If you could see her through my eyes…

For each one of us there is that one film that stays with you forever. For me, it was Cabaret, which charted the birth of Nazism in Weimar Berlin. In the role of her lifetime, Liza Minelli played torch singer Sally Bowles. Michael York played her gay boyfriend Brian, and Joel Grey played the master of ceremonies at the magnificently decadent Kit Kat Klub.

I was introduced to Cabaret by an innovative history teacher who used it to help us understand the rise of totalitarianism through mind control. I was so impacted by the film that I wrote to Liza Minelli to thank her for helping me understand history. I still have the yellowing page she wrote back to my incredulous 16 year old self.

This week I googled the scene in which Joel Grey sings “If you could see her.” It’s a plea to the hostile world to understand his love for a woman who appears so repugnant to them: she’s a gorilla. His last, whispered line to the audience cut me as deep as it did the first time I heard it: “If you could see her though my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewish at all.”

I googled that scene after watching the Royal Commission testimony of Jewish MP Josh Burns about the foul antisemitic, misogynist abuse his non-Jewish partner Georgie Purcell MLC has been experiencing – an ironic flip in the modern age, but an illustration of the same dynamic.

This week it was Purcell to whom I wrote. She sent me her own submission to the Commission, which opens with a description of how totalitarian propaganda still brainwashes the masses:

“Only through being with Josh,” she writes, “did I begin to truly understand the way that antisemitism simply just mutates, the way that it adapts, the way that it hides behind conspiracy theories, the way in which it transcends all parts of the political spectrum and the way it becomes normalised in both the public discourse and the views that people hold in private…it slowly erodes our social fabric, perpetuating a dehumanisation of Jewish people, sending a message that racism and violence against them is somehow justified.”

“As Josh’s partner, I have become a target of antisemitism by association, and subjected to ongoing and relentless online abuse because of my relationship with a Jewish man…Much of the abuse directed towards me is not only antisemitic – it is also deeply sexist and misogynistic. There have been degrading comments about my appearance, my relationship, my worth as a woman and sexualised abuse — all justified under the guise of political activism.”

The tsunami of online abuse Purcell has received can be summed up in this neat 14-worder: “Shut the f-ck up. You got knocked up by a Zionist you nazi c-nt.”

Where Georgie Purcell has lived these past few years at the intersection of antisemitism and misogyny is a place familiar to the thousands of Jewish Australian women my organisation represents: a place of deep cognitive dissonance, where the image we see in the mirror each morning is completely at odds with the monstrous avatar depicted by academics, artists, female ‘influencers’ and now rife in popular culture.  In Weimar Germany the dissemination of this dehumanising propaganda was done via radio, film and newspapers. Today it is done on steroids via social media.

In the joint submission made by my organisation’s state chapters, they write “The parallel growth of antisemitism and the ‘manosphere’ highlights a broader trend where forms of extremism frequently intersect. Security agencies including ASIO have identified misogyny as a common denominator among radicalised groups, noting that it often serves as a gateway to, or a core component of, both Islamic and right-wing extremism. This toxic synergy creates an environment where the dehumanisation and vilification of women and of Jewish people reinforce one another.”

Last week ASIO chief Mike Burgess explained that the next Bondi-style terrorist in Australia today could be an Islamist extremist – Sunni or Iran-backed Shia; a neo-Nazi or far left extremist; or a Christian radical. He said that most of these extremists hate each other, but have one thing in common – a hatred of Jews.

This week former Labor minister and retired army colonel Mike Kelly reminded us that Russia, Iran’s Islamic regime and other malicious state actors are using antisemitism to “create social discord” in the West through information warfare, and called for Australia to collaborate with other democracies to fight its spread to save ourselves.

Public intellectual Van Badham has made the case for a new Australian Counterdisinformation Act, outlining how “disinformation has been weaponised against local ethnic and cultural communities, with recent and highly-visible targeting of Jewish, Islamic, Iranian diaspora, LGBTQIA+ and Ukrainian Australian communities.  She reminds us that “the rise of totalitarian movements over the 20th century studied, systematised and refined techniques for the targeting and delivery of disinformation” and argues that Australia should learn from Finland and Estonia, which, in response to Russia, have both developed comprehensive systems for counterdisinformation practices that affirm democratic values.

Cabaret illustrated how it begins. The dehumanisation of Jewish women ended with the ‘euthanisation’ of disabled German children and adults; the imprisonment then industrial murder of Jews, gay, Sinti and Roma people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political dissidents; and associated horrors like medical experimentation on Little People, and abduction of blond Polish women for impregnation by Nazi soldiers.

In my personal submission to the Royal Commission my recommendations included: Reform English and Civics curricula to expand the teaching of the critical analysis of information, disinformation and misinformation; Recognise Islamism and Soviet-inspired antizionism as today’s strongest drivers of hate speech, incitement, violence and murder of Jews; Engage Australians from Iran and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) to advise and guide the national response; and Institute a nationwide volunteering project to build social cohesion in a concrete and practical manner.

The descent of a ‘civilised’ society into barbarism is quick when the pathway is oiled by easy-to-digest misinformation, disinformation and propaganda and especially when there is a Red Green Alliance of the Far Left and Islamists pumping it out in unison. Any Iranian woman can tell you that. I’ve read the submissions of a number of such women and I pray that the Commission has reread them as many times as I’ve rewatched Cabaret.

Lynda Ben-Menashe is president of the National Council of Jewish Women Australia