Thirty five Jewish Australians were honoured with Queen’s Birthday honours this year a number that comprised an impressive 4.5% of the total of awardees and proportionately a much higher percentage than the 0.45% of Jews as a proportion of the total Australian population.Two of the highest awards were given to: Prof David Cooper e”h, an eminent medical researcher and clinician best known for his work on HIV/AIDS and Prof Frank Vajda for his work on epilepsy and who as a Holocaust child survivor in Hungary, thanks to the Jews rescuer Roul Wallenberg, led the Free Wallenberg campaign in Australia.The Jewish Community Council of Victoria has criticised the Australian Jewish Democratic Society for their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests’ participation recently, an accusation denied by the society, which will get an opportunity to discuss the issue at a public JCCV plenum on June 2nd.The Sephardic community of NSW commemorated the anti-Jewish pogrom in Baghdad, known as the Farhud, which took place on the 1st June 1941 and will work towards increasing the knowledge of the events in the future through publishing of a textbook, testimony recordings and an exhibition at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Anns:Beautiful As The Moon, Radiant As The Stars: The Jewish Woman(Part of the 2018 Glen Eira Storytelling Festival)Sunday June 24 at 5pm, At the Kadimah, 7 Selwyn St., Elsterwick, Vic.Tickets: $15/$10 Kadimah members & Concession: Bookings: https://www.trybooking.com/VEGVTrailblazing Jewish women of literature - from heroines, pioneers and writers to ordinary wives and mothers of their time - will be celebrated in a glorious afternoon of readings and music in English with a touch of Yiddish. Real and fictional women will be brought to life by a fabulous cast of some of Melbourne’s favourite performers and scholars including Evelyn Krape, Danielle Charak, Galit Klas, Tomi Kalinski, Freydi Mrocki and Elana Forbes. Narrated by Isaac Apel and directed by Anna Epstein, this will be a literary event for audiences of all ages, both Yiddish and non-Yiddish speakers alike.Â