This is a rather confused story from The Guardian, whose favorite targets are Jews, but seem to have trouble entirely parsing out who to blame for it.
Labor MP Michael Danby has become embroiled in a spat over voting preferences after downgrading the Sex party from first preference position on his how-to-vote cards to avoid offending Orthodox Jews. Danby, MP for Melbourne Ports since 1998, created two different how-to-vote cards, with one specifically aimed at Orthodox Jewish voters. Campaign literature seen by Guardian Australia places Melissa Star, the Sex party candidate, in the top preference slot, ahead of Steven Armstrong of the Stable Population party and Margaret Quinn of the Rise Up Australia party. A second how-to-vote card, distributed at pre-polling booths, relegates Star to ninth position, switching places with Family First’s Robert Keenan, who is pushed up to first preference position.
The Family First Party is Christian conservative. The Sex Party is a front for the porn industry. This is an issue because Labor is apparently giving the Sex Party a high placement in its normal ballots, while fraudulently associating themselves with Family First in order to appeal to Orthodox Jews.
Alex Fein, editor of Jewish news site Galus Australis, which first noted the switched preferences, said she found the move “offensive”. “What does Michael Danby think of Jewish people that he thinks we’d be happier with a party like Family First?” she said. “I find it offensive. You’d have to work on the assumption that all Orthodox Jews are prejudiced and closed-minded if you think Family First would appeal to them.” Fein, an Orthodox Jew who is married to Caulfield rabbi Yaron Gottlieb, added: “I absolutely hate Family First and so would other Jews who are socially liberal. The Orthodox Jewish community is incredibly diverse. “There may be some elements that would have a problem with the Sex party and as a feminist I’m not thrilled by them, but I’m even less thrilled by Family First, given their positions on gay marriage, Indigenous issues and social conservatism.”
There is no such thing as a socially liberal Orthodox Jew. There is such a thing as a liberal who remains in the Orthodox community despite having values incompatible with it for assorted reasons. Alex Fein and her husband are on the left side of the graph to the point that they are not even a factor. Gottlieb has written in support of gay rights and Fein would not be accused of being pro-Israel. Both Fein and Gottlieb are frequent critics of the Melbourne Orthodox Jewish community. But they’re the only people the Guardian quotes, which is a little like treating a radical nun who campaigns for abortion rights as a representative of the Catholic Church. It’s blatantly dishonest at best.
Fein said that Danby’s campaign literature in Caulfield focused on his local achievements for the Jewish community. However, she said that there was “a lot of disquiet” in the Jewish community over Labor’s treatment of asylum seekers.
Not in the Orthodox Jewish community. Just on the left where Fein and Gottlieb and the rest of the left-wing trolls playing at being Orthodox Jews live.
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