If Not Now, Then When?

There are moments that clarify what matters.

Moments that cut through the noise, the distraction, the instinct to wait for a more convenient time. Moments that ask, quietly but unmistakably, whether we understand what is being asked of us.

This is one of those moments.

Community is not something we passively receive. It is something we actively renew, a living ecosystem that depends on participation to remain meaningful, relevant, and strong.

And renewal does not happen in theory. It happens in presence.

On Yom Hazikaron, we gather not as spectators, but as participants in memory. We carry names. We hold stories. We recognise that the cost of Jewish life, of Jewish sovereignty, is not abstract or distant. It is personal. It is ongoing. It is still being paid.

This year, that truth lands differently.

The victims of the Bondi attack have now been formally recognised among those we remember. The line between there and here has blurred in ways that are impossible to ignore. The story of our people is not unfolding somewhere else. It is unfolding around us, and through us.

And then, almost without pause, we turn.

From remembrance to celebration. From grief to life. From Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Not because the grief has ended, but because Jewish history has never waited for grief to end before choosing life.

That transition is not easy. It is not meant to be. It is the point.

To stand in that tension, to remember deeply and still choose to celebrate, is one of the most profound expressions of who we are.

But none of it exists without participation.

We do not inherit community by default. We sustain it by showing up. By being present in the moments that matter. By recognising that participation is how continuity is secured.

Because absence is also a decision.

And presence, in moments like these, is a statement.

It says that we are still here. That we remember. That we celebrate. That we carry forward what has been entrusted to us.

This year, more than ever, that matters.

Not as a gesture. Not as a performance. But as a deliberate, collective act of continuity.

If not now, then when is no longer rhetorical.

Now is the moment. Showing up is the answer.

Join the community this Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Elyse Schachna is the President of Zionism Victoria