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The Zionist Federation of Australia has sent a letter to MPs and Govt Agencies to clarify the position of West Jerusalem, as the undisputed capital of Israel and other facts, in order to aid them in the growing debate over the PM Scott Morrison’s and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s statements and  debates regarding considerations to move the Australian Embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem. The Jewish community of NSW lost a highly respected and effective leader with the premature passing of the 36 year old former President of the Jewish Board of Deputies of NSW, Jeremy Spinak e”h, to whom tributes were paid by the Govt, the Opposition and community leaders in NSW and beyond.

The remaining Dunera Boys, mainly young Jewish men who escaped Nazism in the 1930s and who were deported to Australia from the UK in 1940, as “enemy aliens” on the ship Dunera, held their 78th annual reunion in Melbourne and heard historians talk about a project to digitalise some 2,000 photos from their time of internment at the Hay (NSW) and Tatura (VIC) holding camps, and the upgrade of the Dunera Museum located at the Hay Railway Station.

Statistics of the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents and crimes in France and the USA confirmed the worrying trend, with an increase of 69% in such crimes in France and some 33% in the USA, over the past year or two. The Israeli President Reuven Rivlin met Pope Francis in the Vatican and amongst other discussions concerning Jerusalem and peace negotiations, Rivlin also reassured the Pontiff that Israel offers full freedom of worship for all religions, in all holy places.

Find our from SBS Jerusalem correspondent, Peta Jones Pellach how Chanukah is celebrated in Israel...

Peta Jones Pellach with the latest from Jerusalem

Another interesting movie screened as part of the Jewish Film Festival is Seder Masochism, the animated musical comedy drama film, written directed produced and animated by American artist Nina Paley. Find out more about Seder Masochism from Nina Paley...

Our guest is Udi Nir the director of the documentary, Madam Prime Minister that is currently screening around Australia as part of the Jewish Film Festival. Forty years after her death, Golda Meir's image is still polarizing and clouded by controversy. While perceived as a feminist icon in many places in the world, in the country she led as Prime Minister for five years she's regarded by many as a failure. Delicately stitching together archival footage and interviews, Madam Prime Minister invites the viewers to walk in Meir’s iconic shoes and re-examine her ground-breaking and dramatic years as the first and only female prime minister of Israel.

Do you read the AJN  weekly news ? Find out more about the past week's events with Shane Desiatnik

A new Australian Jewish War Memorial, bearing the names of 341 Jewish ANZAC’s killed in both World Wars, was ceremoniously opened in Canberra by the Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove, in the presence of chiefs of the ADF, politicians, diplomats, representatives of veterans’ organisations and members of the Jewish and broader community.

The Jewish community in Australia commemorated the 80th Anniversary of the terrible Nazi, anti-Jewish Krystalnacht pogrom in Germany and Austria of the 9th and 10th November 1938 and its members and members of the Aboriginal community will remember and honour the noble act, by the Aboriginal leader William Cooper, who tried to deliver a letter and petition protesting the attacks and racist Nurenberg laws to the German consulate in Melbourne, by re-staging the march on the 6th of December, at 6.30PM from the Flagstaff to the Alexandra Gardens, in Melbourne.

A 94 year old former Nazi SS guard at the Stutthof Concentration Camp, Johann Rehbogen, is standing trial in Germany for being complicit in the murder of several hundred of the more than 60 thousand inmates killed in the camp during Word War Two.

A former Jewish Hungarian migrant and long time member of the Melbourne Jewish community, Leo Buchler, who turned 108 recently and who’s lived through two revolutions, two world wars, and a Nazi labour camp, is believed to be the oldest Jew in Australia and the third oldest Australian overall.

Millions of dollars in cash across the border…find out the latest from Jerusalem with SBS Correspondent Prof Rafi Mann

The latest from Jerusalem with Peta Jones Pellach

On this 100th Anniversary of Remembrance Day, the Australian Jewish community joined the general community, to remember and honour the Australian Jewish and other servicemen and women, who served and died in the first and second World Wars, and proudly recalled the names of General Sir John Monash and the many other Jewish ANZACs.

The Jewish community in Australia marked and commemorated the 80th Anniversary of the terrible Nazi, anti-Jewish Krystalnacht pogrom, in Germany and Austria of the 9th and 10th November 1938 and remembered the noble and solitary recorded act, by the Aboriginal leader William Cooper, who tried to deliver a letter and petition protesting the attacks and racist Nurenberg laws, to the German consulate in Melbourne.

Jews of different religious practices came together in Sydney’s Great Synagogue to remember the victims of the Tree-of-Life shooting in Pittsburgh, where they heard speakers, joined in prayers and acknowledged the messages of condolence and solidarity from, among others, the Australian National Imams Council, the Sisters of May Order, Seventh Day Adventist Church and the Governor of NSW David Hurley and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison.