Australia prides itself on being a secular, multi-cultural state. Section 116 of the Australian Constitution declares that: 

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

In theory, the law protects all religions equally. But in a new book, Mareike Reidel argues that, despite the state’s supposed religious neutrality and the separation of state and church, the law fails to deliver equality for all religions. She traces the origins of this “Christian normativity” to the historical relationship between Christianity and Judaism, and the long-held ambivalence about the place and belonging of Jews and Judaism in Western societies. This work raises questions of identity, difference, and the law, and explores how religious difference is racialized.

 Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Mareike Riedel as they discuss the relationship between law, secularism, religion, and racialisation through the lens of the legal encounter with Jewish identity.  

 This podcast features Mareike’s forthcoming book, 'Law and Jewish Difference: Ambivalent Encounters', published with Cambridge University Press. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/law-and-jewish-difference/D8A29D2D741715B8EB4E5D77B77644D3)