When I visited Sydney, I was shocked by the antisemitism I encountered

My family have been in Australia for a considerable time. They were among the first Jews to arrive. My father’s family arrived in the colony of NSW in the very early part of the 19th century. My mother’s family arrived in the colony of Western Australia later in the 19th century. Growing up, unlike many other Jews I knew whose families had come from far less hospitable societies, I had no personal family narrative of antisemitism.

Antisemitic grafitti is cleaned from a car in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in February.Credit: Edwina Pickles

I should point out that I am instantly recognisable as a Jew. I wear a black skullcap and I have a beard. It has frankly never occurred to me that I might be well advised to conceal my identity in Australia.

I arrived in Sydney from Perth on a Friday afternoon in July to visit family, principally our young grandchildren. By Sunday afternoon, I was bewildered by what I experienced and wondered whether my forebears would have recognised the Australia that I encountered.

It began in menswear in Myer in Bondi Junction on Friday afternoon. A well-meaning woman with an Irish accent approached my wife as I was busy at the counter. She told my wife with a tone of outraged sadness that she was so pleased to see us out and about and not afraid to be seen in public. A short conversation ensued in which she said she was embarrassed by what she described as Ireland’s hostility towards the Jews and was horrified by what has happened in Australia. But she was buoyed by our courage in not being cowed into hiding and our preparedness to go about our routine life in public and wander about in a shopping centre while easily spotted as Jews.

I was at once touched by the woman’s concern and a little bemused by her reaction. I have never regarded myself as courageous for appearing as a Jew in public. On the odd occasion that I have thought about it, I simply considered that I was fortunate to live in one the world’s more tolerant spots, where other folk are not generally minded to care about one’s religious identity.

The Sabbath passed unremarkably on Saturday among the Jewish community in Bondi.

The Israeli flag is flown at a Jewish vigjl at Dover Heights.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Sunday was a beautiful sunny winter’s day. A perfect opportunity to take our three young grandsons to the park. Sir Joseph Banks Park in Botany was recommended.

We took off armed with soccer balls, tennis balls and cricket bats with three eager young boys, all sporting skull caps – easy game in what many Jews have come to feel is the “spot the Jew sport” that is apparently in vogue in Sydney, Australia.

We found the park with relative ease. But the mysteries of Google Maps did not guide us to the entrance. We turned into Dent Street hoping that might lead us to the entrance, but in truth we had no idea where to look. Then we saw just what you’re looking for when you want directions – a young family, a friendly Aussie mum, dad and kids all on bikes with smiling faces under law-abiding helmets.

We pulled up and asked. They obligingly directed us to the entrance and with abounding friendliness wished us a great day in the park. The amicable civility portended a happy day.

Then as I wound up the window and pulled away, the Aussie dad called out “Free Palestine”. I was momentarily shocked. Then I turned the car around and pulled up beside him again. I wound down the window and asked why he thought it was OK to single out Jews and call out provocative slogans. His answer was at once outrageous and hilarious. “I wasn’t doing that, but I saw your kippas [skull caps]”. Perhaps I should have realised at that point that I was talking to more of an idiot than an ideologue and driven off.

But I did not. I replied with the obvious: that’s my point – why do you think it is OK to single out Jews for your commentary? He replied: “I just wanted to see if you agreed with what I said.”

Apparently, having thought more deeply about the matter, Aussie dad now thought that with his kids around him on bikes and my three little grandsons in the back seat eager to get to the park, this was an opportunity to call out a provocative slogan to invite discussion about one of history’s most intractable geopolitical conflicts.

I don’t think so.

I told him I thought he was a disgrace to Australian society. I drove off while he continued to tell me he just wanted to see if I agreed with him. In fairness, he did so without rancour or aggression – quite a nice guy, really. Then came the jeering laugh of moral righteousness as I drove away.

So, where does this leave us?

What do we call it when a seemingly pleasant person singles out other people on the basis of their race, with provocations? I thought that was racism pure and simple. And when it is directed at Jews, I thought that was antisemitism pure and simple.

But the man I encountered would no doubt be horrified by the suggestion that he is a racist or an antisemite. On the contrary he is the guardian of morality, the protector of the colonially oppressed. By calling out the Jew in public for the tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people, he is a hero of good conscience. It is all the more perilous that this well-meaning chap is clueless as to his own moral failing – perhaps much like Joseph Banks himself, an unashamed champion of colonisation (and thereby forced dispossession) of a land to which his people had no right or connection.

In the end, I do not think I need, and I most certainly do not intend, to hide or cower. My intuition is that the lovely Irish woman need not be as concerned, and the outwardly pleasant dad is an outlying sanctimonious fool.

I am the product after all of generations in this great country. “She’ll be right” and “no worries” have historically been effective antidotes to Australians’ anxieties. They also make for good recipes for inaction. It is hard to know whether those renowned Aussie epithets are the products of cheerful optimism or national indolence.

I harbour a sickening suspicion that I may be mistaken. For the sake of Australia’s social fabric and the future of its communal cohesion, I hope my intuition and historic optimism is well placed.

Marcus Solomon is an Orthodox rabbi and a judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.