The mindset that shapes our community

As the Royal Commission turns its focus to universities, we could editorialise here about the many harrowing stories of hate on campus.

A Jewish professor besieged in his office by up to 20 masked figures chanting that he was “guilty of genocide”. A woman in a library forced to listen to a man praise Hitler and claim rabbis “eat non-Jewish babies”. Jewish students called “baby killers” and “genocide supporters” as they walked to class.

And behind almost every account, the same institutional shrug – complaints that dragged on for months, investigations that found nothing, and universities that acted only once the media came knocking.

We could comment on the problem of antisemitism in Australian healthcare grabbing global headlines to the point that Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs felt it needed to weigh in.

There’s also the slap on the wrist for the driver of a car whose passenger pointed a fake gun at a Sydney shule. And in Adelaide, a Jewish family targeted with hateful graffiti.

As the Australian Jewish community’s foremost and longest continual publication of record, we need to report these incidents. But they are not the full picture. We need to highlight the positives too. And there are more than we think.

This week we also cover the first official formal meeting between the Israeli embassy and representatives of the Iranian Australian community, which was described by both sides as a milestone in growing cooperation.

We have a story about an Australian-founded tech unicorn expanding its operations in Israel.

We have the editor of one of the largest mainstream newspapers in Australia showing unbelievable solidarity with the Jewish community amid his quest to find out more about Jewish relatives in his own family background.

And we have the head of one of the world’s most prolific Jewish advocacy organisations coming to Australia with the message that we are not alone. That man, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, also tells us that “it’s always darkest before the dawn”. He also says we all have a role to play in seeing that dawn come to fruition.

In the meantime, we must hold on to these glimmers of light. They are how that dawn begins.