After Australia, will Jewish people in France, Norway, Turkey, and Ireland be next? |
The tragedy of the Bondi Beach massacre of Australian Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah is that it is the tragedy everyone saw coming. Some Jews came to Australia in the late 18th century and trickled in fleeing Russia’s pogroms before World War II, but the bulk of Australian Jewry dates to the Holocaust. Polish Jews settled in Melbourne, and Hungarian Jews established their community in Sydney. With other groups scattered among Australia’s other large cities, Australia’s Jewish community is both fully integrated into the country’s life and economy, while more religiously orthodox than its European and American counterparts.
Traditionally, Australian leaders took a no-nonsense approach to those who would import malign and violent ideologies into Australia or to play out inside Australia conflicts from the countries from which they emigrated. Religious security was not a partisan issue: The Liberal Party of Australia, the country’s center-right, and the Labor Party on the center-left both protected Australia’s Jewish population. Both contained the excesses of Australia’s often antisemitic progressive Greens. Nor were Jewish people alone in enjoying this approach; Australia became a melting pot and,........