Those who have not been to the Land Down Under might have images of kangaroos hopping down Main Streets, of bronzed surfers riding waves along the country’s vast magnificent shoreline, of Crocodile Dundee-style iconic bush hats with dangling corks to deter the ever-pesky flies, of laid-back folk using expressions barely understandable to those unfamiliar with the lazy Strine accent, such as, “Blimey, mate,” “No worries, she’ll be right,” “Good onya,” and the rest of a rich vocabulary particular to a culture established a mere 237 years ago with the arrival of the British on the 11 ships of the First Fleet, which included five Jews who grew in number to some 120,000 today in a nation of 27 million.
Well, those images – maybe even kangaroos on some outback street with a pub and general store – are real parts of the Aussie prism. As is the Australia that gave my parents and me a safe haven as Hungarian refugees in the late 1950s; a nation which, in my youth, was the Lucky Country for the many hard-working Holocaust survivors and migrants largely from Italy and Greece, who started with nothing and took every opportunity to establish themselves and flourish.
The Australia of my youth
My academic high school, which had several Jewish students and a few Asians in its student body, in later years morphed into a school where Asian students became the large majority, even as multiculturalism was explicitly the national slogan and ideal. We grew up reciting and feeling the words of Dorothea Mackellar’s poem of love for a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts, and flooding rains.
Yet no place on earth is a Garden of Eden, and I recall in the ’60s and ’70s there were identified neo-Nazis who a secretive Jewish security group worked to hold in check; and there were traditional pockets that distanced themselves from Jews, like exclusion from some country clubs, or WASPy educational, professional, and social circles.
But inroads were made, and such elements became a non-issue. From the start, Jews climbed to top positions in every field; some became great philanthropists, and life in suburbia, at workplaces, and at boardroom tables was lived in harmony and respect between Australians, Jewish or not.
While the Promised Land I am now blessed to call home may be biblically described as a place flowing with milk and honey, the country that was my happy haven for almost 60 years may – with a touch of Aussie humor – could be spoken of as a land running on beer and footy (Aussie Rules Football), untroubling priorities in an easy-going culture that prized mateship and the fair treatment of all citizens, core practices and values tracing back to Australia’s colonial past.
In the 1990s, and until I made aliyah 10 years ago, each time I returned to Melbourne, I appreciated not having Israel’s security threats and being able to enter public buildings and malls without bag searches and screenings. Many synagogues on Shabbat had only a volunteer security guard, unarmed, and “keeping an eye out”, while at some large ones, a paid guard may have been on duty at main services. They didn’t have much to do.
Dangerous times for Australian Jews
However, things have changed, and community security measures have become dramatically tighter. Because they have to. One million Muslims, and multiplying, are a visible, disruptive – and now a deadly – presence in terms of their radicalized elements. Within two days of that black October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas in Israel, masses of pro-Palestinians demonstrated at Sydney’s famed Opera House to call for death to Jews, and the destruction of Israel.
The Jewish community, already dismayed by the less-than-friendly stance to Israel of the current Labor government, was seeing a dim and grim Australia it had not known. On the streets, on campus, in workplaces, in artistic endeavors, on public transport – anywhere and everywhere. The Jewish community warned those in positions of power that worse might happen, yet their calls were not heeded.
They should have been, for Bondi Beach is the place of Australia’s second-largest mass shooting ever, specifically targeting Jews at a Hanukkah celebration, but aiming rifles indiscriminately and in the process snuffing out 15 precious lives and threatening all law-abiding Australians.
Whether it’s Sydney, Toulouse, Pittsburgh, or Manchester, the pointed weapon of malevolent antisemitism, of jihadist terrorism, of pure evil, knows no national boundaries. The “never again,” which after October 7 became “ever again,” points to the same unlearned lessons from history haunting us today.
In 1941, and for most of the following war years, Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson, the nephew of the famed Chief Rabbi Avraham Kook) and fellow young students failed to penetrate the blind indifference of American leaders to take action to save European Jewry. The leaders’ failure to intervene was later implicitly described by Elie Wiesel as rendering them accomplices.
Tackling the global tsunami of terror against Jews and Israel is a gigantic task, almost too big to grasp. But as with any weighty, complex challenge, it looks different once broken down to what’s within each person’s purview, power, and ability, ranging from tasked leaders and decision-makers to ordinary citizens.
What happened to Australia's values?
Although the writing may have been on the wall in Australia, and the tragedy of the Sydney terror rampage not a surprise to those who read the import of the dramatically escalating acts of antisemitism over the last two and a half years, nevertheless it is deeply and viscerally shocking that the recent terror attack occurred in a country that used to pride itself on true-blue Aussie values of tolerance and a fair-go for everyone.
Australia’s treasurer from 2018 to 2022 in a former Liberal government, Josh Frydenberg, a Jew, paid an emotional visit to Bondi Beach to pay his respects to those grieving in the wake of the terror attack, and spoke to journalists present. Ban the hate preachers in the mosques and the pervasive radicalism being taught and promulgated, he pointedly urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Ban protests that are not peaceful marches or rallies but are incubators of hate. Ban incitement, tighten immigration checks, and deport those who undermine Australian laws and values. Enact whatever laws are necessary to effect such changes. A big list, but largely doable, step by step, starting right now.
Relatively few people are politicians -- elected officials expected to stand up for universal and basic rights, and be voted out in democracies if they don’t -- nor do they have the wherewithal to be major change-makers. Yet everyone has a circle of influence, starting from the home, and can model the right values and behavior, radiating them to their extended family, friends, community, and in some cases, to the city, nation, and even globally. Every citizen needs to understand that silence and inaction cannot rule over what all good people intuitively and instinctively recognize as evil.
A collective pain
Just as our Diaspora brethren stand at our side, especially throughout the last two years, so we unite with them in shared peoplehood, feeling the pain right now of grieving Australian families, a collective pain of our people, unaffected by distance and borders.
May the families bereaved at Bondi Beach be comforted by the builders of Jerusalem; may the many wounded, including policemen, recover as well as possible from their injuries; and may Australia once again be the bonza (awesome) nation which fair-dinkum (genuine) Aussies can proudly call home.
The writer is a lawyer from Melbourne, Australia, now living in Jerusalem.