November 28, 2005
The Jewish community of Melbourne, Australia, has offered to advise Muslims on security measures for mosques and Islamic schools amid fears of a backlash against terrorism. Jewish schools and synagogues have developed a system of training individuals to guard and watch over possible sites for anti-Semitic attacks, and that expertise could be shared with Muslims. Michael Lipshutz, a former president of the Jewish Community Council, made the offer at the meeting of a police-sponsored multi-faith group. He told the newspaper "The Age" that cooperation between the faiths was one way to discourage the importing of prejudices common to overseas communities. "Muslims feel very threatened, very targeted, and we are happy to support them. There's no conflict between Jews and Muslims in Australia and we don't believe in bringing in prejudice and hates from overseas," Lipshutz said. "We have organized a system where there are people in our community who will stand guard and will observe and will report matters to police." Malcolm Thomas, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, said the offer would be accepted because of concern for Islamic schools, mosques and businesses. Isolated instances of abuse had occurred since the arrests and last week a brick was thrown through the window of the city mosque. He said the offer of help from the Jewish community was an open one that would be taken up after a series of risk assessments had been conducted on Muslim centers.
