We all need new eyes, and to be all ears

May 10, 2026 — 5:30am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

The great French Jewish novelist Marcel Proust would say, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

For many if not all of those engaged in interfaith work, the horrific attack on the Jewish community at Bondi Beach on December 14 was a painful and rude awakening, a moment of reckoning. It has set off a painful voyage of discovery into an old landscape that demands fresh eyes.

After October 7, there was confusion and hesitancy in many interfaith interactions. Many well-meaning faith leaders found it hard to disentangle their sympathies for the suffering of citizens in Gaza and their compassion for the suffering of Israeli citizens and Jewish people across the world.

There was a failure to recognise that some of the anti-Zionism of the professional protesters was a camouflage........

© The Sydney Morning Herald