Ex-Israeli Defence Force platoon commander and now psychotherapist, Avigail Abarbanel, is the editor of Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists. She was due to be part of a panel at the Limmud Oz Jewish cultural festival, Monash University, during the long weekend, but the event was cancelled without explanation. The Limmud Oz Board have been accused of political censorship.
Byron Bay’s reputation as a centre for free speech and debate, and as a vigorous supporter for writers through the Writers’ Festival, will welcome Avigail to the Community Centre on 23 January at noon where she will speak to her book. Entry is by gold coin donation.
Gareth Smith, Byron Bay
Yes, I heard about Avigail’s problem with censorship at Monash on one of Philip Adams’ radio shows this week. She and her colleague explained themselves very well, to Adams’ obvious discomfort. He’s a notorious supporter of Zionism, having an apostate daughter living in Israel, although he pretends to be ‘open minded’ about the Middle East.
Catch it on ABC RN archives.
It is a serious disgrace to Australian democracy that we harbour so many haters of Israel and the Jews; especially it seems around Byron Bay masquerading as a “centre of free speech and debate”. Try telling the truth. The last thing you want is free speech and debate.
I have no idea who Avigail Arabanel is but you can be certain that if she had anything worthwhile to say she could have said it in Israel. Israel is the centre of free speech and debate in the Middle East. Israel is the only centre of free speech and debate in the Middle East. Why did she have to come to the other side of the planet to say it?
By my count there were 159 presenters at the Limmud Oz 2012 festival of Jewish culture and learning last weekend.
http://www.limmudoz.com.au/presenters/
Who knows how many were , in your words, “due to be part of a panel discussion?”. Hundreds? Over a thousand? Look for yourself.
http://www.limmudoz.com.au/
I have no idea why Avigail was “cancelled without explanation” from one of the hundreds of panels that must have been convened during the festival. Anyone who has had anything to do with the organisation of this sort of event, such as the Byron Writers’ Festival for example, will know this is unavoidable but I know one thing for certain .
Your paper has shown not the slightest bit of interest in anything that the other hundreds of speakers at Limmud Oz 2012 have had to say and you can be sure that not one of them will be invited to speak at the Byron Bay Community Centre, irrespective of the date.
Please do not lecture Israel and the Jews about free speech and debate. I don’t think you quite understand the concept.
Geoffff’s Joint, Bar and Grill.
http://geofffff.blogspot.com.au/
Avigail and her bunch of self haters, were not censored, neither were they cancelled, because to be either cancelled or censored, one has to be accepted to start with. Which they never were.
This gang of self haters is Jewish in name only, and they use that name as a badge of honour to draw attention to themselves. They revel in the glory and the highlight of it all.
At rallies, protests etc, one hears the sheer delight of commentators when they say “Well, it must be right they are Jews!”
Wow, self haters with an axe to grind.