CAMERON MILNER: My first synagogue visit became a reckoning over Labor, Israel and Bondi terror
CAMERON MILNER: My first visit to a synagogue became an unexpected lesson in anti-Semitism, faith, Labor and forgiveness
I’d never been to a synagogue before. Yesterday was my first time visiting a place of worship with a high fence and active security checking tickets.
It was the Melbourne book launch of Bondi Terror by Sharri Markson and Alex Rychin at the Caulfield Shule.
Once with the congregation I met Australians of heart, hope and yes fear of what Bondi meant, what the future held for not only Jews in Australia, but all Australians.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.There was no chanting of trash slogans like “Globalise the Intifada”, but instead quite reflection on how we got here, what we need to do next. I was moved by the raw energy of quite resolve and determination that was stronger than any screaming chant.
Instead of slogans, it was a question asked in everyday voice – “How we didn’t heed the warning megaphone of October 7? That abject hate and intolerance could manifest on Bondi Beach? At Hanukka, 11 days before Christmas Day less than a year ago?”
The event was supposed to be a book launch and in form it was, but it was so, so much more.
What I witnessed at the Caulfield Shule was so much more than watching a book launch, it was a cry from leaders of the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism to stop, for love to win over hate, for a line in the Bondi sand to be drawn once and for all.
Future Premier Jess Wilson spoke with poise and purpose but not quite with the raw emotion of current Premier Ben Carroll’s address at Mount Scopus a fortnight earlier that gave full meaning to him writing ISRAEL on his leg to run a marathon.
Andrew Bolt masterfully MC’d the event that first Markson spoke and then co-author Rychin. Two very different speeches, no less moving than the other — two sides of the same coin.
Markson spoke of being one of the very first reporters on the scene of the massacre, despite holding back the sheer emotion of reporting the terrorist attack and being a local who’d grown up safe and happy in Bondi, but knowing that viewers locally and globally had to hear the news.
Rychin spoke of his raw pride of being Jewish, of the need to step up and lead in the moment and ever since, but of the need through the book to make sure every victim’s story and especially of the survivors to be heard, learnt and listened to.
The book launch was closed by a sermon — as I would call it given my church upbringing — by Rabbi Rabin. He spoke of learning from loss, of overcoming setbacks that life delivers us.
It’s as Christ taught us ‘turn the other cheek’.
It wasn’t about hate, but love. It wasn’t about exacting revenge on earth, but reconciliation and forgiveness. There was no intifada, no call to jihad.
I sat in the shule and reflected though that the support for the state of Israel had become such partisanised issue. That support for Jewish Australians and Israel was now only a Liberal issue.
I absolutely acknowledge the leadership of Minns, Malinauskus and Carroll for Labor at the state level, but this is ultimately a matter decided by the federal ALP.
Dr Evatt, an ALP leader from the Labor Left lead the UN after WW2 to form the nation of Israel. 39 years later the Labor right PM, Bob Hawke famously said “If the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all of humanity”.
Labor under Shorten also reaffirmed Labor’s absolute support for Israel in the tradition of Bob Hawke.
Markson referenced that since October 7 she’d foretold time and again that Australia was heading towards a tragedy of the scale of Bondi, that current government figures had become jaded, complacent and even dismissive of all the warnings given by no less than Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO.
Yet she had to be the first responder for the world’s media and report the death of 15 fellow Australians at the hands of alleged Islamic terrorists.
Bondi wasn’t just an act of anti-Semitism but an attack on all of us as Australians.
It was the turning point in current politics that has seen One Nation soar and Labor crumble.
After the speeches I met many of the attendees. A journalism student doing media at Monash University who’s lecturer polled the class and asked whether October 7 was fake news, community leaders and a couple who had until recently been ALP members.
I asked them why they were no longer members and they said “Penny Wong and Albanese”.
They then asked me a far more confronting question “Why are you still a member?”
I answered plainly “I wasn’t about to give up on Labor. That the party of Evatt and Hawke shouldn’t simply be gifted to Albanese, Burke and Wong”.
Challenged again how I could remain a member I replied “I just can’t let them trash our Labor legacy and take our party’s heritage for free, I won’t just walk away”.
It also made me reflect on my time at church with my parents, my grandfather who served in WW2 and simply believed that Jews, after nazi Gemany, had earned their right to their own state and that his Bible confirmed it anyway.
The Bondi massacre should never have occurred. It was a moment our nation lost its innocence and joined a way too long list of nations where anti-Semitic hate crimes have been perpetrated.
Yesterday might have been my first time in a synagogue, but it’s the message of love, not hate, even in the midst of diabolical hatred that will never be lost on me.
