Limmud Oz 2019

For decades, ASIO maintained extensive files on people and organisations, many of them Jewish, with left- wing affiliations. Some were members of my own family. Using these files, I examine ASIO’s surveillance regime, explaining why so many Jews leaned left in the first half of last century and why ASIO took an unrelenting interest in them. I will conclude with a discussion on why, in recent years, the political allegiance of Australian Jews has shifted to the right.