Should I still call Australia home?
Should I still call Australia home?
Australia today is a country far away from the one I used to know. Like an old lover whom you run into after many years and whose face is unrecognizable, you wonder, how did I love this person?
And so it is with Australia. The face of Australia, once welcoming to all has become the face of hatred and bigotry.
The government which once dispensed moral authority and gentle government, now ignores the hatred which flows through its streets like an open sewer and openly embraces the proponents of terror.
Multi cultural Australia, whose anthem talks of being ‘one and free’, is a traitor to that theme.
The Jewish community which so richly repaid the welcome it received here, has been treated appallingly by the government and the betrayal is like that dished out to a discarded lover. Where once there was kindness now there is not even cruelty but something worse, total disinterest. The government truly does not care about the Jewish community. It mouths platitudes of antisemitic behavior not being welcome here, of there being no place for it, but it is here and it is welcomed here. It pretends to be listening to its antisemitism envoy then shoves her report into the proverbial – or perhaps literal- bottom drawer whilst simultaneously announcing that nothing will be done until the Islamophobia envoy and the human rights commission have reported. In other words, do the Yes Minister trick and do nothing whilst looking as if you are doing something .
Where my father came from, Krakow, pre war had about 60,000 Jews, which was about 30 per cent of the total Krakow population. After the war were a few hundred. Pre war Krakow boasted a vibrant thriving community of schools, synagogues, sports clubs, newspapers and Yiddish theatre. Melbourne today has around 50,000, also with many schools and synagogues and a vibrant community life.
Will Melbourne also only have a few hundred in a few years time?
Will the government’s abandonment of its Jews force them to leave?
And so should I still call Australia home?
