Anti-Semitism in Australia has become normalised – so the silent majority must speak up

This fight is not about anti-Semitism. This fight is about a morally sound Australia.

Nina Bassat outside Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne, which was firebombed on Friday. Nina is a holocaust survivor and former lawyer who was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2004 Australia Day Honours List “for service to the community as an executive member of a range of peak Jewish organisations and through the promotion of greater community understanding”. Picture: The Australian/Nadir Kinani

When synagogues were burning in Europe in 1938, I was not alive, but the malevolent symbolism of a burning synagogue is part of my history, and part of my DNA.

On Friday, December 6, 2024, a burning synagogue turned from historical malevolence to reality, less than 4km from my home. This is the street where I have been shopping for my kosher food for 50 years. This is the street where I can get real sponge cake, lekach, like I imagine my grandmothers baked.

I can only imagine because I did not get the opportunity to taste their food. The life of one ended in Treblinka, the life of another in Belzec.

Yet lekach is part of my DNA, as is the knowledge synagogues will be burnt when evil people are emboldened and spurred on by a mob driven by hatred.

The burning synagogue is no longer something in the past, something that might from time to time haunt me but to which I am helpless to react. This is something in my life, a reaction to which I am forced to process.

Sadly, I was not surprised. Anti-Semitism in Australia has become normalised. I was distressed, gravely distressed, when I thought that the Torah scrolls might have been burned. And heartbroken for the members of the congregation, the people who prayed and studied there daily.

This is not my congregation, but we Jews are connected. ­Despite political differences, multinational backgrounds, differing levels of religious observance, we are indelibly intertwined. We share history, culture, a language, a religion, a code of ethics, a desire to contribute to whichever country we have landed in.

I can walk into a synagogue in Hawaii or Tokyo, in Melbourne or Moscow, and feel at home and welcomed. The service may be led by someone from the US or Ethiopia, from Russia or Hungary; the form of prayer may be Sephardi or Ashkenazi, and the tunes may differ, but I will still be part of the Jewish nation, united in our heritage.

Beyond the distress and heartbreak, once I had somewhat recovered my equilibrium, I felt anger that a community that has made an immeasurable contribution to Australia in ways that touch every aspect of life – academia, medicine, art, music, literature, philanthropy, law, the military – should be so maligned, so harassed, indeed, so persecuted not because it had committed a crime but because it is Jewish.

Out of the anger came determination. A determination to ask my fellow Jews to remain strong, to remain proud, to attend synagogue, to wear their kippot, to keep on playing for their Jewish sporting club, to attend university when it resumes, and to go about their daily business with their heads held high. In other words, lead a normal life, because to do anything else is to admit defeat.

Jews have never had the privilege of allowing the word “defeat” to be part of their dictionary. Had we done so, we would not have survived the many millennia that we have.

I am also a realist. If you are a Jew, a normal life in Australia is not easy. You may be attacked in the street or on campus; the local bus may refuse to take you on board if you are wearing the uniform of a Jewish school; you may be doxxed and lose your livelihood, or your synagogue may be burned. To say remain strong is to ask for great courage.

We are a minuscule community, about 120,00 Jews in a total population of 27,544,600, and thus have no political clout in terms of number of votes. And yet, I am not disheartened. We have two incalculable advantages.

We are strong; we have had to be in order to survive. And we live in a country where the majority, the so-called silent majority, is made up of people who are decent and fair-minded, and who do not hate Jews.

Hitherto, the silent majority has been precisely that: silent. But remaining silent is a close cousin to condoning. Hatred and discrimination are like a contagious disease; standing up for a minority is not about that minority but about protecting everyone from that disease. If you do not condone what is happening, if you are as worried as I am about the rapid decline of our democracy, speak for us, whenever and however you can. This fight is not about anti-Semitism. This fight is about a morally sound Australia.

It is only with the help of every one of you, decent and fair-minded Australians, the silent majority, and only with your help, that we can remain strong.