melton that revolve around issues and topics relevant to our lives as Jews. They and A.I.J.A.C., (The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council) put our community in contact with leading Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals such as currently visiting Middle East analysts, Dr Daniel Pipes and Professor Gerald Steinberg, and celebrated Australian, Phillip Adams, AO, DUniv. FRSA - Broadcaster, filmmaker, author, columnist, archaeologist. For men and women, together and separately, Jewish life is being enriched as increasing numbers of groups form to study and/or pray together.

Geneticist Professor Robert Pollack, a co-discoverer of DNA's double- helix structure, believes that a passion for study and sharing of knowledge is the key to the survival of the Jewish people. He is quoted in "The Jerusalem Post" this week as saying "The best of our lives can be transmitted only by teaching, not by DNA". Pollack's own father was a dedicated American communist who spurned religion, but nevertheless passed on to his son the passion for study he had inherited from his own religious parents. Now Pollack says "I'm lucky that I'm immersed in a Jewish world that has caught me in time, that has responded to my instinctive need to study, which I am convinced is a Jewish thing." In the article about his discussion with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz over the impending threat of lost Jewish genius, he states; "If your sense of religion is that you are obligated to a set of things that includes studying every day, that is a structure that brings kids to a higher fraction of their capabilities. You can't be serious about being Jewish without being serious about studying texts. Orthodoxy is not the only way. But there is no low-energy way."

We, in Australia, are indeed fortunate that considerable energy is being put into building a learning community of all ages. The result is already apparent in the growth of independent scholars such as Brian Levitan, a facilitator with the Melton Adult Education Program. Levitan, in response to considerable public discussion and the recent publication of the negative opinion of Melbourne Rabbi Cohen on the issue of women holding or dancing with the Torah, has independently researched the topic and written on it.

It is with great pleasure, therefore, and in keeping with "the spirit of pluralism and the free marketplace of ideas" which is deemed by Professor Gerald Steinberg, in The Jerusalem Post this week, to be the essence of a current Jewish renaissance, that JOIN is able to make this work of Australian/Jewish scholarship available via the internet.

I thank Brian Levitan for sharing his "WOMEN HOLDING OR DANCING WITH THE TORAH" with us. Thanks, as well, to the publishers of "Jewish Legal Writings by women", ISBN 965-7108-00-4, a copy of which I brought back from Israel but is already available here and should give enormous encouragement and impetus to Jewish women's scholarship. Plus a special "thank you" to The Women's Tefillah Network wtn@shamash.org, who facilitated my contact with the Israeli Women of the Wall.

To receive a copy of Brian Levitan's dissertation on "WOMEN HOLDING OR DANCING WITH THE TORAH" simply mail to JOIN@tmx.mhs.oz.au with the word LEVITAN in the subject line.

If you have something of Australian/Jewish interest that you would like to have published please mail it to JOIN@tmx.mhs.oz.au

For discussion of this and other matters of Australian/Jewish interest please subscribe to and participate in JOIN-TALK@shamash.org

Shalom

Geraldine Jones
President JOIN Inc.