A perspective on October 7 and its aftermath

It is hard to believe that two years have passed with no obvious definitive end in sight.

I am from the lucky generation. Among the first born after the Holocaust. Born into a generation of “never again” where active antisemitism would hopefully be outside the pale. A generation where in the free western world institutionalised antisemitism was unthinkable — the United Nations was established to make sure of that.

Sure, Jewish life in the Soviet Union and its communist allies was repressed and the Muslim Middle Eastern countries where Jewish life preceded that in the western world was now almost nonexistent. But in Australia it had no place (other than perhaps among certain fringe elements seen as such and not representative of mainstream, or so we perhaps naively thought).

Simultaneously, I am part of a generation for which the State of Israel was a fixture. There was no time in my life and the lives of the baby boomer generation, and generations that followed it, without it. Such was only history and no thought that the world might not want it to survive. Herzl’s vision was considered absolute; the new state would supplant the antisemitism of a past world.

And beyond all that Australia was a paradise for Jewish life. So many came here because it was so far away from the troubled areas of the world. Yes, one may have experienced annoying pinpricks of antisemitism, but governments of all complexions would support Jews and Israel.