It’s been a depressing few days to be a Jew in Australia. With the royal commission into antisemitism now underway and public hearings beginning, many in my community have been glued to the TV, watching as Australian Jews try to put words to what the past few years have felt like.
I’ve been watching testimony of Jews abused while wearing their Star of David in public, a Jewish paramedic whose patient did a Nazi salute and was threatened for being Jewish, and a Holocaust survivor who came to Australia seeking safety and now fears being publicly identified as Jewish, all testify before the commission.