AIJAC

AIJAC conveys Australian Jewish community interests to governments, media and other community organizations, while producing commentary and analysis on developments in the Middle East, Asia and Australia.[1] INSS characterizes AIJAC as strongly pro-Israel and says it seeks to promote Israel’s interests and understanding of Israeli society among the Australian public, including through journalism and media activity.[2] Its stated areas of work encompass multiculturalism, extremism, racism and antisemitism, alongside international human-rights activity and interfaith dialogue.[1]

The organization combines domestic advocacy with international engagement: its programs bring overseas speakers to Australia and New Zealand and sponsor visits to Israel for people involved in journalism, politics, public administration and student leadership.[1] Its association with the American Jewish Committee forms part of a global partnership concerned with issues facing world Jewry.[1] The two organizations’ shared commitments include combating antisemitism, strengthening Jewish life and supporting Israel.[3]

AIJAC’s leadership includes National Chairman Mark Leibler, NSW Chairman Paul Rubenstein and Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein; Isador Magid and Bob Zablud are identified as its founding chairmen.[4] Mark Leibler is also a senior partner in the Melbourne-based law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler.[5]

AIJAC traces its precursor to Australia-Israel Publications, which Isador Magid and Robert Zablud employed journalist Sam Lipski to establish in 1974, barely a year after the Yom Kippur War.[6] Lipski recalled that the initiative reflected concern for Israel’s security as well as anxiety about Australian Jews’ own security, connecting the local Jewish community’s circumstances with Israel’s international standing.[6]

The Australia/Israel Review began in 1974 as a stand-alone periodical founded by Magid and Zablud and edited by Lipski, later becoming AIJAC’s flagship magazine.[6] Its anniversary history recounts that then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon told Magid he wanted a Jewish magazine established in Melbourne to encourage improved relations.[6]

A 2007 account in the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs identifies Colin Rubenstein as executive director and notes his earlier teaching of Middle Eastern politics at Monash University.[7] The same account describes the Australia/Israel Review as a monthly publication at that time and identifies Tzvi Fleischer as its editor since 1999, following service in various AIJAC roles beginning in 1992.[7] AIJAC’s current program description instead lists the magazine as quarterly.[1]

The partnership with the American Jewish Committee was already longstanding when the organizations coordinated a three-day Australian mission in 2018, with stops in Canberra and Melbourne.[8] At that time, AIJAC was led by executive director Colin Rubenstein and chairman Mark Leibler.[8] At the 2026 AJC Global Forum, AIJAC Executive Manager Joel Burnie and AJC Asia Pacific Institute director Shira Loewenberg discussed the organizations’ decades-long relationship and their commitments to Jewish communities in Australia, America, Israel and beyond.[3]

The Rambam Israel Fellowship annually sponsors visits to Israel by selected senior journalists, politicians, political advisers, senior public servants and student leaders.[1] A separate visitor program brings international speakers to public and private events in Australia and New Zealand.[1] AIJAC’s publications and communications include the quarterly Australia/Israel Review, the Fresh AIR blog and the Update from AIJAC email bulletin.[1] Tzvi Fleischer is identified as editor of The Review and has granted permission for articles from the publication to be reprinted elsewhere.[9]

AIJAC’s Indonesian engagement reflects, in part, Australia’s proximity to the Indonesian archipelago.[2] Its initiatives have brought Indonesian civil-society participants—including religious figures, journalists, academics and educators—to Israel rather than organizing visits by government officials.[2] These visits have taken place with Indonesian state knowledge but without state involvement, and participants are not necessarily expressing a desire to advance diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Israel.[2]

Delegations receive close exposure to Israeli society, security challenges and politics, with visits covering the Knesset, Israel’s Arab sector and Jerusalem.[2] They also visit Palestinian Authority territories and meet Palestinian officials, religious figures, journalists and nongovernmental organization representatives.[2] Some participants seek to advance Jewish-Muslim and Israeli-Palestinian understanding, reconciliation and peace.[2]

One AIJAC-organized delegation, titled “In the Footsteps of Gus Dur,” brought Indonesian religious and educational figures to meet Israelis, including Arab Israelis, Palestinians, and Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious figures.[2] The delegation toured the Golan Heights during an escalation in southern Israel that included rocket fire.[2] For participant Mohamad Rezky Utama, the tour and its security context deepened understanding of Israel’s topography, potential threats and geostrategic circumstances; he subsequently told his students that the visit had changed his view of the region.[2]

AIJAC’s Australian political engagement includes work with government, opposition and cross-bench lawmakers.[10] In 2019, director of international and community affairs Jeremy Jones outlined priorities including greater government attention to Iran and support for peace-building through people-to-people engagement and direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.[10] In 2017, the organization opposed motions supporting unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state as unhelpful to advancing a two-state peace; Jones also expressed his view that most Australians favored Israeli and Palestinian states coexisting peacefully.[11]

