The future of policing?

Last month, members of the Ocean Grove Football Club yelled “‘F— off Jews’ and ‘Go the Nazis’ before motioning as if they were shooting a machine gun” at an Orthodox Jewish bloke and his two children; the trio, presumably, being judged by the team as being ‘guilty’ of the crime of walking-in-Caulfield-while-Jewish (a not uncommon offence). The 20 or so footballers very much in question were on a bus, returning from Caulfield and a day at the races; Menachem Vorchheimer‘s children, “aged 6 and 3, were screaming and crying during the [subsequent] attack that left him with cuts and bruises to the face”. Thankfully, witnesses “surrounded the bus and stopped it from driving off until police arrived”. Which is kinda ironic, given that ‘the police’ were already there: the bus was actually being driven by an off-duty — and possibly drunken — policeman:

Race abuse man in talks on cop’s future
Mark Buttler
Herald Sun
November 25, 2006

A JEWISH man assaulted and abused for his faith has met with senior police over the future of an officer who saw the incident.

The policeman was off duty and driving a bus whose passengers stole Mr Vorchheimer’s hat, attacked him and made racial insults.

He said the officer, driving members of the Ocean Grove Football Club, did nothing to stop the assault and tried to drive off before being cut off.

Mr Vorchheimer yesterday met acting Chief Commissioner Kieran Waishe and two other senior members to discuss what would happen with the bus-driving officer.

He said he told them the officer should not still be on normal duties six weeks after the incident.

“He should be disciplined. I rely on the police force to protect me,” Mr Vorchheimer said.

He said he was doubly disgusted the officer had not been in touch to apologise about what had happened and that he was not breath-tested by other members who arrived at the scene…

Source: Fightdemback! | See also : Jill Rowbotham and Dorothy Illing, ‘Rise in attacks on Jews tests forgiveness’, The Australian, November 29, 2006

…and Judaism?

As the Israeli repression of the Second Intifada intensified, with the Army routinely using live ammunition against Palestinian youths throwing stones, I got involved with a Toronto group called Jewish Youth Against the Occupation. I was determined to stop Zionism from speaking in the name of Jewish liberation, and the only form of Jewish identity I could associate with was one in opposition to Zionism.

The reaction I faced from my family and community was harsh and vitriolic at times. I recall being compared by family members to the Jewish police force in the Warsaw Ghetto that forced Jews onto the trains to Auschwitz. I was repeatedly called a self-hating Jew, while being scolded as a traitor to my people and history. As terrible as this was, it had the opposite effect than the intended one. Instead of keeping me in line, it showed me just how stifling ethno-nationalist identity is and how colonial ethno-nationalism maintains its support by commanding family and community loyalties to the state…

My Jewish identity comes from understanding that this is not the path to our liberation and that the tools of anti-Semitism are wrapped up in the tools that we are using to “liberate” ourselves. My Jewish identity comes from recognizing my people’s historic oppression and their natural affinity with those who now face similar exploitation and denigration. My Jewish identity comes from an understanding that freedom is not an ethno-nationalist state in my name but a destruction of the forces that are responsible for our historic oppression and the continued oppression of people around the world.

What our history, the radical Jewish theorists, and Fanon showed me was that we cannot find liberation in the allies of our oppressors. We must embrace our history in the context of global history and not forget its lessons. To be Jewish is to embrace our culture, embrace our history, and resist.

— ‘Jewish Like Me’, Jesse Rosenfeld, The McGill Daily, November 27, 2006 | See also : Asher’s reflections on Judaism | Antony Loewenstein | Orthodox Anarchist (Daniel Sieradski)