MENACHEM VORCHEIMER: I was born, raised and educated here but I am no longer safe in my country of birth

I was born, raised and educated in Australia, but I am no longer safe in my country of birth.

My family, community and I have all been repeatedly abandoned by the Federal and State Labor Governments who have failed to ensure law enforcement agencies utilise existing laws to prosecute those who incite hatred and violence against Australia’s Jewish Community.

These failures have enabled antisemitism to morph into domestic terrorism, resulting in Synagogues, childcare centers, homes and cars been firebombed across Sydney and Melbourne. Police have not arrested or charged those responsible for orchestrating these terrorist attacks.

Accordingly, the risk remains elevated as evidenced by the reported discovery of a caravan laden with explosives designed to create a mass casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.

The flames for this crisis were lit at the Sydney Opera House on 9 October 2023.

That evening was supposed to be a memorial event for the 1,200 Jews slaughtered by Hamas Terrorists on 7 October 2023, the largest single day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

On 9 October 2023, there was no war or Israeli military operations in Gaza, just 1200 dead Jews waiting to be buried, and another 250 Jews taken hostage and held by Hamas Terrorists in Gaza.

But Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, NSW Premier Chris Minns and NSW Police didn’t allow Jews to publicly mourn their loss or trauma at the Sydney Opera House. Rather, they ordered Jews to stay at home.

Instead, Anthony Albanese, Chris Minns and NSW Police empowered extremists,allowing them to march on the Opera House whilst spewing hateful chants such as“F... the Jews” whilst burning the Israeli Flag, rather than ensure existing laws were used to prosecute such vile conduct.

These failures enabled antisemitism to morph into Domestic terrorism, and now all Australians are suffering.

Australia has become reminiscent of 1930s Nazi Germany where dehumanising language against Jews was allowed to flourish, paving the way for harassment of Jewish students on university campuses, boycotts of Jewish businesses and academics, and then firebombing and destruction of Synagogues and homes on Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass.

Many of the Jews who didn’t flee Germany and Europe after Kristallnacht, ended up in Nazi concentration camps, where 6 million Jews, or 66 per cent of Europe’s Jews, were murdered.

This history is etched into the consciousness of Australian Jewry, who have the highest per capita number of holocaust survivors outside of Israel.

Many Australian Jews, like German Jews before the Holocaust, are deeply patriotic. Australian Jews, like German Jews before the war, serve in the Australian Defence Forces, donate to the arts, civic causes and are embedded in day-to-day Australian society.

It is in this context that my family and I, along with many others in the Australian Jewish community have recently applied for and/or renewed our passports and discussed leaving Australia.

We don’t want to make the same mistake members of our family did in Nazi Germany and Europe and stay too long when the clear markers for the murder of Jews exists.

It might sound extreme, but this is reality.

I and many others in the Jewish Community have received death threats, but Police have not apprehended those responsible.

Consequently, we are left to fend for ourselves; make our own security arrangements; change our daily routines; look over our shoulders; remove our details from electoral rolls and the other public records; and talk to our children about security and how to respond when an incident occurs.

This isn’t living, it is coping.

And it is why Australian Jews are openly questioning whether the Labor Federal and State Governments can be trusted to keep us safe, or whether Australian Jews need to heed the lessons of the 1930s and leave Australia for the US, Germany, Israel, or other counties who have prioritised Jewish security over political expediency.

I wish it wasn’t like this, but to ignore reality isn’t an option.

Menachem Vorchheimer is a Jewish Community Advocate