It’s easy to feel like we are alone. As Jews, we are outnumbered. We are the minority.
But sitting in a room with 100 other women recently, all of a sudden, it felt like people were on our side. And the hope is that these 100 women create a ripple effect – that this evening together causes a series of actions.
Much like a stone dropped into water can create a wave, one woman can create a movement.
In Sydney, that movement – founded by several women – is the Ripple Effect.
The Ripple Effect was created to effect change in our local community by encouraging dialogue.
The movement has connected hundreds of women from all different backgrounds with various beliefs, with the aim to share stories, learn about each other and current experiences, and empower everyone in the room to positively take the next steps towards change, for us and for the next generation. With each Jewish woman bringing a non-Jewish friend, the aim is to communicate directly with those who have the power to change things in a nuclear fashion, by talking directly to their own networks – their families, friends and colleagues.
“In this room, there is a beautiful mix of different backgrounds, beliefs and ideologies, and just by being here, you are showing that we are all united in the vision to see change in our local community,” committee member Lauren Placks told the room. “Tonight, our focus is not what is happening on the other side of the world, which we understand at times can be very confronting. However, we are focusing on the impact that it is having on us in Sydney, Australia, and the changes or actions that we can positively take to ensure the safety, the well-being and the peace that we all deserve.”
At each Ripple Effect event, attendees are invited to sit together in small groups and share their stories – whether that’s how their family came to Australia, what their greatest recent challenge has been, stories about their heritage and culture, and how they believe we can all help build a more understanding and cohesive society.
As Placks said, “we’re here now to say … what can we do to change the next step? What can we do to change our future?”
“There is a beautiful mix of different backgrounds, beliefs and ideologies, and just by being here, you are showing that we are all united in the vision to see change in our local community.” Lauren Placks
While The Ripple Effect committee acknowledge that October 7 was the catalyst for the movement, they point out that October 8 was when Australian Jews witnessed the effects and reverberations of the Hamas attack.
“Antisemitism and racism in Australia is at its worst in our generation, and it’s clear that the Australian beautiful way of life is at risk,” Placks said. “The reality is racism left unchecked can lead to unimaginable horrors.”
With a dramatic 725 per cent increase in the number of anti-Jewish incidents over the past year, and with one in five Australians harbouring hatred towards Jews, movements like The Ripple Effect are as crucial as ever.
“Antisemitic tropes and beliefs are enormously normalised across societies worldwide. And this dangerous trend is not just a threat to Jewish communities, it is a warning to us all. We all need to take action. Unfortunately, the past has shown that antisemitism is also the beginning of a complete societal breakdown, and it’s happening right now,” Placks explained before appealing to those in attendance to help change the landscape for their children and grandchildren. “One of the hardest parts of this throughout this entire time, as you would imagine, is as a parent, and we can see and feel the pain through our children.”
Throughout the evening, attendees heard from Sharon Stoliar, a Sri Lankan-born midwife and author who married an Israeli and is now helping to raise his children. Stoliar has experienced rampant racism throughout her career, despite fighting for patients who experienced prejudice in the healthcare sector.
Stoliar shared the horrific antisemitism and racism she witnessed on fellow healthcare workers’ public social media pages.
“This hatred I was seeing online absolutely floored me. It gutted me. I didn’t know where it came from. I know racism and I know it in my bones when someone is being racist or holds racist views towards me. Just like the way Jewish people know it in their bones when they are facing antisemitism,” she told the audience. “So I listened to them. And when I heard these stories, I spoke up. I used my existing social media platforms to share stories, and raise awareness of what is going on here in our health care setting. Many people who were following me were non Jews in the maternity care space.”
Yet while her colleagues were sharing vile hatred, she was the one who was investigated by the healthcare bodies, AHPRA and the HCCC.
“If you start in your own home, in your own Jerusalem, you’re starting at the epicentre of it all, and that’s where you set off the ripple effect.” Sharon Stoliar
Stoliar was asked to share why she does what she does – fight for the rights of those facing racism, discrimination and antisemitism. She told the audience that whenever she thought back to the 1930s and 1940s, she always wondered whether she would have “hidden the Jews”.
“Whenever I read a book that was set in the 1930s and 40s, I always wondered how it is that the people just allowed six million human beings to be murdered, just like that,” she shared. “And then October 9 happened … If I would have hidden the Jews, then what was I going to do now that people were at the Opera House chanting ‘gas the Jew’ or ‘where’s the Jews?’. And that’s when I knew. I had to speak and use my platform, whatever little I had in my hands, I had to give and whatever it is that I could do, I had to do.”
She challenged those in the audience to think of what they can do too, finishing her speech with a powerful message, drawing on her Christian roots.
“I’m going to leave you with something that I was always taught by my father. Jesus was a Jew and he told his disciples to bear witness in all of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, but Jerusalem first. We are supposed to look after our own Jerusalem first. Jerusalem being a metaphor for our home,” she said.
“And in the context of the rising hate speech in our society, the viciously spreading antisemitic tropes, Jewish school children being afraid to wear their school uniform in public or their kippah, hiding their Star of David, seeing their peers do the Nazi salute at school….yes this happened, in my son’s school right here in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. In this context, what does it mean to bear witness in our own Jerusalem?”
For Stoliar, and indeed for all the mothers present, bearing witness means teaching their children properly. The audience heard from one ally who has spent the past year and a half educating her children about the Holocaust, antisemitism and October 7, and ensuring that they stop antisemitism if and when they hear it in their school. She even managed to get the schools to share an article in their newsletters about antisemitism.
It’s heartwarming to hear from non-Jewish allies and to feel heard by them too. The dialogue was raw, honest and emotionally-charged. And with more non-Jews in attendance than Jews, it’s clear that by sharing our stories, we can break down the barriers one woman at a time.
Michaela Ezra, a Ripple Effect committee member, finished the evening with a beautiful Dvar Torah about Shavuot and a clear call-to-action.
“Continue to promote and uphold our shared values of tolerance, inclusivity and social cohesion,” she requested. “It’s what so many of you are already doing – talk to your children, have those conversations with uni-aged and high school kids … ask questions, speak up when an incident occurs. Not only to check in on your Jewish friends, although that is really encouraged and appreciated, but really to call it out with people who may not be aware of those antisemitic incidents,” she continued, asking everyone to simply continue learning.
As Stoliar said, being an ally means teaching our children to respect differences, to be inclusive and to to teach them how to “live and learn and work together with people from all different backgrounds, cultures and religions.
“If you start in your own home, in your own Jerusalem, you’re starting at the epicentre of it all, and that’s where you set off the ripple effect.”
To learn more about The Ripple Effect, follow the movement on Instagram: @hello_ripple_effect
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