Letter

In response to Australia's first Jewish governor-general would have stood with Gaza

Sir Isaac Isaacs

Gregory Andrews may not be aware that at the time Sir Isaac Isaacs opposed a Jewish state, the political background was that Palestine was under the British Mandate and so supporting the creation of a Jewish state meant being “disloyal” to the mother country.

His “civic conviction” was part of a political debate within the Jewish community that pitched British loyalists against those who supported the establishment of a Jewish state. That debate largely died once the British Mandate ended and Israel was created.

— Harold Zwier from Melbourne