By Rabbi Zalman Kastel AM

On the corner of a table in a noisy room of the 2023 Antisemitism Co-Lab there was a conversation about peer-to-peer learning to counter antisemitism.  Decades of such work had abruptly stopped. It was not possible to do it the way we did it prior to October 7. Leaders of the United Jewish Education Board (UJEB) in Melbourne, Board of Jewish Education (BJE) in Sydney and Together for Humanity (TFH) began brainstorming.  I hope you will be inspired by what happened since then.

First began the detailed work of setting up a genuine collaboration, initially between UJEB and TFH. One of the veterans of Jewish philanthropy was sceptical when I told him we would collaborate as he was cynical about such claims. We proved him wrong! We clarified who was doing what, communicated consistently, co-designed the activity and jointly approached charitable foundations.

The main activity would involve Jewish students who are attending Victorian state schools being trained and supported to be ambassadors for the Jewish community, engaging non-Jewish students in learning about our identities and our way of life.

On 15 October 2024, the Student Ambassadors Program was successfully launched with the first of a series of 11 weekly training sessions after school. These young ambassadors will then engage their non-Jewish peers in Term 1, 2025.

The ambassadors-in-training told us about their intentions for this program:

• “I want to help people learn what they are doing when they are being antisemitic.”
• “I want to do more, but don’t know how…yet.”
• “I want to reach the top of the tree, then know how to climb back down to help others.”

Also in October, another program began with 1110 students at St Ives High School, Sydney, where The Daily Telegraph had reported on antisemitism. The response led by TFH was undertaken in collaboration with BJE (following on from the initial Co-Lab discussions), and the Habonim and Hineni youth movements. This response involved two hours of learning with every student in the school in years 7 to 10. The first hour involved large groups and was devoted to hearing stories of prejudice and antisemitism such as the Madricha who had coins thrown at her and the second hour involved more intimate groups of 15 students interacting with youth movement madrichim alongside older Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Cambodian facilitators.

The ambassador model made it possible for a Rabbi and a Muslim educator to work together in August-September 2023, training 15 Muslim Year 12 students in Sydney who reflected on the importance of coexistence and methods of dialogue. They then joined the Rabbi and a Sheik to meet their peers at a Seventh Day Adventist school as the beginning of ongoing activity.

The schools that have benefited from activity catalysed at Co-Lab are Glen Eira College, Elwood Secondary College, Hills Adventist College, Leibler Yavneh College, Masada College, Moriah College, Mount Scopus Memorial College, St Ives High School and a Muslim school which we have chosen not to name to avoid calling it to the attention of keyboard warriors.

We thank the Abbott, Gandel and the Jack & Robert Smorgon Families Foundations and the Davidoff Family for their contributions toward our Student Ambassador program and Australian Jewish Funders and the Loti and Victor Smorgon Family Philanthropy for facilitating Co-Lab that made the initial conversation possible. We hope this year’s Co-Lab will be a catalyst for ever more great collaboration.