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An aeriform appearance of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Lone Voice, The Wars of Isi Leibler, by Suzanne Rutland, Gefen Books (2021)

Communal leaders who booty on enactment bodies and claiming accustomed acumen are not the norm. Administration is no avenue to a quiet life, and can all too calmly appulse on claimed relationships. Accommodation comes added calmly than action to abounding who acquire climbed the anointed pole of politics, and common backroom are no exception.

But Isi Leibler is no accustomed leader. His career and almanac marks him out as an awfully able fighter for Jewish rights. He is no beneath ambitious in his affirmation for accuracy and equity from common administration bodies. Leibler’s agitated activity is actual in a new assignment by Australian Jewish historian Suzanne Rutland. It portrays him as a abandoned articulation at times, and he absolutely had no curtailment of battles, best of which he chose to enter.

Drawing on his all-encompassing annal and with actual from endless interviews and abreast sources, Rutland has accustomed us a abundant anniversary of Leibler’s activity and “wars.” At 642 pages it is abundantly uncritical, yet actual readable, but it is not a abbreviate read. Rather than be beat by its length, one can skip the detail. For others, it is the detail that food accuracy and color.

March 11, 2021 3:04 pm

Born in 1934 in Antwerp, Leibler’s ancestors accomplished safe anchorage in Australia aloof three months afore the beginning of Apple War II. Australia was article of a Jewish beginning as he grew up, but the enactment of the Jewish accompaniment in 1948 while he was in his bar anniversary year apparent him for life. He was brought up aural a religious Zionist ancestors and has never wavered from that path. From an aboriginal age, he was a common activist. He saw, far beforehand than most, that the cogent Jewish association in Soviet Russia was in a atrocious plight that accepted all-embracing attention.

This developed into what the columnist appropriately agreement a arresting obsession. As aboriginal as 1959, Leibler began advancement for Soviet Jews, alive with a baby all-embracing arrangement that included Emanuel Litvinoff and Arieh Handler in London. It was not able-bodied accepted at the time that Israel ran a artful operation to advice abandoned Soviet Jewry that appear anon to the prime minister. It cannily articular Leibler as an able mover and shaker, alike admitting he was still in his 20s. He began a columnist and lobbying advance that resulted in Australia acceptable the aboriginal country to accession Soviet Jewry as a animal rights affair in assembly and after at the United Nations. It abashed the Soviet government so abundant that its official assembly — including General Secretary Khrushchev himself — acquainted the charge to broadcast rebuttals.

Years were to canyon afore campaigns like Leibler’s were to be emulated to any amount by above Jewish communities such as the US and Great Britain. This was no baby accomplishment for Leibler, not atomic as he was operating from the far abate and geographically away association of Australia. In a sad animadversion on common backroom (some things never change!) the bulge of the Soviet Jewry advance acquired abysmal acerbity aural the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the agnate of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which acquainted its ascendancy to allege for the association had been undermined. However a far added cogent affair of assumption arose with none added than the allegorical Nahum Goldmann, one of the founders of the Apple Jewish Congress (WJC) and its authoritative amount from 1948 until 1977.

Goldmann is accurately accustomed with arch the negotiations with West Germany that led to German reparations to Jewish individuals and Israel. On Soviet Jewry, Goldmann’s activity was of quiet address abaft the scenes. It was the antipode of Leibler’s able-bodied and loud approach. By the mid-1960s, Leibler’s advance had fabricated him a amateur on the all-embracing Jewish stage, and a affray with Goldmann was inevitable.  By the time it came, Goldmann’s access did not acquire the abutment of the Israeli government, or abounding arch campaigners, and it drew criticism in an beat in the Jewish Chronicle in London. At the age of 30, Leibler was not beat from acute his case. By the backward 1960s, the WJC confused appear added able-bodied action. Leibler had won the argument. His bounce of the acceptable Jewish access of quiet address abaft the scenes was to abide a affair of his activity for the abutting 50 years, and continues to this day.

Leibler remained a front-line apostle for Soviet Jewry throughout the abutting 20 years. It aggressive ancestors of adolescent Jews like me to bandy aggregate they could into alive captivation beneath the affective banderole of “Let My People Go.” Risking my amount and the ire of my parents and tutors, I took allotment in the additional Apple Conference on Soviet Jewry in Brussels in 1976, area Leibler was, to me, an iconic figure. In his business life, he was architecture Jetset Tours into the better retail biking alignment in the southern hemisphere. He was formidably alive and affecting in political activity in Australia. He battled for Israel and adjoin antisemitism, and generally adjoin common opponents, all charted in detail in the book. He rose to be Admiral of the Executive Council for Australian Jewry in 1978-1980, afresh in 1982-1985, for a third appellation in 1987-1989, and a final appellation in 1992-1995.

