2024 - An Existential Year

You can say what you like about Trump - but one thing the man has done brilliantly is underpin his entire mission and campaign with a catchy, simple slogan – ‘MAGA’ (Make America Great Again). That red cap slogan has become part of popular culture, whether one likes it (or him) or not.  

Right now in this country, I’d love to see our leaders donning a MASA cap – “Make Australia Safe Again” and actually trying to put that slogan into practice. And while I have no idea if this slogan resonates with the wider Australian population, it certainly speaks to every Jewish person I know in this country, even though there’s less than 120,000 of us. The sad reality is that as of the last year, we all feel unsafe here in our own country, a country that prides itself on its multiculturalism and pluralism.

A war on the other side of the world (in which Australia has no real involvement) has led to a situation where the Jewish community now feel with good reason, vulnerable and unsafe in this country.

The fact that things have got to this point has been THE defining moment of the lives of almost every Jewish Australian person I know over the past year. Tragically, these sentiments are echoed around the world, in every country where Jews are allowed to live.

At a conference I was working at last month, a colleague asked me a question that we all ask each other around this time of year – a fairly innocent, benign question - ‘So, how was your year?’

My answer was that it’s been in many ways a good year, family are healthy, work has been stimulating and busy and we even squeezed in a fantastic holiday mid-year. Then I explained why in reality it hasn’t been a great year at all.

Unfortunately, no Jewish person in Australia, in fact likely anywhere in the world, would say they’d truly had a great year. For Jews in Australia, the truth is it’s been a really bad year, an unprecedented, even existential year. It may not be noticeable to colleagues and clients at work, as most of us behave like everything is fine, but the Middle East war, the world’s reaction to it and the terrifying rise of antisemitism here in our backyard has been on most of our minds pretty much 24/7.

I read about it constantly, it’s my social media scrolling, my podcast listening and its pretty much all we talk about amongst friends. My wife says she lives, breathes and sleeps the Middle East War, except it keeps her awake at night, so she doesn’t sleep.

I know I’m not alone in this sentiment, but it feels like my whole world view has shifted this year. In the same way as your world shifts when you first have a child or when you lose a loved one or when someone close to you develops a life-threatening illness. That level of change. Existential. A word I didn’t even really grasp till this year.

And it’s become worse throughout the year as antisemitism has continue to rise, month after month.

Having grown up in Australia, the son of a Holocaust survivor, up until 15 months ago I’d experienced no antisemitism, other than a few harmless throwaway comments from schoolmates many years ago, who bore no ill will.

I naively thought that serious antisemitism was a thing of the past and disagreed with some friends who warned that it was slowly creeping back. I dismissed their concerns as second generation Holocaust survivor trauma. Paranoia. Over-reaction.

Posters on Uni campuses, the odd offensive comment from a Green politician, the occasional ABC TV report. I chalked it down to the far-left railing against a right-wing Israeli government. Or a few extremist loonies with their racist rants.

I was acutely aware of a growing, hypocritical, boycott movement against Israeli businesses – but I (wrongly) shrugged them off saying they have no real concern with Jewish people. How naïve I was. No longer.

For those who have been paying attention (and I honestly understand that the majority of non-Jewish Australians probably haven’t been, as the Middle East isn’t their number one priority – after all, it is a conflict on the other side of the world, not involving Australia) the levels of antisemitic acts in our country have continued to skyrocket.

It seems like almost every week this year, we’ve seen another incidence of antisemitic graffiti, property damage, incendiary comments at a rally, inflammatory comments by public figures, or sections of the media or posts from certain social media keyboard warriors who have raised their bigoted heads more than ever before.

It is a frightening fact that antisemitic incidents here in Australia have surged over 300% in the past year since Hamas’ October 7th rampage.

And as has been plastered all over the news these past few weeks, things just got a whole lot worse. A series of anti-Jewish graffiti and firebombs on cars in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, where I and the largest population of Jewish people in NSW live - and worst of all (so far) the arson attack on the Adass Synagogue in a Jewish neighbourhood of Melbourne, where many of my Melbourne Jewish community friends reside.

My 88 year old mother, who escaped Germany as a young child with her parents to the sanctity of Australia – the country where she has lived in total safety since 1939, has spent the past year distraught that the world she thought she’d left behind is re-surfacing again. And she is not alone in these thoughts.

A burning Synagogue to all Jews is so symbolic, so evocative, so emblematic of antisemitism, eerily evoking Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) – essentially the start of the Nazi Holocaust. My family escaped Germany literally days earlier heading to the ‘safe haven’ of Sydney. And it has felt like a safe haven till 15 months ago when a mob on the Opera House steps brazenly called for our destruction.

Personally, the scariest thing about waking up a fortnight ago to the news of a burning synagogue in our country was how unsurprised I was. We all knew it was coming. We hoped it wouldn’t but we had no reason to believe that things would calm.

It pains me to say this - but we know what comes next. Not car arson or synagogue arson (although I’m sure there’s more of that where that came from) but actual violence against Australian Jews. There have been some minor incidents of violence this past year, but nothing too serious…….yet.

