Being Jewish out loud
Last night, a story ran across mainstream news and social media about a well-known Sydney architect, with many Jewish clients, who had declared his support for Greta Thunberg’s antisemitic, pro-Hamas flotilla media stunt. This morning, The Australian newspaper ran an article about Mercedes and Dulux cancelling their contracts over a design blogger’s antisemitic comments and social media posts, some of which included her “liking” footage of the October 7th atrocities.
Last week, Nike cancelled its endorsement of Grace Tame, a former Australian of the Year who veered off course, from fighting for women’s rights to full-fledged antisemite, spreading antisemitic tropes, endorsing a post justifying the murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, and claiming that support of Israel was participation in the “legitimisation of Jewish supremacist ethnonationalism.”
While I take comfort in these multinational corporations doing the right thing, the fact that they are based overseas speaks volumes. I wonder what their responses would have been if they were local companies, in the current political climate, where Jew-hate and anti-Zionism has become normalised, with a government that has not only turned its back on Israel, but allowed antisemitism to flourish and infect Australian society and its institutions.
Last month, I sat with an old school friend in a café in Israel, when I found myself, mid-sentence, lowering my voice when I mentioned the word “Jewish”. She looked at me strangely, and it took me a moment to realise why. I laughed when I realised what I had done, exaggeratedly raised my voice and said the word again, this time drawing looks from other people, Jews, in the café. I was in a safe space, giddy from the freedom of worrying about who was sitting next to me, who could overhear me talking about being Jewish or supporting Israel.
Back home in Australia I walk around my neighbourhood wearing my Magen David necklace proudly; I wear it to work, to yoga, it swings from my neck on my morning run, my Judaism clearly visible. Then again, I live and work in the epicentre of the Jewish community in Sydney. I know that if someone were to confront me, 10 people would rush to my defence.
This bold Jewish confidence that I feel when surrounded by Jews vanishes the moment I step outside of my local area. I lower my voice when discussing Israel or Judaism in public, I’ve mastered the slight of hand when turning my Magen David to the back of my neck, tucked under my hair, hidden in plain sight. I have a food allergy, and won’t order from a waiter with it visible, this irrational fear that they will deliberately contaminate my food as their small victory over the Jews. Writing this, I can see how crazy it seems, but the widespread hate that has been allowed to go unchecked in Australia has seeped into every part of society, and it is impossible not to feel it in day-to-day life. Whether it’s the doxxing of Jewish artists, the exposure of a private WhatsApp chat for Jewish lawyers, the boycotting of some Jewish businesses, Jewish children being harassed on public buses, it no longer lives only in the stories we were told about pre-1939 Europe. A few weeks ago, an Australian-Israeli healer was banned from a wellness festival for being a Zionist (her crime, being a member of WIZO). She was eventually reinstated after a backlash, but hers is not an isolated incident.
Australia was a country where Jews felt safe, included, accepted. We fooled ourselves into believing that antisemitism wasn’t an issue here, that it festered only in extreme, right-wing pockets on the fringe of society. We were safe here, at least that’s what we told ourselves.
We know better now. On my way into shul last Rosh Hashanah, a car drove past me and yelled “I hope you all die”. I carried that hate with me into shul, to our dinner, trying to comprehend how it had come to this, that someone was brazen enough to yell this at Jewish families in the heart of our suburb. We could no longer tell ourselves that the hatred that we saw online and on tv wouldn’t permeate our daily lives, that we could protect our children from being exposed.
In the weeks since I’ve been back, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky have been murdered, elderly Jews rallying for the hostages have been firebombed in Colorado… I can’t convince myself that it’s happened somewhere far away and that we, in Australia, are immune from that ever happening there. It feels like every day I am waking up to stories of Jew hate, no longer just from the dark edges of society, from neo-Nazis or pro-Palestinian groups. It’s the architect who built the house down the road celebrating Greta Thunberg, the designer my friend followed on Instagram liking footage of October 7th, the local Mexican café posting “every day is Fxxk Israel day”.
It was only when I sat with my friend in that café in Israel that I realised that I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders, I could breathe for the first time in a long time. Suddenly, wearing my Magen David wasn’t a statement or a show of defiance. In a country that lives under the constant barrage of missiles and drones where sirens and the threat of attacks is normal, I felt safer.