This Is How Hatred Is Normalised in Australia |
On Sunday night, I attended a vigil organised by the Jewish Council of Australia at Grattan Street Gardens in Prahran, Melbourne. I did not attend as a participant. I attended as a silent protest.
I went because the Jewish Council is an openly antizionist organisation that has played a role in normalising contemporary Jew hatred in Australia. Antizionism is neither new nor benign. It is a modern mutation of antisemitism, using different language and moral frameworks to achieve the same outcome: the delegitimisation, isolation and, ultimately, the targeting of Jews.
The way this vigil was framed felt deeply disrespectful to the victims of the Bondi massacre. I did not feel I could stay away and say nothing.
I am a Jewish, Zionist Australian who has spent the past two years actively campaigning against Jew hatred, particularly within healthcare. I was not shocked by Bondi. Given the scale of antizionist rhetoric that has been allowed to fester across universities, online spaces and public demonstrations, under state and federal Labor governments that have too often chosen silence, equivocation or appeasement, an act of mass violence was inevitable.
That does not make it any less devastating. Fifteen innocent Australians were murdered in Bondi. But this violence did not come out of nowhere.
What I did not expect was that my first personal experience of open Jew hatred would come from people who identify themselves as Jewish.
The event was advertised as a community vigil. One of the speakers was Sarah Schwartz, Executive Officer of the Jewish Council of Australia. Since its inception, this organisation........