Mark Leibler is a religious Zionist and social and political conservative who has played a prominent if contentious role in Jewish community politics, pro-Israel lobby groups and taxation law. This unauthorised biography by Michael Gawenda, himself a notable progressive journalist of Jewish background, explores Leibler’s life through the prism of two seemingly polarised policy frameworks.
One is the particularist approach defending Jewish interests especially against manifestations of anti-Semitism, which is often colloquially characterised as “Is it good for the Jews?” Gawenda frames Leibler as epitomising this approach given his robust defence of Israeli government policies whether right or wrong.
The alternative universalistic approach views Jewish concerns as harmoniously aligned with the wellbeing of the broader population. Yet, as Gawenda acknowledges, Leibler is arguably “a man of contradictions”. He is a neoliberal advocate for small government and lower taxation for the wealthy, yet has chosen in later life (as have many other Jewish lawyers informed by historical experiences of racism) to contribute significantly to the movement for legal and political recognition of Indigenous rights.
Gawenda provides a concise guide to the successful migration immediate pre-war and post-war of many Jews fleeing or surviving the Holocaust. Leibler’s parents fortuitously arrived from Belgium in 1939, and were welcomed into a country with no tradition of political anti-Semitism. To be sure, there were some instances of social and economic discrimination including exclusion from establishment law firms and private clubs. But Leibler, who attended a Jewish day school and later won Melbourne University’s top law prize in 1965, denies ever experiencing anti-Semitism. For Leibler, and indeed for many Jews, Australia has been a golden land and a multicultural success story.
Read the article by Philip Mendes in The Sydney Morning Herald.