Philip Feinstein OAM

Philip Feinstein OAM

“I hope my contributions towards a connection between Jewish and Aboriginal people have been fruitful. 

In 1990 I introduced the Smokenders stop smoking program Australia-wide, which I still run at no charge to Aboriginal people via the AMS (Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern). The program was a huge success, as reported on SBS news. Although the format of the program has now changed, I still make it available at no cost to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from anywhere in Australia, including in two of NSW’s prisons, Long Bay Jail and Parklea Prison. 

I’ve also supported Angela Milthorpe, an anthropologist from Robertson NSW, who lived with two Aboriginal families in the Northern Territory for 8 years. Angela learned their culture and was taken into their kinship by local families. 

Wanting to introduce her Aboriginal families to her birth families, she embarked on taking 60 people from these two Northern Territory ‘mobs’ to Robertson via the Gold Coast and Sydney in 2008. These people had never seen the coast before. I became her main helper in arranging finance for the trip, organising the accommodation and filming the expedition.”