I want people to understand something about this mass shooting: It was motivated by antisemitism. Hatred towards Jews. In Australia, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in the world. On the first night of Hannukah, the most recognized Jewish holiday.
This wasn’t an accident, and the timing wasn’t a coincidence. It was deliberate.
As a member of the Jewish diaspora, I can’t tell you how terrifying these attacks are. We Jews are used to discrimination and hatred and, yes, direct attacks, up to and including genocides. We’re used to the hateful words and rhetoric. We’re used to being accused and punished when societies fail. But “being used to” something doesn’t mean being desensitized to it, or ignorant of the underlying message. And the message is always the same: “We blame you for our problems. You are the reason we suffer. You must die to make things right.”
I grew up knowing about Jewish persecution, the Holocaust and beyond. I was called horrid names and accused of being “evil” by the people at my Assemblies of God church, when I was far too young to understand why. People on the internet have told me that “all Jews” deserve to die. People on this very website have been gleefully and enthusiastically antisemitic towards me, because I can never prove to them that I’m not “like all the other Jews.” (IOW: “I’m too stupid and hateful to understand that no group of fifteen million is ever going to agree on everything, and too lazy to even think about educating myself.”) When it comes to what other people say and think about Jews, I have an incredibly thick skin. It’s simply not in my control, what other people choose to think of me, based on something as insignificant as what religion my sperm donor’s family practiced. If you think differently about me because of it, that’s your problem, my dear. And the joke’s on you, because not only am I not a practicing Jew, I’m not a practicing anything. And no, I don’t think less of anyone who is religious, provided they don’t use their religion to harm and/or oppress others. I especially despise people like Benjamin Netanyahu, who uses the language and symbols of Judaism to oppress and commit genocide against Palestinians, and then waves the Holocaust in the world’s face like it’s some kind of accountability red card, like the truly heartless, evil, malignantly narcissistic sociopath he is.
The roots of antisemitism run deep throughout most of the world, and go back for millennia. And it evolves, because we Jews refuse to just lay down and die. I am not a Zionist, I think I’ve made that abundantly clear over the last two years. But I also don’t think all Jews have to suffer, just because the least of us are colonialist pigs, nor do I think that we should just silently accept peoples’ hatred of us. (And Nutter Yahoo can fuck all the way off, blaming the Bondi Beach attack on Australia recognizing a Palestinian state. I guess Baby-Killer never thought that Australian Jews might support recognizing a Palestinian state, or that the larger Jewish population does, too, because we’re as sick of his shit as the rest of the world.)
I don’t stand with Palestine in spite of my Jewishness. I stand with Palestine because of it. Because I know what it’s like to be part of a group that’s been made to suffer just for existing. Because I know what it’s like to hear about “your people” being evil and not having any way of protecting yourself. I know what it’s like to be told you don’t belong, you’re never going to belong, and the world would be better if “people like you” didn’t exist. The fact that any Jews are still openly practicing and endorsing Zionism is their complete and utter failure at empathy.
But the failure of a relatively small number of Jews to be empathetic and make a genuine attempt at understanding and practicing tikkun olam is not a justification for what happened at Bondi Beach. The genocide in Palestine, being done in the name of “Judaism”, is not a justification for it. Zionism and the Jews who practice it are not a justification for Bondi Beach. Islamophobia and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin.
And honestly, I’m kind of pissed off that I even felt like I had to say any of this. Just because I’m Jewish. Just because my being Jewish leads people to assume the worst of me, without even knowing who I am or what I stand for, or even how little I actually care about being Jewish. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: For me, being Jewish is like being short, or being a woman, or having ADHD. I view none of these things as a problem, they’re just facts of my existence. Morally and politically neutral. The world thinks those things are a problem, and moreover, that they’re my problem for being any of them, and therefore, the world thinks it has the right to make my life hell for being these things.
Well, if you think I’m a problem for existing in this world as a short, neurodivergent, Jewish woman? Then from the bottom of my heart: Fuck you. I hope you never experience the level of hatred you spew towards others, because clearly, you are far too weak to take even a fraction of what you dish out.
An attack on any Jewish community is an attack on all Jews. And this is happening at a time when antisemitism (genuine antisemitism, and no, criticizing Israel/the IDF/Israeli government and its officials/Zionism is not antisemitic, whatever else anyone tries to tell you) is at levels not seen since the 1930s. The difference there is, people in the 1930s didn’t have ninety years of scholarship, writing, and knowledge of how this ends.
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