In the swirl of horrendous news following the US president-elect’s taking his oath of office, there’s been one shining light. On 13 February, an ad boldly declaring “No to Ethnic Cleansing” appeared in the New York Times. More than 350 American rabbis, creatives and activists put their names to it, protesting against the president’s blithe announcement that Gaza could be changed from a pile of rubble to the Middle East’s “Riviera” – that is, if neighbouring countries would agree to accept the remaining Palestinian inhabitants who have managed, miraculously, to stay alive.
It wasn’t long afterwards that the Australian Jewish Women 4 Peace Action Ready Group swung into action. I can’t remember when or where I signed the ad they’d organised, such was the flood of emails in my inbox. Who were the Australian Jewish Women 4 Peace, I wondered. This wasn’t a group I’d heard of, and I’ve kept abreast of a fair few, but sign it I did. The word is that even more wanted to sign but there wasn’t room left on the ad’s single page.
The question now is why so many Australians have signed the ad, and donated for it when they could.
Corinne Fagueret, one of the ad’s organisers, has said, “We must speak out wherever there is ethnic violence happening. At the moment, it’s about Palestinians and it’s about standing in solidarity with Palestinians”, adding that, “there can be no peace for Israel unless there is a just peace for Palestinians and I think it’s really important to realise that, as Jews”.
Everyone had their reasons for signing. Mine are so numerous it’s hard to pin them all down, but maybe it’s best to start with what I took away from Judaism as a child, at a time when antisemitism was rampant in America even as the Holocaust was raging. It was the commitment to “tzedakah”, or justice, and its corresponding “lovingkindness”. These were the central tenets for Jewish involvement in the civil rights and women’s movement, to name a few, and the tenets have stayed with me, and with many others. And if, being human, I haven’t always lived up to them, it’s not for want of trying. Justice and lovingkindness – the former being the hunger for fairness, the latter the renunciation of hatred. Tall orders for any of us, but what else does one need for guidance?
Like most Jews in America after World War II, my family welcomed Israel’s establishment. I recall my mother’s joyful tears when David Ben-Gurion came on a whirlwind tour to raise funds for the Jewish state, and several of our relatives were prominent Zionists. But then, many years later, after I’d become an Australian, I happened to learn of my grandfather’s sister Liza, a woman whom I’d never met and until then never even heard of. The years of research and travel it took to write her story opened my eyes to the schisms in Zionism and what had really happened in Palestine.
Part of this was discovering the writings of Asher Ginsburg, or Ahad Ha’am, the father of Cultural Zionism. While welcoming a renewed connection with the holy land, Ha’am was vehemently opposed to what became known as Political Zionism, the Zionism of Theodor Herzl, the principal advocate of a Jewish state. Ha’am was not alone in this – a number of early Zionists warned against establishing Herzl’s Judenstaat. But after the Holocaust, Political Zionism prevailed, solidifying into the genocidal bully we know today.
So, more than happily, I signed the ad. And if it succeeds in alerting the public that the Australian Jewish community is not a monolith, and that those who’ve claimed to speak for all of us have been guilty of gross misrepresentation, something very important would have been achieved.
Meanwhile, Israel has succeeded in weaponising antisemitism in Australia. People have lost their jobs and livelihoods because of this. More are threatened in our universities, now that the Group of Eight has adopted a dangerous definition to satisfy a parliamentary committee. With similarly restricting laws enacted in some states, I wouldn’t be the first to say that this reminds me of the McCarthyism I grew up with.
But here too one bright light has shone. Which leads me to another Jewish maxim, this time from a 15th century Kabbalist:
“The source of all evil in the world is too much head, and not enough heart.”
Someday Israel’s people will transform their state, and welcome Palestinians as their equals. It may take longer than I’ll take breath, but Jews of conscience everywhere will keep on trying.
Sara Dowse
Sara Dowse is an American-born Australian feminist, author, critic, social commentator, and visual artist. Her novels include Schemetime published in 1990, Sapphires, and As the Lonely Fly, and she has contributed reviews, articles, essays, stories, and poetry to a range of print and online publications.