Vintage Golding, February 2023Credit: Illustration: Matt Golding
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October 7 Anniversary
As Jews in Australia and around the world relive the pain of the October 7 atrocities, I urge everyone to read Chip Le Grand’s “Shifting Ground for Australia’s Jews” 5/10) for its articulate insights into how the lives of Australian Jews have changed for the worse since that day.
Two insights stand out. One is the apparent blind acceptance of anti-Jewish social media misinformation by otherwise educated people. The other is the statement by Professor Mendes (Monash University director of social inclusion) that the Labor Party is a bystander to the problem of ‘criticisms of Israel sliding into open hatred of Jews’.
But when Professor Mendes says that the Labor Party had ‘said the right things but done little’, I must disagree. Being acutely sensitive to the ‘shifting ground’ for Jewish Australians, every time Prime Minister Albanese or Minister Wong speak on the subject, I feel less secure. Either they too have blindly accepted social media misinformation, or it is a deliberate strategy.
Whichever, abandoning the Australian Jewish Community in it’s time of need reveals a severe lack of moral clarity and understanding. And weakness. All Australians are entitled to better leadership.
Henry Kalus, Southbank
Isolated by polarisation
“Shifting Ground for Australia’s Jews”, (5/10,) was heartbreaking; the surge in antisemitism here in Melbourne is terrifying, but so is the polarisation of attitudes. I, too, have experienced having my “good Jew” status threatened, the difference being that it has been by other Jews.
Like every other Jew, I am horrified by Hamas’ massacre of Israeli Jews on October 7. The brutality is unthinkable and the taking and barbarous violence and murder of hostages who have still not been returned is gutting.
Like most Jews, I am a Zionist, believing in the necessity of the State of Israel and in its right to defend itself. But the last twelve months since October 7, 2023 has been a very isolating experience for me, just in a different way than it has been for Mia Kline. I have learned that I cannot discuss among even my friends my horror at the devastation Israel is prosecuting in Gaza. People like me are called antisemitic and self-hating Jews for believing that Israel’s extreme actions in Gaza are inexcusable and not even in Israel’s own self-interest.
Judaism and Zionism have been conflated by both Zionist Jews and those protesting against Israel. Hateful graffiti against Jews is antisemitic. But in Philip Mendes’ words, “It is quite possible to be anti-Zionist (or strongly critical of Israel) and not an antisemite.“
As Jews, we must be allowed to weep for both the massacre on October 7 – the murdered, kidnapped and displaced Israelis – and the massacre in Gaza.
Name withheld on request
Making a Jewish state impossible
Your correspondent is correct when he argues that “it’s time to think of something else, such as negotiations after a ceasefire agreement” (Letters, ″Talk is road to peace″, 6/10).
However, negotiations will only achieve something if the Palestinians are prepared to accept the existence of Israel and walk away from the right of return, which if enforced would make a Jewish state impossible.
Ivan Glynn, Vermont
Protest is not a celebration
Pro-Palestinian groups who want to march in Sydney and Melbourne aren’t ″celebrating″. They are protesting Israel’s ferocity, and ruthless invasion of Palestine and now Lebanon.
Kerrin Adams, Clematis
Antisemitism’s long reach
Fifteen years ago, my husband and I arrived in Australia for the first time, and spent a few days in St Kilda. We walked from St Kilda to Caulfield North on the Saturday morning while my husband was wearing a yarmulke (Jewish male headcovering). As we crossed the Nepean Highway a driver rolled down his window and shouted Heil Hitler at us.
Since then, my husband has rarely dressed in an overtly Jewish manner outside the core Jewish areas, so I cannot comment on how commonplace that experience of antisemitism is. However, there seems to be a rather rose-tinted notion that Australia was culturally safe for Jews prior to last October. But that has not been our experience, and I suggest those seeking to seriously address antisemitism in Australia consider the deeper, longstanding reality.
Tamara Taylor, Caulfield North
Israel’s ‘collateral’ killing
I read Jeremy Leibler’s article (“We can’t submit to hatred”, 5/10) hoping it may, as he offered, help “non-Jewish Australians better understand us, and the gravity of the moment”.
Unfortunately, it left me wondering what parallel universe I must be occupying. As a non-Jewish Australian, I am not subject to the antisemitism and gaslighting that he describes, and also have not witnessed first-hand the sorts of things he discusses. So, I am willing to fully accept his word that it is as he says.
What I struggle with is the almost total absence in his article of any condemnation of the Israeli response to the massacre on October 7. It appears to me that Israel puts little value on the lives of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese citizens, positioning them merely as collateral damage in its justified pursuit of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist leadership.
While rooting out the evil that underpins these terrorist organisations, inflicting such pain and suffering on innocent people will only damage Israel’s reputation further in the eyes of the many reasonable people who were appalled by what occurred on October 7 but now find themselves horrified by the manner in which Israel has chosen to respond.
David Brophy, Beaumaris
Tepid support
The Australian government was one of the 33 countries that voted in favour of the formation of Israel in 1947 and has consistently supported Israel since then.
However, in the last year, the Labour government’s support for Israel in the face of attacks from terrorist organisations has been very tepid, with the prime minister seeming to find a moral equivalence between a democratic Israel defending itself and terrorist organisations committing atrocities against Israeli citizens.
At the same time, protests in Australia in support of these terrorist organisations and their leaders are permitted, even when they disrupt universities and threaten the safety of Jews and blockade government buildings, including Anthony Albanese’s electoral office.
It is difficult not to conclude that Albanese is more concerned about garnering Muslim votes at the next election rather than doing what is morally correct and that our foreign and domestic policy is now being determined more by concern for the 3.2 per cent Muslim minority, rather than in the interests of all Australians, in order to protect a few Labour seats in western Sydney.