The organization’s 2025 election questionnaire sent 11 questions to the campaigns of Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party and Peter Dutton’s Liberal-National Coalition, continuing a pre-election practice lasting more than two decades.[12] Topics included Australia’s relations with Israel, the Gaza War, Israeli-Palestinian peace-making, UNRWA funding, antisemitism, counterterrorism and multiculturalism.[12]

AIJAC also supported concrete measures to strengthen bilateral relations.[13] In 2019, Mark Leibler welcomed the opening of Australia’s Trade and Defense Office in Jerusalem, following Australia’s December 2018 recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.[13] He argued that the office would give that recognition practical expression and help develop bilateral trade.[13] AIJAC and the American Jewish Committee also advocated for years for measures enabling the designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization; Australia passed enabling legislation in August 2025.[14]

The organizations’ joint work extends beyond bilateral Israeli-Australian questions.[8] Discussions during their 2018 Australian mission addressed Australian-U.S. and Australian-Israeli relations, the Iranian nuclear threat and the JCPOA, Asia-Pacific developments, immigration and integration.[8] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs also describes their cooperation on research and policy initiatives intended to enhance relations between Asian states and the Jewish world.[15]

U.S. Department of State reports linked annual antisemitism monitoring to AIJAC’s director of international and community affairs, although a separate religious-freedom report attributed the 2007 total to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry; the available sources do not explain the relationship between those attributions.[16][17] The human-rights report for the 12 months ending September 30, 2007, recorded 638 incidents—twice the annual average since 1989 and 8 percent above the previous record year, 2002.[16] The following annual reporting period recorded 652 incidents, approximately twice the preceding 18-year average and 2 percent higher than the 2007 total.[18]

The incidents included assault, property damage, harassment and offensive written and electronic material.[18] Particular concerns included assaults and harassment directed at Jewish families walking to and from synagogues, alongside anti-Jewish content on social networking sites, although the report’s author identified moderate improvement in several other areas.[18]

The annual report discussed in the 2009 human-rights reporting recorded 962 incidents, compared with 652 in the preceding period.[19] The increase was driven primarily by street harassment and antisemitic emails and internet postings, rather than an increase across every category.[19] Physical assaults against Jewish people and property fell to 27 incidents, compared with 58 and 46 in the two preceding years, while telephone threats, hate mail and antisemitic graffiti remained below the 20-year average.[19]

AIJAC welcomed Australia’s 2021 endorsement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.[20] Colin Rubenstein linked the decision to a particularly difficult year of hateful anti-Jewish messages, while Mark Leibler highlighted Australian activity at the United Nations and the construction or upgrading of Holocaust education centers as further government action against antisemitism.[20]

In 2023, AIJAC welcomed the University of Melbourne becoming the first Australian university to adopt the IHRA working definition.[21] Rubenstein presented it as a non-legally binding tool for identifying antisemitism, educating about it and helping prevent it, and as a step toward addressing antisemitism on university campuses.[21] The federal government and the governments of New South Wales and Victoria had already adopted the definition.[21]

AIJAC is also among the Jewish defense agencies active in combating Holocaust denial through diplomatic, programmatic, legal and educational efforts.[22] Its cultural advocacy included criticism of the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification’s 2007 decision to give The Death Series a PG rating.[17] The council argued that the classification system gave inadequate consideration to nonfiction advocacy of violence and bigotry; the film included a character referring to Jews as “an army of pigs.”[17]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs places AIJAC “in the vanguard” of Australian Jewish efforts to promote understanding of Israel’s political actions, history, conflicts and contemporary society.[15] Its combination of publications, educational visits and international partnerships supports that broader public-engagement role.[1][3]

AIJAC’s media work includes challenging what it regards as anti-Israel bias and misinformation.[1] A 2005 Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs article reports that an AIJAC study identified 57 examples of alleged bias in daily SBS coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict during 2001 and argued that these violated editorial guidelines.[23] The article also presents the study’s assessment that a decade of SBS Middle East documentaries disproportionately featured material highly critical of Israel; these are the study’s evaluations, rather than independently established findings.[23]

The IHRA definition supported by AIJAC has also attracted criticism that it could be used to silence criticism of Israel.[20] Indonesian media coverage of AIJAC-supported visits has been rare, but some reports criticized participants for meeting Israeli leaders.[2]

A more prominent dispute concerned former Israeli justice and interior minister Ayelet Shaked, whom AIJAC invited to a Canberra security conference in 2024.[24] Australia refused her entry on November 21; reporting connected the refusal to her opposition to a Palestinian state, but did not establish that explanation as confirmed.[24] Other coverage linked the decision partly to a disputed allegation about a past statement, which Shaked denied making.[25] Shaked and Australian Jewish community representatives criticized the refusal, with community representatives warning of damage to Israel–Australia relations.[26]

In a separate visa dispute involving Israeli lawmaker Simcha Rothman, AIJAC explicitly distinguished some of his views from its own.[27] Nevertheless, it argued that refusing him a visa set a troubling precedent for Australia’s relationship with a longstanding democratic friend.[27]