From the Diaspora: A Search for Belonging in 2024

I wonder if every generation grows up thinking, hoping, they’re born during an insignificant time in history.

I thought that would be my story.

Since the Australian bushfires of 2020, which was directly followed by the COVID pandemic, there seems to be some sort of world cataclysm that has been in the background shaping, distorting, the direction of my life. But none so much since October 7th.

I thought, naively, this dreadful day would unite the world in acknowledging the evil that is Hamas, and the existential threat of Iran. That the progressed world would come together to forge a direction that brought us one step closer to peace.

I was wrong.

I was in the United States a year ago when the October 7 attack and the subsequent war against Hamas broke out. In that time my dreams of moving to New York slowly dissipated as I saw the temperature around me change. Words of sympathy for the victims and their families swiftly turned to vitriol against the State of Israel, and from there to this championing of Hamas and Iran – a turn of tide which I still can’t comprehend. 

When I returned to Sydney it was no different. Everyday living in a secular Australian society, outside the safety nets of Sydney’s Jewish communities in the Eastern and Northern suburbs, I would feel varying degrees of that ignorance and hatred. But I would always feel it.

Some days it was a whisper – anti-Israel propaganda posters on the way to work. Other days it was louder – the biased and partial narratives from the majority of Australia’s skewed and antisemitic media. Increasingly larger pockets of what little nightlife Sydney has, slowly evolving into no-go zones to be outwardly Jewish.

The last music festival I went to, brandishing your Keffiyeh was the new brave and heroic status symbol of the liberal populace, no matter how contradictory the charter of Hamas is to the supposed values of these ‘humanitarians’ who support them.

For me, the lack of acceptance of Jewish people in Australia became impossible to ignore. Perhaps it was extreme, but looking ahead I came to doubt a viable future for the Jewish diaspora in Australia

We’re such a statistically insignificant population. How can our voice be heard? And naturally because we’re so overly indexing in success as a people, if we defend ourselves whether on the ground, in the media, or in everyday discourse, we must be punching down. That is sarcasm, of course. Somehow latent racist stereotypes are fine so long as they’re directed towards Jews.

At least in my opinion, feeling barely tolerated was not enough to constitute a life. So, it was the search for belonging that brought me here, to Israel.

I came here in September on an A1 Visa, which affords full living and working rights, from which most people eventually make Aliyah. Why not just make Aliyah? I’m not sure. Now trying to navigate the Ministry of Interior’s four month waiting list to be issued an ID number, I somewhat regret what I thought at the time was responsible and cautious thinking.

Originally, and again naively, earlier this year when I was making my plans to come here, I did think there would be an end to the war by the time I arrived.

Since arriving I have become, as everyone has, all too familiar with the Red Alerts, to the point where most notifications on my phone elicit at least a small pang of dread, and it’s mostly kept on silent.

When Iran sent its 180 ballistic missiles on the 1st of October it was the first time that I, holed in the Mamad with my cousin and his wife, thought I was truly going to die.

When those terrible 30 minutes were finally over, fear gave way to a surge of outrage, which has become a kind of thematic consistent as a Jew from the diaspora. Where are the serious sanctions against Iran? Where is the outcry from the Western World?

Instead, the country I grew up in, and the peers I once thought I was aligned with, seem intent on campaigning for their own destruction, as well as ours.

Most days I wake up to WhatsApp messages from my family alerting me to the most recent vandalism of Jewish-owned businesses in Sydney, or the latest betrayal of the Australian Government who has all but abandoned its Jewish population during the historical rise in antisemitism, such that I never thought I would see in my lifetime.

It’s hard, to say the least. I came from a country where no war has ever been fought on its territory, to Israel at a time of an unprecedented war that has the potential to shape the future of the Middle East, with an end that is still so uncertain.

Now, as I check the Red Alerts everyday, I’m reminded that people, monsters, want to kill us. What is better, I wonder? An external existential threat from Israel’s hostile neighbors, or an internal threat as a Jew in the diaspora as your own environment becomes increasingly unwelcoming.

I still don’t have the answer.

I remember not long after arriving having to replace my phone after it broke (a great day), and one of the sales assistants at Partner raising an eyebrow at me:  

“Yes, very good time to come to Israel. Lots of bombs,” he chided.

No, it’s not easy as an Olah chadasha. Or at least a pre-Olah. I miss the cold-comfort of the familiar, of efficient bureaucracy. I miss the rain. I feel disappointment and shame in myself that I can’t speak the language. What would my ancestors think? What do the people here think?

I fear derailing my career. And my admin tasks seem bottle-necked to the point where I’ve neared defeat on many occasions. How on earth does one get an appointment at the Ministry of Interior?!

On the other hand, when you see protests from your home country mourning the death of Nasrallah it makes the decision to stay easier. Or at least, not to return.

Belonging, I remind myself.

I find hope and comfort in the resilience of the Israeli people and the other 30,000 Olim who have come here in the past year, similarly to find a sense of belonging in Israel, rather than face discrimination from their home. I find it in the friends I have made during my first Ulpan, who harken from all corners of the world, sharing similar sentiments and experiences. In the Israelis I’ve met who are adamant there is no better place for Jews.

After the Iranian missile attack, I was astonished to see how life here continues as normal. Everyday, after every incident, every tragedy, somehow life continues. It must, I’ve learnt. Even with hearts that grow ever-heavier, with shaken nerves that linger with pain and frustration, somehow life must continue.

I have tried to take impetus from those around me to become just the tiniest bit braver myself, traveling to Tel Aviv to participate in the October 7th commemorations despite my fear of terror attacks. Even if my cousin did need to accompany me on the train.

Even on the days where it is most difficult, I still take comfort in the fact that I have never been more culturally aligned with my surroundings, which is a rare feeling to find.

Not for one instant do I think I have it harder than the Israeli population for whom this has been a reality every day since October 7th, and of course before. For the brave soldiers in the IDF who are risking and sacrificing their lives to protect the Jewish homeland and its people. For the hostages and their families, for whom I lack words to express my utmost sympathy, nor to comprehend their pain and suffering.

Experiencing the Chaggim for the first time in Israel against the background of war has been both beautiful in its communal healing and heartbreaking in the loss that surrounds it. This year, the words of the The Unetanneh Tokef during Rosh Hashannah, felt impossible to read:

“Who shall live and who shall die / Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not.”

It’s cruel, it’s unfair, and it feels like the fate of Jews everywhere is, again, still so uncertain.

So where to from here, for this Jewish Australian in search of belonging?

Everyday my opinion changes. I wish I was inherently braver, I wish I had greater faith. At the very least I wish I was more certain of my place in this country.

I believe wholeheartedly that to live as a Jew in the sovereign state of Israel in 2024 is a miracle. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy miracle.

For now, for today at least, I want to be a part of the Zionist future in Israel. And if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from my time so far is that to live in Israel, you have to take life one day at a time. And everyday, you choose to make the most of life.