To the Editor:
Your Feb. 11 issue ran three articles concerning my Feb. 6 talks at the Monash University conference on "Antisemitism in the Contemporary World," namely a news article, a rebuttal by Mark Baker, and an editorial (the last of these titled "Pipes' False Alarm").
Flattered as I am that you saw my talk on the "Politics of Muslim Antisemitism" to be worthy of such coverage, I would have been much happier had the editorial not been premised on a mistake, namely my saying that "The golden age of Australian Jewry is over."
In fact, I asserted my belief that the Golden Age of American Jewry is over. (For more on this subject, see "The End of American Jewry's Golden Era." Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2 May 2004.)
"America" and "Australia" may sound alike, but you hardly need me to inform you that they are quite different places. I said not a word about Australian Jewry except by implication when I suggested that most Jews may end up in Israel and the "Anglosphere."
I provided a host of specifics about the American condition, mentioning for example changes that took place in the late 1940s concerning a best-selling book, a beauty queen, and a baseball player.
If you need proof of your mistake, I can provide you with the notes to my talk or a digital tape recording of it.
I look forward to suitable corrections and an apology for this quite extraordinary mistake, and in particular for your having taken me to task ("Dr Pipes is no expert on Australia, let alone Australian Jewry") for a sin I did not commit.
Daniel Pipes
