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.

Yes, it grated at parliamentary Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations to hear politicians spout forth about Israel’s right to exist – something we never heard about other countries and which left underlying the implicit concept that maybe it did not have that right.

But as long as, for example, a Premier would offer a toast to Israel supported by the Leader of the Opposition then with the possible exception of the Whitlam years we saw no problem for Australian Jews at the political level or across society per se.

All of which made so much more shocking the about-turn across much of Australian society and particularly influential media after October 7 – which I must add occurred before the invasion of Gaza and all that has continued since, which was constantly and repeatedly viewed by the Australian public in 30-second bites of destructive imagery without any background.

Why all the reporting of that imagery without saying each time that if only the hostages were released and if civilians there ceased to be used as human shields in order that Israel attacking them would look evil, the Gazan situation would change to the benefit of its population (even though leaving Hamas in situ to any extent made further problems for Israel likely).

And to see a situation where those expressing the truth could even be banned from entering Australia as “causes of divisiveness” is beyond understanding unless we accept that bias and pandering to those opposed to us are elements of policy of an ineffective government. Since last December, Australia now has its own Kristallnacht.

As for the United Nations – rather than preventing repetition of the hatred of the prewar era it was to become a hotbed of antisemitic culture, from which the victims of genocide it was supposed to prevent are now accused of perpetrating that very crime.

Indeed, what has sadly been uncovered is the truth of an oft-cited epithet of Mishnaic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: “It is a halacha that Esav hates Yaakov.” (see Rashi Bereshit, 33:4). A halacha? Halacha is the corpus of Jewish law, not a statement of philosophy? What has that to do with Esav and Yaakov, who albeit they were brothers represent our enemies and the Jewish people?

But the answer is that halacha – law – is in many ways an absolute statement. The essence of halacha does not change (even if such appears to be the case regarding many details).

Rabbi Shimon, who was long persecuted by the Romans for his attitude towards them, saw antisemitism as immutable. That was a statement and world view we long thought an embarrassment reflecting realities of an age now (hopefully) passed, but which sadly we now understand still echoes even in our modern world where (discriminatory) hatred is outlawed or, to say the least, supposedly unfashionable.

I conclude by paraphrasing the wish repeatedly expressed in a focal Yamim Noraim prayer (the Amidah) that despite all that has occurred throughout history up to the latest outrage, we look forward to the time when “uvechen tzaddikkim yir’u veyismechu” – the righteous will rejoice, and evil will shutter its mouth, wickedness will be dispersed as a cloud of smoke, when Your God will remove from the earth “memshelet zadon” – translatable as either the wicked ruler or the rule of wickedness.

May it be speedily in our day.

Yossi

Yossi Aron OAM is The AJN’s religious affairs editor who visited the south of Israel to view the reality of the ultimate horror caused by Hamas.