TOKEN JEW NOT JEWISH


Antony Loewenstein accounts for his inclusion in a televised panel discussion of Muslim relations with the wider Australian community:

I was invited onto Difference of Opinion as an alternative perspective on a complex issue, and I was not speaking on behalf of the Jewish community.

Nope, Loewenstein was included as the token Jew, at least according to host Jeff McMullen:

Antony, as the member of the third Abrahamic religion here tonight, can you see that we will ever be all together here again in this country?

McMullen obviously wasn't paying attention because he failed to notice an earlier Loewenstein admission that he's not Jewish:

I think it's also interesting - there is a really important role - and I’m speaking as an atheist Jew who says this. I think there's a really big role of religious groups between religions - so, Christian groups, Jewish groups talking to the Muslim community - and I think there's a real sense, and I can speak more for the Jewish community – there is a real sense, which is not unique to the Jewish community, of a great deal of anti Muslim sentiment in there, obviously, partly to do with Israel and Palestine, it has a lot to do with it, but there is a real need, I think, to dialogue between religions as well.

How can a self-confessed atheist claim to speak for the Jewish community?

It's also worth nothing that Loewenstein has again transformed himself, this time from smoldering hunk into a pasty, paunchy and chinless whiner (follow the link and then click on the "Why is there fear and friction..." link on the right).

Update: Loewenstein's blurb at Difference of Opinion briefly outlines his output:

He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Guardian, Washington Post, The Age, Crikey and many others.

Funny how Counterpunch is omitted from his credits. He has written for the Washington Post's PostGlobal and the Guardian's comment is free blogs but has not, as far as I know, ever been published in either paper's print edition.