Tell Magazine June 2018 5778

and lesbian community. These people
were forced to go underground,
flee and often marry a partner of
the other sex, to avoid being sent to
the concentration camps. From an
historical perspective, the incitement
of Nazi anti-gay propaganda and
acts of violence, such as the purging
of gay clubs, and the breaking
into the Institute of Sex Research,
that ended in the public burning
of its libraries, paved the way for
Nazi brutality which was later
turned against the Jewish people.
These belatedly-told Holocaust
stories seem to be instructive even
to our own generations, let alone
generations to come. Together with
histories of other groups persecuted
by the Nazis, we begin to see the
political developments and increase
in brutality as it gradually and
systematically grew; it became the
well-organized and brutal violence
carried out against the Jews on all
fronts of Europe. On the other
hand, in these histories there lies a
stark reminder for us and for future
generations; i.e. in no version of
Martin Niemöller's famous poem
'First they came for...' (arguably
the most used, however ill-read, by
Holocaust educators) do the Jews
appear to be the first to be called for.
This is by no means a call to abandon
the Jewish Holocaust history, and
its particularity. It is an invitation
to revisit the deadliest catastrophe
in our people's history through
its large totalitarian context, and
to learn and teach some of the
inevitable human lessons therein.
These completing histories of
persecution and suffering should
not be detached from our own.
Yoav Yaron is the NSW
Shaliach Australasian Union
of Jewish Students | AUJS
{THE WORLD CONGRESS OF LGBT
JEWS IN SYDNEY}
March 21-24, 2019
Dayenu, Sydney’s Jewish LGBT+ Group is proud to
announce they were successful in securing the bid for the
2019 Conference in Sydney in March next year.
The World Congress held its last
conference in Rome, and previously
in Paris as well as many destinations
around the globe. Since Sydney is
further away for most delegates, it
was challenging to inspire them to
come Downunder, but Dayenu is
very excited to step up to the work at
hand.
Emanuel Synagogue has already
shown considerable support for
staging the Conference, which will
be able to utilise the state-of-theart
technology built into the new
Synagogue, where many of the
activities will take place.
The Congress is keen to live-stream
many aspects of the Conference, for
which the new shule is ideally suited.
It would be wonderful if there
were some members of Emanuel
Synagogue, who would be willing
to host one or two delegates in their
home, over that weekend. Contact
Kim Gotlieb on kim@kimgotlieb.
com for further details.
Dayenu President and World
Congress Co-ordinator, Kim
Gotlieb said, “We are so excited to
be hosting this event. There is so
much emerging from the broader
Jewish community in support of the
LGBT+ community. Our aim is to
maximise the interface both within
the Jewish sphere and in relationship
Delegates address the previous World Congress in Rome
SUSTAINING THE ENVIRONMENT
& HEALING THE WORLD
with the generalised queer
community.”
Beyond the Conference
itself, there will be a range of
opportunities for everyone to engage
in this momentous happening.
Watch for details or email Kim
(kim@kimgotlieb.com) to show your
support or to get involved.
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