It is neither hysteria nor hyperbole to say that if things don’t change, if the response to these acts doesn’t change, it IS just a matter of time. It’s already happened around the world, including the Netherlands a month ago. Many of the weekly protesters in our cities who chant “Globalise the Intifada” are calling for it, in essence encouraging violence against Israelis, Jews, and institutions that support Israel.

And to our community’s grave disappointment, nothing significant has yet happened to curb or prevent those acts of incitement. To be clear, I am referring to the chants and the inciteful hateful signs, not the pro-Palestine protests themselves, which are legal, legitimate, and understandable. I also want peace in the Middle East and for a 2 State solution where Palestinians have their own homeland, when the conditions allow.

My issue is solely with the illegal behaviour, behaviour that when unchecked, leads to firebombs and burning synagogues.

When an angry mob burns Israeli flags on the steps of Sydney’s most famous landmark (2 days after the October 7th massacre, before Israel had even retaliated) and the mob chants ‘Where’s The Jews’ or ‘F The Jews’, this is exactly what they are calling for. When not confronted, challenged, prevented or prosecuted, the wider mob are encouraged and emboldened…….and a year later, here we are. A burning synagogue.

All year we have expressed outrage, fear and distress, appealing to our politicians to do something - yet so far the response has largely been one of empty gestures, although perhaps the sight of a synagogue in flames is the huge wake-up call that was needed.

Platitude after platitude, a visit to a synagogue here, an empty ‘We don’t tolerate racism in Australia’ comment there. But no substantive action.

The Jewish community have been pushing hard for that wake-up call since the alarming Opera House demonstration – but to our community, it feels like most of those in power have simply been hitting the snooze button on our alarm clock, time and time again.

There has been heart-warming, life affirming exceptions from some politicians and community leaders, who genuinely get it and are standing up, but for many of the ones with the power to enact change, we’ve seen a lack of real action at best or a contribution to anti-Israel rhetoric at worst.

History has shown us - and Australia’s inaction in 2024 has confirmed, that when politicians sit on fences and pacify and appease, offering endless words of alarm and condemnation but taking no action, then these insipid platitudes enable and embolden.

And soon enough a synagogue burns.

Bottom Line – the rise of antisemitism is irrefutable, and our government needs to urgently address this local emergency, which has undeniably festered on its watch throughout 2024.

The antisemitism in Australia is now reported all over the world. Our Israeli friends and relatives reach out to Australian Jews concerned about us! They are defending themselves in an actual war for their very survival, started by terrorists on several fronts whose stated mission is to kill every Jewish person - and the Israeli’s are concerned about the rising tide of Jew hate over here!!

Following the Melbourne synagogue arson attack, US based Jewish human rights organisation - the Simon Wiesenthal Centre issued a travel warning for Jewish people looking to visit Australia. Let that sink in!!! A travel warning that it is not safe for Jewish people to travel to Australia!!!

Our US Ambassador Kevin Rudd received a letter from the Centre stating “In failing to act against the demonization of Jews, Israel and Zionism on the streets of Australian cities, the authorities have allowed violence against Jews and Israelis to be normalized.”

The fact that we have allowed this to happen beggars’ belief.

The truth is this situation has become a disturbing case of the ‘boiling frog’ syndrome. The boiling frog of course a metaphor for how gradual changes can go unnoticed until it’s too late to act.

 For as long as I can remember, security guards have been placed outside Jewish schools and synagogues. For 20 years, each time I dropped my kids to school, they passed an armed security guard. The walls around our Jewish schools are higher than walls around any other school. Security cameras are everywhere. Armed police surround our synagogues on High Holidays. For most of my life, each time I have attended a synagogue or Jewish event, we are questioned by security and bags searched. I rarely gave it a second’s thought. It was normalised.

It was only when a non-Jewish friend would ask a question like “Why is there such tight security outside that school in Randwick?” that I’d remember and explain the reason. As Jews in Australia, we aren’t safe. There are those that wish us and our kids harm. And while I have taken this all for granted, the point is – that IS crazy!!! We should not have to tolerate that as normal or acceptable in liberal, free, multicultural Australia!!

But sadly we do and we have - and in our Jewish community we all pay money to fund the security to make sure no antisemitic thugs or terrorists harm us or our children.

Decades before the racists or far left fanatics or the dangerous fringe groups started their current wave of antisemitic attacks, these threats have existed for Australian Jews.

But 2024 has seen a shocking escalation.

We sit comfortably and a little smugly in Australia – shaking our heads at some of the craziness in America, in particular their failure to solve their gun crisis. It seems like every year in the US there is another sickening act of gun violence in a school and we can’t fathom how they allow that to continue. And yet we are all just waiting for it to happen again, which it inevitably will (while writing this article – one happened in Wisconsin today), and the US leaders will offer ‘thoughts and prayers’ and do nothing.