Nicholas Ingram, Richmond
Awake to our prejudices
I grew up in a multicultural, bilingual home, in Caulfield, then East Malvern, with freedom of choice in regards to religion.
I was surrounded by Jewish, Vietnamese, Greek and Italian people. No one in my family found any conflict with any of them.
In fact, at the end of the street where I lived, next door to a Jewish family, lived a family who was German. The father was a previous member of the Brownshirts in the Nazi party. Yet, we all lived peacefully together.
Then, 15 years ago I ″died″, and after revival was left with a global brain injury. For the first time in my life, I found myself suffering from racial fear and being prejudiced against people of colour and different races. I felt angry about people practising different religions too.
As time and the healing of my brain progressed, these prejudices dropped away to their previous level, for which I am grateful. But since that time, I have wondered if those who are prejudiced towards people of other races are so because they have not taken the time to be among people of different races and beliefs.
Carmel Bell, Nunawading
Walk in their shoes
I cannot read any more impassioned pleas from Jewish people about their plight. I cannot read any more impassioned pleas from Palestinians about their plight. They are both too heart-wrenching. What we need is them to plead each other’s cases. Then we might get somewhere.
Rod Meaney, Glen Iris
THE FORUM
First, do no harm
As a practising GP, I read “Labor MP in cancer battle had to fight for a diagnosis” and I applaud Eden Foster for acting as her own health advocate; too many of my patients do not act on the subtle changes indicative of early disease process and especially since the COVID era, suffer the consequences of delayed diagnosis.
However, I fear this article could lead to a worsening of over-investigation and therapeutic inertia. Investigations for a potential problem could lead to incidental findings that themselves might need further potentially harmful and invasive investigations,
These to might ultimately prove that our patient was never at any risk due to any of these findings in the first place, whilst costing the patient and Medicare significantly more than was ever needed.
The guiding principle of medicine is “first, do no harm”. If after your “Dr Google” search, you feel you need more tests, please speak to your own GP about the pros and cons of such an approach.
Dr Michael Macpherson, Altona North
Taxpayers bail banks
It’s sad that Labor is toying with the idea of keeping the housing bubble inflated by chucking government equity money into the pot.
During the GFC, it was the government that saved the banks from meltdown. The banks repaid their saviour (us) by immediately resuming reckless speculative housing lending, hiding behind their real and implied government guarantees.
With attack dogs frightening the herd, political action and inaction looks equally dangerous. When the “pop” happens, my guess is that the banks will go back to being “too big to fail”, while us mug taxpayers try to clean up the mess from their greed.
Neil Hauxwell, Moe
Roads, rubbish, the world
It should be noted that of the alliterative “big three” council issues (“Roads, rates, rubbish (are) the big three”, 5/10) only two offer any kind of service; roads and rubbish collection. Of course these matter, but they are not enough. As the government tier closest to the public, councils must also be heavily involved in building cohesive and safe communities, I am glad I live in an area where vying councillors talk not just about more parking, but about lighter, more reflective roads to reduce heat island impacts. I am thrilled that one candidate mentioned the fact that 40 per cent of the food Australia produces ends up in landfill, creating dangerous methane emissions.
In these interesting times we want bigger, deeper, more engaged thinkers working out how to use our councils’ enormous budgets and power on roads, rubbish and a better world.
Lesley Walker, Northcote
Teal in colour only
I agree, ″Voters getting neither integrity, transparency″, (5/10). A candidate for my ward stood for Liberal pre-selection in the federal seat of Kooyong. However, nothing on their flyers or website mentions their three-decade party membership – you have to Google it.
Caroline Leslie, Hawthorn
Smart magpies
Re ″Worst places for close encounters of swooping kind″, (4/10). Magpies do swoop, but the birds also appear to be quite intelligent. I make it policy to say hello to the local birds throughout the year. I have never been swooped. I have had magpies take a good look at me, but I theorise they can recognise and don’t see me as a threat to their nestlings.
Brett McGowan, Lynbrook
AND ANOTHER THING
Liam and Noel
Oasis are coming to Marvel Stadium? Put them in Melbourne’s Festival Hall – then we can watch the fight in a more suitable, purpose-built venue.
Andrew McFarland, Templestowe
US election
It’s hard to imagine mass detention camps in the US, and illegal immigrants being rounded up and removed from their homes. Yet, if Donald Trump wins the election, that is exactly the prospect faced.
Matthew Hamilton, Kew
Besides being the only alternative to Donald Trump becoming the leader of the free world again, can the media, please start detailing Kamala Harris’s other attributes, before it’s too late?
Tony O’Brien, South Melbourne
Furthermore
Re (Letters, ″The real Magpie season″, 6/10), Magpie season may start in March but sometimes ends in September, often August. Retribution will then carry on ’til about November.
Mick Kir, Upwey
Advertisers, ignore older Australians at your peril (“When it comes to prejudice, ageism is pure stupidity”, 6/10) many cases, we are the ones with the spare cash.
Miriam Pohlenz, Highton
So many politicians are naughty children. They should have to stay in after parliament and write me 100 lines.
Paul Drakeford, Kew
Peta Credlin – chief adviser to the Liberal Party.
Reg Murray, Glen Iris
I agree 100 per cent (Letters, ″Lay off supermarkets″, 5/10). I refuse to shop at Aldi because it’s not an Australian company.
Jen Gladstones, Heidelberg
About the vexing question of the (sadly, necessary) plastic-wrapped Age delivery (Letters, ″Shed the plastic″, 5/10), Perhaps my three Age-delivering, paper-round sons of 37 or more years ago could dig out their bikes and revive their skills.
Julie Beck, Balwyn North
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