As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, I keep thinking: am I being stupid to stay here?

When I was a kid, I used to ask my grandfather, Joseph Kaltmann, who was the sole survivor from his family from the Holocaust: why didn’t your family leave Czechoslovakia? Why didn’t your parents take the family to somewhere safer?

He used to patiently explain to me that leaving wasn’t easy. His parents had built their whole lives in Czechoslovakia, they had family, businesses and the kids were all in school. Plus, like so many Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, they had a belief that things would get better.

The arson attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in December struck fear in Melbourne’s Jewish community.Credit: Arsineh Houspian

Until the past 12 months, I never really related to what he said, but this year, I started to understand. With several young children, a career as a lawyer, a mortgage and my whole life in Australia, leaving would be really difficult for me and my family.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to leave Australia. I usually love living here, but when I look back on the past 12 months, since the last UN International Day of Commemoration, on January 27, 2024, I’m struck by what an awful year it has been for Aussie Jews.

While a war between Israel and Gaza has raged on, Australian Jews have been on the receiving end of growing abuse for a conflict many thousands of kilometres away. In the past 12 months, Aussie Jews have been abused on the street, assaulted on trains and doxed. The Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne was burnt down by arsonists, Melbourne’s largest Jewish school was daubed in graffiti that said “Jew Die” and Aussie Jewish-owned businesses were boycotted.

The main refrain of the Holocaust, which culminated in the murder of 6 million Jewish people, was “Never Again”. But as I look around Melbourne, a city where I was born and have always loved living and raising my family, it feels tenuous. I have never wanted to live anywhere else, but when I see how bad it has been, as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, I keep thinking: am I being stupid to stay here and think that things will improve?

It’s horrible that in the past 12 months I have felt a sense of unease as I walk the streets with my sons in their skull caps, nervous that we may get abused for being identifiably Jewish. It is telling that going to synagogue in Melbourne means navigating fortress-like fences with armed guards and bomb-proof fences and auto-locking doors because of threats against the Jewish community. I am heartbroken that Jewish events now highlight their security as part of their appeal when asking people to attend.

I know that most Australians are good people, and they want us all to live in harmony and peace, but growing antisemitism is a sign that a society is very sick. This year, on UN International Day of Commemoration, on 27 January, my prayer was for a better 12 months ahead. One where Australian Jews can feel welcome and not under siege from threats of antisemitism or violence.