Why the Jewish community must stand with Indigenous Australians

On Anzac Day morning, as the sun climbed above Martin Place, Pastor Ray Minniecon, a 75‑year‑old Kabi Kabi and Goreng Goreng elder, a grandfather, an Anglican pastor, and one of Sydney’s most quietly devoted servants of the public good, stood before thousands of Australians to deliver the Acknowledgement of Country at the dawn service. He was met with booing.

Ray did not flinch. He paused, drew breath, and continued, honouring Australia’s war dead with the same grace and dignity he has shown throughout a lifetime of service. The applause when he finished was loud and sustained. But the booing had already done its damage. It echoed, as acts of public racism always do, far beyond the moment itself.

The Jewish community knows this echo. Not as abstract history, but as lived inheritance. We are a people who understand, in our bones, what it means to be shouted down in a public place and told, without words, that you do not belong. What happened at Martin Place is not someone else’s problem. It is ours.

A Holocaust survivor’s bequest and a partnership born from mutual pain. 

Tom Rona was a Holocaust survivor and a member of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. He had survived the unsurvivable.