I could start this reflection in a number of different ways.
I could point out how topsy turvy the world feels now.
And that could segue into a musing about politics and the blurred lines of left-wing v rightwing.
I could wax lyrical about the rise of anti-semitism.
I could talk about where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the October 7 assault.
I could riff on my mantra “you never know what a day will bring”.
But when I think of the last 12 months it is the reinforcement of three parts of my identity that have stood out: my core Jewish identity, being a parent of Jewish children, and my sense of being part of a chain of (family) history.
Having never attended a Jewish school, nor a Jewish youth movement I have never felt part of the “Jewish Community” in Melbourne nor have I ever been interested in being part of it. My observation at the time of my youth – an observation that continues to this day – is that the community is very insular and I would rather be part of the Big Wide World.
So my Jewish identity has always been of the “Jewish in the Big Wide World” variety. I vividly recall in Prep – at an ecumenical-yet-Anglican school – being asked by the teacher around Easter time what holiday I was celebrating at home, and telling the class all about Pesach.
I also vividly recall a trilogy of essays I wrote in Year 10 or 11 as my nascent feminism was being formed: “On Being a Girl”, “On Being a Jewish Girl” and “On Being a Ghost”. (The last being a creative writing piece.)
So my Jewish identity was a core part of me from a very early age. It’s importance to my life has ebbed and flowed over the years but it has always been there; just as much as the fact that I am a bibliophile. Or a lover of music.
For the past 15 years I have lived in a region with no established Jewish community and that has not been a problem. I have been content to live in my indisputably Jewish household in the midst of the wider world.
However, in the immediate aftermath of October 7 the urge to seek out other Jews and mourn as part of the larger community was overwhelming. So I trekked into Melbourne on several occasions to gather with the community. The following 12 months has been marked by an ongoing need to explicitly seek out other Jews and commune with them – whether in person, online, or via podcasts or music.
While I have always known the phrase “Am Yisrael Chai” it has only been in the last 12 months that I have truly felt the power of what “Am Yisrael” actually means.
The aspect of the past 12 months that I did not anticipate was how my parenting would be affected.
In general, we have tried to keep the daily horror of whatever the news might be away from the children. Indeed, I have been actively wrestling for several years now to manage keeping abreast of general current affairs without being sucked into the daily litany of whatever murders, car crashes or other families’ personal tragedies have become fodder for the news cycle.
The events of October 7 and the aftermath have made this tightrope walk so much more difficult.
And then there has been the tightrope walk of informing the children of just enough about what occurred, while shielding them from the details of the day, as well as the enormous waves of the aftermath including – indeed especially – the antisemitism swamping parts of Melbourne.
For this reason, I am thankful that we live in regional Victoria so that, for example, seeing hateful stickers on the street is not part of our daily existence. While in the very first days after October 7 it seemed so strange that my local community was oblivious to the event that had shaken me to my core, I very quickly came to relish the respite, as well as appreciate the fact that the children could remain in their innocent bubble.
For better or worse, my children do not know that their Israeli cousins are living in a state of virtual war even if I am in much more regular correspondence with our Israeli family. (A new feature of the last 12 months has been my weekly Shabbat email.)
I explained away the cancellation of a much-looked-forward-to concert with the MSO with some vague mutterings; they don’t need to know about the empty virtue-signalling of adults who should know better.
Most crushingly and somewhat bewilderingly, I have had to pivot my search for a high school into a search for a school that I trust will keep my children safe. As I spoke to one of the senior teachers at the high school we have chosen, I burst into uncharacteristic tears; the tension of the previous few months bubbling up and out.
This bone-deep need to keep my children safe and protected has been the defining emotion of the past 12 months. Not just the usual need for safety and protection – careful when you cross the road… stay still if a dog wants to sniff you… – but a new need to protect them from the worst aspects of the world that surrounds around them, simply because they are Jewish.
It connects me to the many, many generations of Jewish mothers who have come before me. There is no doubt about the fact that anti-semitism is the worst it has been in my lifetime and I am about to turn 50.
When I think back to my university days in the 1990’s, and contrast my experience as an identifiable Jew on campus – I was actively involved in AUJS and wore a magen david necklace – with the experience of current students, I struggle to understand how so much could change in the space of a generation.
But then I sit back and realise that what everyone is experiencing now is just a tiny taste of what my grandparents endured… Indeed, it is just a minor annoyance compared to what all of our ancestors endured for much of the past 1000 years.
The anomaly is actually the golden age that the Jewish community in Australia experienced from the 1960s to the 2010s, and that luckily coincided with my lifetime.
And I remind myself that in Australia we have government protections at the state and federal level that ensure that all citizens of Australia – Jews included – have equal rights and that we (currently) have two political parties who will ensure those rights are not eroded, so the golden age is still here.
I am comforted by the phrase “gam zeh ya’avor” or “this too shall pass”. Of course, the same could be said about Golden Ages… Nevertheless, am yisrael has survived and even thrived no matter what has been thrown in our way; the current situation is a blip in a chain that goes back thousands of years and there is no reason to think that it will not continue to endure.
So in some ways I feel closer to my grandparents – and our collective ancestors – as we witness the antisemitism swirling around us. I am better able to imagine my grandparents’ lives in a more visceral way than I ever could have before, and I am amazed all over again at how they could come through all that they experienced and create wonderful lives for themselves in this goldene medinah.
As the one year anniversary of October 7 looms before us I reflect on a world that has changed around me. This new urge to keep my Jewish children safe permeates my every day, and makes my heart weep for the mothers whose children were taken hostage into Gaza for no reason other than they were Israeli. As I look ahead it is very definitely through the lens of a Jewish parent, and wondering what sort of world my Jewish children and Jewish grandchildren will be navigating in their turn.
