In the Media

One morning, Gregor Samsa woke up to find himself transformed into a “monstrous vermin”. Stuck on his back and unable to get up and leave, Gregor reflects on his life which he describes as being full of “temporary and constantly changing human relationships, which never come from the heart”.

This is the essence of Franz Kafka’s classic 1915 story, The Metamorphosis. And today, Jews across the world feel like they are living it. They woke up one October morning last year to find that they had been transformed, once again, into monstrous vermin, vile and gargantuan global pests. Or, as NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong implied via her criticism of “the Jewish lobby”, an octopus spreading its “tentacles” across society.

The antisemitism that has followed the Jewish people like a stalking wolf throughout its history was once again on full display in one of Sydney’s sacred places on October 9, when people gathered to shout “Where are the Jews?” and “F— the Jews.” Since then, it has spread across our country. Antisemitic behaviour has increased exponentially (even more than the other disgraceful acts of racism or Islamophobia, however ugly those also are).

For the first time in our country’s history, Jewish people here are feeling deeply unsettled, often unwelcome, misunderstood and unappreciated.

Australia has seen the targeting of numerous Jewish artists, including major stars like Deborah Conway, but also hundreds of lesser-known figures, as well as the doxing of more than 600 Jewish creatives, which led not only to some of them losing employment and being subject to death threats, but some having to flee their homes and businesses.

Internationally, a list was widely circulated online of novelists to boycott because of their supposed “Zionism” and support for “genocide”. The list included not only Jewish writers who had said absolutely nothing about Israel or the Palestinians, but non-Jews who had committed the crime of saying positive things about a novel by a Jewish author painted as a “Zionist”.

In the cities of Australia, there was ugly treatment of Jewish people who strayed too close to pro-Palestinian protesters, with a default police response of moving Jews out of public spaces for their own safety. Angry protesters forced a synagogue to be evacuated during Friday night services in Melbourne, while Sydney’s Great Synagogue was also targeted by protesters. Surely, in this country where we are finally learning the importance of sacred space to our First Peoples, only fools would trample holy places where angels fear to tread?

Then there are the sermons that have described Jews as “descendants of pigs and monkeys” and claimed “the most important characteristic of the Jews is that they are bloodthirsty … another is betrayal and treachery”.

These examples of “othering the Jew” are not new to the Jewish people. I experienced it as a child and as an adult in South Africa. My mother was considered vermin in Lithuania, my ancestors were accused of drinking the blood of Christian babies. We just thought it was behind us in contemporary Australia.

Recently, I woke up to read a text about the concrete pole in east Melbourne with the words “Gas all F—— Jews” scrawled on it. Last week as our community reeled and grieved from the savage execution of six hostages, a Jewish boy was punched on a Caulfield train, Jewish footy players were called Jewish dogs.

Our children are confused by the hateful graffiti and posters with the Star of David thrown in a garbage bin.

Yet many of the people responsible for much of this trend appear to insist that it is only anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activism, and there is nothing antisemitic about it. That’s not how it feels to a Jewish child who constantly sees attacks on Israel’s right to exist, who wonders why only the Jewish school has guards posted outside it.

And that’s not how it feels to an adult who knows that Jews have been connected inextricably to Zion from the beginning of its history some three-and-a-half thousand years ago.

Most Australian Jews, regardless of their opinions of Israel, its government or its policies consider themselves Zionists – that is supportive of Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland. And this doesn’t mean they do not feel the pain and deep suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, that they are impervious to the horrors of a war like this one unleashed on its own people by the barbaric behaviour of Hamas. Just as they have prayed daily for centuries about returning to Zion in compassion, so Jewish people have prayed every day for peace – not just for Israel and Palestinians but for all across our beleaguered planet, be they in Myanmar, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Venezuela or Ukraine.

Antisemitism should matter to all Australians. Hateful speech easily slips into acts of violence and endangers all the citizens of this country. The failure of religious leaders, politicians and people of good conscience to loudly condemn the desecration of a synagogue space or the violent invective against Jews – from city councils to protest rallies, from schools to shopping centres – is dangerous. For while it may begin with the Jews, it certainly won’t end with them.

Rabbi Ralph Genende is the Interfaith and Community Liaison at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.