The Golden Calf Returns

When Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the tablets of divine law, he found chaos: the Israelites dancing around a golden calf, an idol they had made to soothe their fear and doubt. They hadn’t stopped calling themselves Jews. But they had abandoned the covenant that made them a people.

Today, Australian Jewry is watching a disturbingly similar crisis unfold, not in the desert, but in our own communities and councils. The golden calf is no longer a statue of gold, but an idol of moral vanity. Once again, it is being worshipped by those who believe they are acting virtuously.

At the centre of this crisis is the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), a group that claims to speak for Jewish values while systematically dismantling the foundations of Jewish identity, solidarity, and sovereignty. Let us be clear, they are a fringe group representing less than one percent of Australian Jews. They do not speak for the majority.

The JCA has fully embraced a modern moral orthodoxy, critical race theory, decolonial ideology, and intersectionality. These ideas recast Israel not as the historic homeland of an ancient people, but as a colonial oppressor. In this worldview, Jewish survival is rebranded as occupation. Jewish self-determination becomes a form of racial supremacy. The irony is that archaeology representing thousands of years of Jewish history in the land of Israel does not lie. Ideology does.

JCA’s platform actively supports Palestinian statehood, routinely delegitimises Israel’s right to defend itself, and engages in public rhetoric that aligns with calls for the dismantling of Israel as a Jewish state.

This isn’t about peace. It’s about erasing Zionism, the national expression of Jewish peoplehood, in favor of an ideological purity that divorces Judaism from its history, and the Jewish people from their homeland.

JCA’s activism isn’t limited to slogans. Recently, a fringe activist group aligned with JCA lobbied Bayside Council to reject the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the widely accepted international standard that links antisemitism with anti-Israel demonization. Not just lobbied, they stood outside with their pro-Palestinian banners and slogans.

Their goal? To protect the “right” to call for the destruction of the Jewish state without being called antisemitic.

But this is not principled dissent, it is ideological sabotage. The IHRA definition explicitly allows criticism of Israeli policies. What it rightly calls antisemitism is denying Jews the same rights of national self-determination afforded to others, or holding Israel to double standards applied to no other country.

Opposing IHRA is not a brave stand for free speech. It’s an act of bad faith that legitimises hate speech dressed in moral language.

Councillor Robert Irlicht of Bayside Council, who put forward this motion following the Antisemitism Summit a fortnight ago, stood with his people and chose dignity, truth and courage because there is no place for antisemitism or any form of racism in council, or anywhere for that matter.

There is a bitter lesson from Jewish history that we would do well to remember.

During the Holocaust, some Jews, desperate and terrified, informed on other Jews, thinking it might buy them mercy. They cooperated with those who hated them. They believed that if they proved themselves to be the “good Jews,” they might be spared.

They weren’t.

Those who abandon their own people are rarely rewarded. Once their usefulness is exhausted, they are discarded by the very forces they tried to appease.

This is the fate JCA is courting, believing that if Jews are harsh enough on Israel, critical enough of Zionism, aligned enough with activist movements, they will be accepted. But those movements have already shown they have no interest in protecting Jews, only using them. Remember, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House on October 9, 2023, barely 48 hours since 2,500 Israelis were raped and slaughtered and 250 hostages taken into Gaza, those who the JCA support were chanting “Gas the Jews” and “F*** the Jews”.

In contrast, organizations like AJA, AIJAC, ECAJ, and the State Zionist Councils have remained grounded. They are not blindly nationalistic; they are loyally realistic. Whether these organizations or simply a collective of individuals, Jewish and non-Jewish, they understand that in a world where Jewish life is under threat, from Melbourne to London to Jerusalem, Jewish survival is not an abstract debate. It’s a daily struggle. As they say, first they came for the Jews but they did not end with the Jews.

They are the modern-day Joshuas, refusing to dance around new idols, holding fast to the truth that Jewish peoplehood without Israel is not an option and that Jewish values without Jewish solidarity are just performance. Remember, the Holocaust happened because there was no Israel.

The golden calf always looks appealing. It is still shiny but just as hollow.  It promises freedom, virtue, and modern relevance. But it is a lie, and it always ends in collapse.

The Jewish Council of Australia may believe it is on the right side of history. But it has already walked away from the only side that has ensured Jewish continuity, the side of covenant, of peoplehood, of survival.

If we want a future, for Israel, for Jews, for the West and for truth, we must choose Moses over the mob. We must choose covenant over cowardice, and clarity over chaos.

The golden calf is still here. But we don’t have to bow.