The arithmetic of hope and despair
July 17, 2025 | Rabbi Ralph Genende
The three weeks of constriction, the nine days of devastation, the seven weeks of numeration and the seven weeks of consolation; the Six-Day War, the Twelve-Day War. Numbers define Jewish identity from the past to the present.
Melbourne’s night of shame
July 10, 2025 | Justin Amler
We need them to understand that when rampant demonstrators attack our institutions and our community with word and deed, chanting “all Zionists are terrorists,” we take it very personally because they are not calling for dialogue – they are calling for death.
Politicians’ reactions ring hollow in echo chambers of outrage
July 8, 2025 | Bren Carlill
“Zionists” are the targets, but it just so happens that most Zionists out there are Jews, and almost all Jews are Zionists. And, certainly, the protesters don’t usually bother to discriminate. Which is why synagogues are burnt. Which is why Jewish schools are graffitied and students are taunted. Which is why Jewish artists are de-platformed.
Nine reasons premature recognition would be bad for Palestine
May 28, 2025 | Bren Carlill
France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting a UN conference this month about creating a Palestinian state. Before or during the conference, France will likely recognise Palestine as a state, and is urging other countries to join it. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong keeps indicating she is considering similar recognition.
Biblio File: Israel and the pathologies of the West
May 28, 2025 | Peter Berkowitz
In On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, Douglas Murray excoriates the Western hypocrisy, mendacity and malignancy that fuel enthusiasm for Hamas’ butchery of Jewish civilians and antipathy toward Israel’s exercise of its right to self-defence.
Scribblings: Interpreting Hamas’ casualty numbers
May 28, 2025 | Tzvi Fleischer
The Hamas statistics show that combat-age men are far more likely to be killed, compared to their proportion of the population, than women, children or the elderly. Hamas data doesn’t differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the only sensible explanation for these numbers is that Israel is doing its best to target combatants.