Fortunately that isn’t happening in Australia because 30 years ago one of our leaders acted like a leader and took action, but the principle is the same. Another act of antisemitism happens in 2024, the leaders condemn it and show outrage, and nothing actually changes – and so we wait for it happen again. And sadly it will.

So we wait nervously for another synagogue to burn. Or worse.

Inaction has consequences.

Allowing and accepting misleading and often deliberately pernicious terminology to be thrown around with abandon in the mainstream media and amongst some academics (terms like ‘genocide’, ‘Nazification’, ‘apartheid’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’ - as opposed to calling it what it is - a tragic, terrible, ugly war) does have consequences.

Turning the word ‘Zionist’ into a curse and a slur when the vast majority of Jews around the world identify as Zionists (the simple belief that Israel has a right to exist in its ancestral homeland) has its consequences. Equating Israel, the only real democracy in the Middle East with totalitarian regimes like China and Russia, as our Foreign Minister appallingly did a week ago, has its consequences.

Consequences like a burning synagogue.

And to the inevitable “What-aboutters” reading this – I am fully aware of the shades of grey in this conflict, that Israel is far from perfect and has made many mistakes. War is messy and complex and innocent people die and I appreciate that there are far right elements in Israel’s government who are dangerous and extremely problematic. I, like all Jews, and like all Israelis in their democracy, will debate, criticize and call out things we disagree with. I’ll do the same about Australia. I’m doing it right now.

But let’s never forget that the antisemitism I am referring to is here in Australia, aimed at Jews, not Israelis. The fact that another country’s actions on the other side of the world can justify threats and violence to Jews in Australia can indeed only be attributed to antisemitism.

We have seen from history where this can lead. After WW2, our community had the words ‘Never Again’ seared into our subconscious – so you can forgive us if we react strongly to words, slurs, falsehoods, half-truths and misinformation, let alone car bombs, smashed windows on Jewish MP’s offices, ‘Kill Zionists’ graffiti in Jewish neighbourhoods ……..and a burning synagogue.   

The combination of the hostile reaction to Israel’s war of self-defence, the blatant one-sidedness of compromised world institutions like the UN and the ICJ, together with the terrifying rise of unbridled Jew hatred in Australia and worldwide, has resulted in Jews feeling like their once-safe world has been turned upside down.

But the fact that Australia is no longer the ‘safe haven’ it once was does not mean we are living our daily lives any differently. I just walked down to Coogee Beach without any concern or fear. My work has not been impacted. Most of us go about our day with our full freedoms and are not petrified for our own personal safety, not yet. We walk around in public without looking over our shoulders, many of us now wearing our Jewish necklaces with pride.

We are alert and alarmed - but we are also resilient and resolute.  

We will not be silenced or intimidated. I am not afraid to write that I am Jewish and a Zionist. And if that word upsets anyone in the wider artistic world that my work sometimes intersects with, fine, let's chat.

We are aware that things are no longer as safe as they once were – and we worry about it getting worse - but our Jewish community is more ‘out and proud’ than ever before.

Synagogues are fuller. Peace protests, Jewish functions and memorials are well attended. A few months ago, a memorial for the victims of the October 7th massacre in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs attracted 7,000 Jews, a staggering number given the tiny size of our community. I’m guessing it was the largest number of Jews gathered in one place in the history of this country.

15 months ago, I would never have dreamed of writing an article on social media about my religion. Nor anything vaguely political. But that was the ‘me’ before our world changed. Chalk that up to an existential crisis coupled with anger and outrage. A great number of my friends in our community are doing exactly the same.

We say ‘Never Again’ and we mean it. We won’t be silenced. This issue is too important not to speak out when we can.

We won’t allow falsehoods to go unchallenged. We will protest peacefully, write letters to the media when they spread lies or half-truths, appeal to our local leaders, push for change and educate the majority of good open-minded Australians about the complexities of the war and the dangers of staying silent in the face of local prejudice.

And I do believe that the majority of non-Jewish Aussies are appalled at what is going on in our backyard and sick of reading about the racism that has been allowed to run rampant by a vocal minority of racist trouble-makers and criminals. Your Jewish friends appreciate those of you who have reached out or spoken out. Remember that remaining silent is dangerous for everyone and indifference allows bigotry to thrive.

The rise of fundamentalism, coupled with the growth of terrorist sympathisers and antisemitism is not a ‘Jewish problem’. It is a problem for the entire free world, as Jews throughout history have always been the canary in the coalmine.

Yet despite the world being turned upside down, I remain an optimist.

In the new year, I hope our politicians climb down off the fence they’ve sat on for the past 15 months. If not, I hope we will see other politicians take over and take a real stand.

I hope the war in Gaza ends as soon as possible. I feel it will.

I hope real leaders somehow emerge on all sides in the Middle East to forge a path to a lasting peace. That requires a huge amount of optimism and time. But it’s possible. It has to be.

And finally, I hope the 100+ hostages still lingering in Hamas’ terror tunnels are brought back home.

And I hope you have a happy and SAFE new year, a year in which Australia can start on the road to becoming a safe multicultural nation once again.

I’m off for a walk in my new MASA cap.