This International Women’s Day we all need to stand against anti-Semitism

Demonstrators gather during a "#metoo unless you are a Jew" protest outside of United Nations headquarters in New York City on December 4, 2023.

Why is International Women’s Day 2024 different from any other? Every year IWD is a mix of inspiration and disappointment. Inspiration about great women whose stories motivate us and disappointment in the annual studies showing the need for more work to achieve equality and safety for women. I usually internalise these achievements and statistics passively, considering how I may learn from them in my work and leadership roles.

This year is different. Post October 7, I am compelled to actively speak up and to do so as a Jewish Australian woman insisting on moral clarity.

I invite Australian women of all faiths to join the call to end divisions in our society being sewn by those who seek to deny the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.

The indisputable evidence of premeditated sexual violence by Hamas should be condemned by all women. Rape does not occur in “context.” Mass rape, nails in women’s vaginas, slicing off breasts, are not legitimate forms of resistance, ever.

Taking 250+ hostages as young as a few months old, still holding captive over 100 hostages, is also not a legitimate form of resistance, ever. Noa, Karina, Shiri, Agam, Amit, Romi, Carmel, Daniela, Liri, Emily, Naama, Doron, Arbel, Eden, are the names of the women who have been held in Gaza for almost 5 months.

I invite you to join me in speaking up even when it is frightening to do so. Rather than telling me how brave and courageous I am for speaking up, we need to come together to call out the violence and threats of intimidation being used against those who support Israel and speak out against anti-Semitism. We know that people are also being targeted irrespective of their views on Israel but simply because they are Jewish. Australian women, we all need to speak against this.

I recently presented at the Melbourne City Council opposing a one-sided motion about the conflict that should never have taken the Council’s time from local priorities such as homelessness and safety on the city streets. My personal experience of that evening, coupled with many instances of walking past blatantly anti-Semitic stickers are deeply alarming. As chief executive and director of the ERDI Foundation, I hear from Jewish creatives, climate activists, students and doctors who feel unsafe in their workplace, some literally too fearful to leave their homes. These heartbreaking stories reflect a situation where moral clarity has been lost by those who are shouting the loudest.

However, as a proud Australian, I do not believe that the wonderful country I have grown up in, our multicultural society in which social cohesion is so deeply valued, was simply a charade unmasked by October 7.

I am calling on the silent majority to be silent no more. There are several truths that we must uphold, and as women I know we can do that. Israel has a right to defend itself and its citizens to ensure their safety from all forms of attack. This right is not inconsistent with the ability to sincerely mourn all innocent victims of war and to ensure humanitarian aid reaches innocent civilians, Jewish and Palestinian. In fact, it is entirely consistent as civilians on all sides are being oppressed by Hamas, that internationally recognised terrorist organisation that slaughtered more Jews than in any single day since the Holocaust.

No matter how the current conflict in the Middle East ends, and regardless of your view on that outcome, it does not justify anti-Semitism of any kind.

This International Women’s Day, Australian women, please think about how you can use your voice and leadership to stand up for the Israeli women hostages imprisoned in Gaza, for the Palestinian women under Hamas oppression and against the unacceptable and unAustralian rise in anti-Semitism right here at home.

Simone Szalmuk-Singer is chief executive and director of the ERDI Foundation.