Rabbi ‘felt used’

Emanuel Synagogue’s Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins has told The AJN he “felt very used” after footage of him engaging with Muslim students at the University of Sydney (USYD) and a snippet from an interview appeared in a propaganda video on OnePath Network, a Muslim YouTube channel.

Rabbi Kamins said he went to the pro-Palestinian encampment at the university’s quadrangle to see it for himself and favouring dialogue over conflict, sat and spoke with the group of students.

“We primarily talked [for] over an hour about philosophy, theology, those kinds of issues,” he said.

As he was getting ready to leave, he said he was approached by a video journalist if he had experienced antisemitism while there.

“What I said was I can’t speak for other people and their experiences, but my experience today was no, I didn’t experience any antisemitism,” Rabbi Kamins said.

“I was quite clear I was speaking from my own experiences and not what other people may be feeling.

“My assumption was that this was going to be something that was going to be either an article or a little video story out in the Islamic community.”

The footage and comments were then used in a YouTube video that justified the encampment, denied the occurrence of any antisemitism and then went on to talk about Israeli universities with ties to USYD being “deeply entrenched in the Israeli army” while claiming there is a “plausible genocide” in Gaza.

“He did ask me, what do I think about Gaza? I said, ‘It’s an absolute tragedy that the war continues to go on, the hostages are not yet released and more civilians are dying. And that’s a human tragedy,'” Rabbi Kamins said.

“That was my comment on Gaza. That isn’t in there.”

Despite the way his comments were used, he added, “I stand by the fact that I went out to meet people and make connections. That part was positive, despite what was spun out of it.”

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said, “Notwithstanding the crude propaganda efforts of these anti-Israel activists, it is beyond question that the encampment at the University of Sydney has worsened an already hostile environment for Jewish students and staff.”