Last Monday Night in Sydney - a Glimpse of Two Australias

Last Monday night I attended the Jewish community event at the Tik Tok Centre (International Convention Centre) addressed by the president of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog. 

The event was full of beauty, of music, of grief, and a great love for Australia and for Israel. The Australian flag stood proudly next to the Israeli flag. We sang the Australian national anthem. The state premier, Chris Minns was there. A former prime minister Scott Morrison was there along with former of federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg and a range of other political leaders.

This was first and foremost a gathering of Australians mourning their dead. And secondarily it was a gathering of Jewish people mourning their dead in the presence of the ghosts of thousands years of pogroms and massacres. 

The speeches from all were phenomenal. Poignant. Pointed. Pathos laiden. And entirely free from hate or the desire for revenge. Not one angry word. Just grief, overlaid with resilience and hope. 

There was palpable anguish expressed by many on the stage and in the crowd that something fundamental had shifted in Australia on December 14. 

Since 1788 the Jewish community in Australia had largely been safe. Of course there was the usual casual antisemitism but this country gave safe haven to Jews from around the world and became a treasured home to generations of Jewish Australians. And all that changed on December 14.

As an Anglican clergyman whose mother also happened to be a German Jewish survivor of the holocaust even writing these words brings me to the brink of tears.

Cry, beloved country.

Australia is one of the best examples of western civilization. Not perfect, but one of the greatest accomplishments of our humanity. A place we can all call home no matter where we come from.

On display on Monday night was the best of this civilisation and culture. A treasuring of love, of music, of learning, of loyalty to one another and to one’s country. And historically this tiny minority population has made a contribution out of all proportion to their size in almost every part of our country.  In the military, in medicine, in the arts, in philanthropy, in science, in business, in pretty much every field of endeavour with the exception of sports!

Australian Jews have helped build this country and made it a place that is the envy of most of the rest of the world. 

All of this makes the pain of the past two years of persistent and consistent antisemitism, isolation and demonisation and now murder of the Jewish community of Australia all the more excruciating. 

In this event it felt like we had to run the gauntlet of a sea of hate. We had to go through multiple levels of security screening. We had to be protected by snipers on the roof, riot police with automatic weapons and long arms and even armed riot police who stood in the aisles during the entire event scanning the crowd. 

And we know why this was necessary. Less than a kilometre up the road thousands of people gathered to call for the elimination of the state of Israel. We had speaker after speaker spewing forth defamatory lies about President Herzog. We had a former Australian of the year, Grace Tame, leading the crowd in a chant calling for the extension of the intifada into Australia. If you want to know what the intifada in Australia looks like you have to look no further than Bondi Beach on Sunday December 14.

I walked past that crowd on the way to the event with President Hertzog. The hatred was thick in the air. The hysteria and group psychosis was real. Ordinary looking average Australians with their faces twisted in grimaces of hate towards neighbours they haven’t met and don’t know.

Demonising. Delegitimising. Dehumanising. 

So while we read Psalm 23 and placed our hope and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, rioters clashed with police and attacked the very foundations of our common life together.

At the end of our event we were kept inside for an extra half an hour while the police cleared the streets of the protesters in order to make it safe for Jewish Australians to return home. Imagine that you’re not safe to walk home in the streets of Sydney after an event mourning the murder of 15 members of your community. Put yourself, if you can, in the shoes of a Jew. 

Monday night gave us all a glimpse into two kinds of Australia. 

The question before us all is, “what kind of Australia do you want to live in and leave to your children and grandchildren?”

Mark Leach