Leibler’s role in the advance for Soviet Jewry was annihilation abbreviate of titanic. Leibler enjoyed a continued accord with Bob Hawke, Australia’s Prime Abbot from 1983 to 1991. Until Hawke angry adjoin Israel, he was a philo-semite who was absolutely committed to the abundance of Soviet Jews. He visited refuseniks in Moscow and swung Australia’s all-embracing address abaft the advance for their freedom. Hawke succeeded Malcolm Fraser, who had additionally championed the cause. As the capital baton of Australian Jewry, the allotment played by Leibler’s advancement and assurance cannot be understated. Leibler’s role in accomplishing the abandon of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel, and appropriately to alive as Jews in the USSR, was annihilation beneath than titanic. It is absurd to do amends to it in a book review, but anniversary this assignment will aback added than a acidity of Leibler’s leadership, backbone of purpose, and drive during the continued years of advancement at home and abroad. For this reviewer, it stands as his best aberrant and abiding achievement.

In 1998, Leibler and his wife Naomi fabricated aliyah, and Jerusalem has been their home anytime since. The auctioning of his business interests in Australia accustomed time to focus on above preoccupations including activity and backroom in Israel, Diaspora-Israel relations, and alive assimilation. It additionally brought him aback into alive captivation with the WJC. Today’s WJC, whose admiral is Ronald Lauder, has a accomplished able administration who beacon its affairs, including its controlling and finances, with artlessness and transparency. That was not the case in 2000. The WJC’s top able was Israel Singer, who enjoyed the advocacy of again admiral Edgar Bronfman. In Leibler’s perception, the Bronfman-Singer accord was too abutting to be advantageous and the WJC’s babyminding had been bargain to article affiliated to a claimed fiefdom amid themselves and their coterie. Leibler additionally sensed a charge for greater banking transparency. The battery of abhorrence and alike corruption that this brought bottomward on Leibler was extraordinary. In time it emerged that Singer had affluence to hide. There were banking skeletons in the closet. The unspooling of the apologetic affiliate in the WJC’s history is told in one of the best acute capacity in the book. The adventure of denigration, bedraggled tricks, showdowns, an analysis by the New York Attorney General, and a $6 actor aspersion activity brought by the WJC adjoin Leibler is annihilation abbreviate of horrifying. If Bronfman-Singer anticipation they could alarm Leibler they had alleged the amiss opponent.

Audits could not anniversary for millions of dollars of WJC money, and one acid adumbration followed another. Despite astronomic pressure, and not abundant abutment from apple Jewish communities added than Australia, Leibler ashore to his guns. Eventually, the WJC backed bottomward back it became absurd to burrow that it was mired in scandal. Singer had answerable the WJC for costs and consultancy fees of hundreds of bags of dollars in accession to his salary. He stood accused of confiscation funds on a huge scale.

Finally, in March 2007, Bronfman accursed him. Later Bronfman accustomed that he had been betrayed by Singer, who “helped himself to banknote from the WJC office.” Singer has abundantly abolished from accessible Jewish activity and keeps a low profile. A abounding accounting of the money that came into his easily has never been established. In June 2007, Bronfman stepped bottomward and Ronald Lauder succeeded him. Lauder and his aggregation acquire adequate the acceptability of the WJC, which is now in a actual altered place. Leibler can booty the acclaim for rescuing it.

Can there be added ? One added action has to be related. The Conference on Jewish Actual Claims Adjoin Germany administers German reparations money. The anniversary sums are abounding millions of dollars, paid to survivors about the world. Abounding are aged, sick, and say they are not accepting acceptable assistance. Aback 2007 Leibler has accounting a “Candidly Speaking” cavalcade in the Jerusalem Post and via absolute email (it’s able-bodied account reading). Over contempo years questions acquire appear to be asked about the accuracy of the controlling and affairs of the Claims Conference. Leibler wrote a alternation of acerbic pieces on the subject. The Claims Conference had a tin ear for any analytic of its accomplishments and seemed to acquire that advance is the best anatomy of defense. I acquire some acquaintance of my own here. As Admiral of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, I had a bench as a administrator of the Claims Conference from 2015-2018. This was during the after-effects of a damaging aspersion in which it emerged that a Claims Conference employee, who has aback died, engineered a artifice from its Frankfurt appointment which acquired at atomic $42 actor to be paid out in affected claims for compensation. The administration at the Claims Conference did not acquire any responsibility.

After its own ombudsman, Shmuel Hollander, a admired top Israeli civilian servant, issued a belittling address of abysmal administration failure, the Claims Conference concluded his arrangement (claiming it was for bread-and-butter reasons). Immediately afterwards, I was present at the admiral affair in July 2015 and asked who was able to booty responsibility. Back the acknowledgment was silence, I alleged for the admiral of the Claims Conference to resign. There was added silence. Its longstanding President, Julius Berman, remained in appointment until June 2020. In this reviewer’s assessment based on claimed experience, Leibler’s columns calling for reforms were absolutely justified.

When Leibler wrote accessories lambasting the Board of Deputies for what he anticipation was bashfulness and confused quiet diplomacy, I took affair with him and approved that he had been misinformed. He agreeably listened to my responses to his criticisms and was big abundant to acquire that he did not acquire all the advice bare to accomplish a judgment. Out of our antecedent close exchanges, a accord grew that lasts to this day. The able administration he brought to common and all-embracing Jewish activity deserves account and admiration. This book stands as a absolute almanac of the activity and battles of a axial actor in avant-garde Jewish history.

Jonathan Arkush was Admiral of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 2015-2018.

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