ALL women’s rights are human rights

Almost a thousand Jewish women of all ages stood in silent vigil in Australian capital cities on December 10, UN Human Rights Day. Dressed in white with yellow ribbons, they bore the message that Hillary Clinton first shouted in 1995, that ‘women’s rights are human rights’, adding that Jewish women’s rights are, too.

Those women represented the diversity of Australia’s Jewish community: some six-generations Australian born; some recent immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, South America or Israel; some who advocate for Palestinian rights and the two-state solution; others who only use the biblical name Judea and Samaria for the West Bank; Labor voters; Liberal voters; Greens voters, or formerly so. Along the ‘colour’ spectrum their faces reflected years of Jewish exile in countries from Poland to Morocco. (Exactly how ‘white’ Jewish people are is another debate.)

A very diverse crowd, united in their pain about the continued bondage and torture of their sisters and brothers still held hostage in Gaza, about the rising tide of hate against Jewish people everywhere including their own cities, and about the world’s seeming indifference to both.

The silence of the vigils was deliberately ironic. Jewish women are known for being mouthy. The pioneers of feminism, including Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Susan Sontag, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and others were all Jewish women.

That silence broadcast a quiet dignity and strength, but it also played on the invisible wall of silence that has surrounded our community since October 7 last year.

Inside that wall are friends and allies who speak to us – and sometimes to the world – about their solidarity with us and their recognition of the patterns of history: that what Jewish Australians are experiencing now bodes so ill for the future of Australia’s liberal democracy and especially for the safety of every other minority and marginalised group.

But that wall has a small circumference, and outside it silence reigns supreme. I received this from a non-Jewish friend last week, one of countless similar messages over the past 14 months: “I posted something on FB saying [the attacks on Jewish people in Sydney and Melbourne are] a disgrace and only 2 people liked. I get a ton of posts when I post about my dog. That pisses me off. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to actually be Jewish. It’s winding me up. I got your back, for what that small thing is worth.” It’s worth a huge amount – more than you can know, I replied.

Since being elected president of National Council of Jewish Women Australia, our 101-year-old peak women’s body, I’ve been meeting decisionmakers in cities across the country. Something has happened that I’ve never experienced before: there are politicians – even ministers – who won’t have their photos taken with us. We have experienced this along the political spectrum. Some have given reasons: they’ve been harassed and intimidated, even spat on in the street, after appearing with or speaking up for Jewish Australians, but some have not, and that silence says even more.

Last month our organisation gave a platform to six incredible Australian women who have spoken out against Jew hatred and have also walked their talk: Professors Marcia Langton AO and Jennifer Westacott AO, LGBTQIA+ pioneer Julie McCrossin AM, journalists Peta Credlin AO and Gemma Tognini, and Catholic intellectual Dr Teresa Pirola.

These women and the women who stood in white on December 10 broadcast the message that no matter your politics or your views on Israel, excluding Jewish people from the human family is both morally bankrupt and pragmatically stupid. The enemies of Jews are the enemies of women. When #rapeisresistance as Hamas’s supporters claim, no woman is safe anywhere.

When people are silent in the face of Jew hatred on their own streets; too afraid of social exclusion to Like a post by someone who isn’t and certainly too terrified to speak up themselves … history teaches us that their society is doomed.

We were deliberately silent on UN Human Rights Day. But now we are asking all Australians of conscience to speak up. And we are asking that they use the correct language when they do. Not to call the vile behaviour that we are witnessing against the 0.4% of Australians who are Jewish ‘antisemitism.’ That’s a euphemism invented by German proto-Nazi Wilhem Marr in 1879, to replace the word ‘Judenhass’ – ‘Jew hatred’.

We want it called ‘Jew hatred’ – an ugly term for an ugly thing. It might remind people that we don’t tolerate hate speech or action against First Nations or Muslim or Chinese or female or any other marginalised groups, and neither must we tolerate it against Jews. To paraphrase David Baddiel, Jews must count.

We must all speak, but it’s up to politicians to act. Maybe they can start by standing next to Jewish women in photos.