Belonging in an impossibly complex world

My grandmother, Bobbie Ester, was a resident at the former Montefiore Homes for the Aged in Ashwood in the 1980s. I remember visiting her there with my mother, where they’d converse in a mix of Yiddish and English. It was always the same conversation because of my grandmother’s dementia.

Ashwood never held fond memories for me because of that place. Yet precisely 20 years later I bought a house a stone’s throw from where my grandmother saw out her last years. At the time I recall there was an ageing swastika daubed on a nearby railway bridge, which I promptly got erased.

In 2021, a minute along the path from the residence where my grandmother lived, I stumbled across a freshly laid concrete path defaced with a series of swastikas, and alongside each of them the words “Kill Gays”. It was unnerving to see such a vengeful message. The City of Monash promptly filed down the concrete path to erase the visible signs of hate.

As a gay Jewish man I have become accustomed to antisemitism and homophobia. My earliest memories of this were at one primary school in the 1970s. I encountered a “Jew jump”, where a coin is thrown in the air and the person who catches it is called the Jew. I was also mercilessly bullied for perceived homosexuality.

Now in society it’s a weekly if not daily occurrence for me to hear of a hate crime against Jews and/or LGBTIQA+ people.

In March 2023 neo-Nazis felt at home at a Melbourne rally protesting transgender people. It was as if someone nourished the engravings on that concrete path and up sprung the reality of the evil. Neo-Nazis want to not only delight in the prospect of killing Jews, they also relish the prospect of exterminating LGBTIQA+ people.

In Australia’s major cities, we have recently seen gangs of young men hunting down and taking crowbars to dozens of innocent gay men. We’ve seen a vast range of hate crimes perpetrated against LGBTIQA+ people. We’ve also seen the Jewish community targeted in incomprehensible ways, most recently by extremist religious fanatics in Bondi, and with a near miss in Hotham Street in Melbourne.

In Sydney, between 1970 and 2010 around 80 gay men were murdered in targeted attacks. Trans and gender diverse people are regularly made to feel unsafe, whether it’s by state and territory governments using discredited research to target minors by blocking necessary medical therapies, or declared hate groups launching sustained campaigns on their very existence in society.

In 2022 neo-Nazis targeted a young Jewish drag queen in Melbourne.

Right now the world around me, from the relative safety of Melbourne, has become impossibly complex. The Middle East is a mess. America is out of control. Jews feel unsafe. LGBTIQA+ people feel unsafe. Fingers are being pointed because of gross injustices against innocent Palestinians. Too few are calling out the evil terrorism of Hamas. Antisemitism and anti-Islamic hate is rife and skyrocketing. The LNP has just self-destructed over the government’s botched attempts to protect the Jewish community, and both sides of politics are trying to score cheap points while the blood of the Bondi massacre is still fresh on the ground.

As an unashamedly woke activist I felt most at home with the left-leaning pro-social justice pro-environment politics of the Greens. My ancestors were dissidents from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, Socialists and Communists, so it runs in my blood. Yet now I am ashamed of that party, disgusted by their biased policies and their unremorseful one-sidedness, and so I have walked away from them. Finding myself in a political wilderness, I have gravitated towards the likes of independent MPs such as Allegra Spender, David Pocock, Monique Ryan and formerly Zoe Daniels; they care passionately about combating all hate, free from the muzzle of vested interests and/or twisted priorities that the larger political parties have succumbed to.

Over the years, I have channelled my anger, frustration, desires and disappointment into my activism and advocacy, to try and stamp out anti-LGBTIQA+ hate and antisemitism. In recent years I have poured much energy into giving the Jewish community hope and happiness through Jews of Pride, the Jewish contingent at Melbourne’s annual LGBTIQA+ Pride March. Now in its eighth year, Jews of Pride brings smiles and happiness to the adoring crowds lining the parade in Fitzroy Street, St Kilda. Our signature up-beat Jewish music and Yiddishkeit makes the world a better place, if only for a fleeting moment.

On Sunday, February 1, Jews of Pride returns to Pride March, possibly for the last time. With mixed emotions, Colin Krycer and I are passing on the baton and invite the community to contact us to continue the tradition. Join us on the day and experience love, happiness and hope.

Michael Barnett is co-convenor of Aleph Melbourne. jewsofpride.org.au