Australia/Israel Review

The iconic Scottish poet Robert Burns reflected on the challenge of honest self-observation:

O would some Power with vision teach us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us…

Living in an age of acute antisemitism, we are often bewildered, if not astonished, by the distorted perceptions of Jews and Judaism from our detractors. Since October 7, the depiction of Jews as evil blood suckers, vermin, baby-killers, conspiratorial manipulators and trash have resurfaced with a vengeance. 

For example, the French Canadian paper La Presse published a cartoon of Israeli PM Netanyahu with long claws, pointed ears and wearing a long black coat – images reminiscent of the vampire from the classic 1922 silent film, “Nosferatu”.

On April 7, a speech by former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett at Princeton was disrupted by protesters who shouted at Jewish students that they were “inbred swine” who should “go back to Europe.” 

In Australia, we have been treated to similar toxic depictions on social media, and on the placards and chants at pro-Palestinian protests on our streets and on our campuses.

We shouldn’t be surprised – mediaeval blood libels and ugly stereotypes are as ancient as history itself. 

For instance, Hollywood may have been largely built by Jews, but its depiction of Jews has been centred on shallow stereotypes. A 2024 study from the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Media Impact Project revealed how this continues even today, noting several damaging stereotypes that recur throughout television shows up until the present day: “The Nebbish Man” (nerdy, mama’s boy), “The Overbearing Jewish Mother” and “The Jewish American Princess (JAP).” In scripted television, Orthodox Jews are often “othered”, while Jewish people at large are often painted as monolithic. It’s not necessarily so marvellous to be Mrs Maisel. 

Recognising and knowing how others see us is knowing how to counter their egregious depictions. 

Yet, while “Rabbie” (Robert) Burns may be right that seeing ourselves as others do can be helpful and even liberating, we should also recognise how it can lead to potential pitfalls or blunders. If the Other comes from a place of hatred, we might start to believe their negative stereotypes. If you are hated, you might come to believe you are hateful and that the flaw is in you. This is rarely so – “hate exists in the mind of the hater, not the person of the hated.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks posited that internalised antisemitism gives rise to either self-righteousness or self-hatred, and that we need to remember that Jews are the objects of antisemitism, not its cause. 

Both these trends have surfaced with a vengeance since October 7. 

A good number of young Jews – especially on our campuses – have drunk the Kool-Aid of self-destructiveness proffered by those who hate us. I am not suggesting that all of those standing with the Palestinians are self-hating, but the failure of many to also extend the compassion they have for the awful suffering of Gazans to the pain and angst of their own people surely amounts to a moral failing. The suffering of every human being should pain us, but prioritising your own kin is also a moral obligation. Rabbi Akiva famously formulated that your own life needs to always take precedence – even as we must never forget our obligations to others. 

Self-righteousness can be another sickly product of internalised antisemitism, and it has sadly flourished since October 7, especially in the extremist supporters across the Jewish world of some far-right Israeli politicians.

In these critically worrying times for our people, we need to ensure we are not driven by fear, but by the values that have sustained us for centuries: love of God and love of the stranger, the sanctity of human life, justice and righteousness. If we can do that, I live in hope that someday we will be able to look into the eyes of the other and see reflected back only the best of who we truly are.