Tag: Australia

Australian elections are never what we expect

personby Gillian Polack
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Three years ago on April 10, I wrote:

Australia’s much-awaited (by us, anyhow) election was called yesterday. This is not just any election. It’s our last opportunity to move away from rabid and corrupt politics.

Our next election is on Saturday and we live in a different country. Three years ago, we were ruled by a queen, and now we’re ruled by a king. For some reason, we are far more prone to jokes under Charles than we were under Elizabeth. Technically, most of the parties are still similar, but this is another pivotal election, and not because of Charles. This was our position three years ago https://treehousewriters.com/wp53/2022/04/10/why-the-aussie-elections-are-so-important-this-year-an-introduction-for-the-unwary

We still have Mr Dutton, currently Leader of the Opposition, who has an apparent and possibly heartfelt desire to be Trump-lite. He replaced Scott Morrison when we decided we didn’t want more Trump-lite three years ago, which makes it a mystery to me why he’s choosing this path right now. Maybe he knows something about Australia that I do not know? I suspect his party would have won the election if he had not made that decision. Why do I think this? Dutton was doing very nicely in the polls until his aim to copy Trump was clear.

Independent of his policies, are his nicknames. I suspect he’s in the running for the most nicknames in history of any senior Australian politician. The one that trumps all (sorry, I could not resist the pun) is “Mr Potato Head.” Australians seldom give nice nicknames. Our current prime minister is nicknamed “Albo” which looks innocuous until you allow for the Australian accent. Our accent means that we call our PM “Elbow.” Intentionally.

Back to the parties. Now, there are other parties (minor ones) who also desire to copy Trump. One has even renamed themselves “Trumpet of Patriots.” No-one speaks kindly of them, but speaking kindly of people is not common in this election. The longest debate I’ve heard about them was which nickname is the best. The one that sticks in my mind (not the most common, just the silliest) is “Strumpet.” In and of itself, this will not affect their votes. Their policies, however, are not compatible with the left, or anyone who votes sort of centralish. Most of us vote sort of centralish, which, in comparison to the US, is slightly left wing. Sometimes quite left wing. This means that the Strumpets are the closest Australia comes to a Trump-like party. They’re not that, though. They’re right wing modified by some current causes. Current causes are a big thing right now.

Back to logic and commonsense. Three years ago I explained that the LNP (which we call the “Coalition,” mostly) were in power and that they were right wing. They are still right wing. They’ve lost a lot of their reputation and are in the middle of a generational change. The vote three years ago caused that, in a way, as did their wipeout in the biggest state in the country. Many of the new candidates for this elections (especially in electorates like my own where not a single LNP person won a seat in either house) are shiny new people about whom we know… not much. (If I were writing this for Aussies, I would use ‘bugger all’ instead of ‘…not much’, but I am aware of US sensibilities about what is everyday English in Australia. Not so aware that I refuse to tease you about it, but aware.)

Labor is now in power, and have the Elbow as leader. Albo is not much loved right now (and neither is Penny Wong, who, three years ago, we all adored), but I suspect Labor still represents more than 50% of Australians. It is a party strongly linked to unions and ought to be quite far left (and once was further left) but now it’s the centrist party. Since I’m in the mood to point things out, the party has US spelling and not Aussie spelling because it was named by a teetotaller US founder. Australia being Australia, we named a pub after him, just as we named a swimming pool after a prime minister who drowned. (I wrote about some of this three years ago. Good historical jokes are worth repeating.) I firmly believe that Australia is everyone’s ratbag cousin who is very charming but gets up to much mischief.

Three years ago I talked about the Greens. This year, I want them at the bottom of everyone’s vote. This won’t happen. They have set up a whole branch of the left (including many people who used to be my friends) and those people exclude Jews and hate Jews and blame Jews and do not listen to Jews and… you can imagine the rest. Me, I live it. They’ve put forward candidates that put the bad stuff happening in the Middle East ahead of what’s happening in Australia. If they get as much power as the latest polls suggest (14% of the vote) then quite a few Australian Jews will either have to hide (many are doing this already) or leave (and some have already left).

The party has always been left wing, but now they’re closer to Communist than to the environmental activists they once were. I am often scolded for saying these things. I answer the scolds with the labels placed in Jewish Australians by their supporters.

Some of the new Left don’t even believe there are Jewish Australians. I had that discussion with someone just yesterday. They now believe I exist, but it took two hours to convince them. We’ve been here since the first long term European settlement in 1788 (one of the First Fleet babies was the first Jewish free settler), so many of us are descendants of colonists. Most of us are descendants of refugees. And every day someone scolds me for personally having colonised Israel and murdered Palestinian children.

The hate is carefully targeted. Most of the rest of Australia has no idea. It’s a bit like domestic violence. “That very good person can’t have caused that black eye. You must’ve walked into a door.” This is being Jewish in Australia right now. It’s why the bottom of both my ballots is already populated by the Green candidates.

There is a new environmental party (Sustainable Australia) which won’t be down the bottom of my ballot. They’re not going to gain power, but if they can increase their influence a bit maybe we can talk about what needs to be done to deal with climate change rather than about the problem of antisemitism. The antisemitism isn’t just the Greens, you see. ASIO (our CIA equivalent) gave its annual assessment publicly this year. They said that antisemitism is Australia’s #1 security threat. Media ignored it. The Greens ignored it. All the other major parties factored it into their policies, but are talking about housing and jobs and the like because we have a housing crisis. I am still dealing with the notion that the new Australia can’t keep more than two ideas in its head at once.

Everyone else belongs to small parties or independents. Lots of those already in Parliament or the Senate are being challenged. Some will get second terms, others will not.

David Pocock is one of the bellwethers. He was voted to replace Zed, who was right wing (LNP) and wildly unpopular as a person. Pocock won partly because he used to be a very famous sportsperson and partly because so many preference votes flowed to him. He was the third in primary votes, and won on preferences. (This is a very Australian thing, and I can explain the voting system again to anyone who has forgotten or would like to be able to follow our vote on Saturday night.) The thing is… he voted leftish for most of his time in the Senate. Frequently, he voted alongside the Greens. He replaced a right wing party in that Senate place. What will that do to his preferences next Saturday?

How many independents and small parties will get through in a strange election where the main left wing party expresses bigotry? It depends on how far we veer left as a country. It depends on how loyal we are to individuals in both Houses. It depends on how personal everything is, in a year when I’m hearing so many people talk about their vote as personal.

I see two big options. One is that a lot of these independents lose their seats. This would return control (in the Senate in particular) to the party with the most seats in the Senate. The other option is that Australians vote a lot of these people into Parliament and the Senate and make everything very, very complex. I’m hoping that this is unlikely, given that many of the independents or small party representatives care only about one issue or are cults of personality, or are “We are not Greens – we just vote with them” people.

We don’t know how many independents or representatives of small parties will get through. The nature of advance polls is to focus on the major parties, so we really do not know how much support these legions of political individuals have in any given region.

Part of this rests on the nature of preferential voting. In the electorate of Blaxland, for instance, which has possibly the highest number of Muslim voters in the country, will the Labor candidate be returned to power, or will Omar Sakr (the Greens candidate) be voted in, or will an independent specifically representing Muslims (the one suggested by the Muslim Vote) get in? The Muslim Vote focuses on Muslim voters and assumes that their main political desire is not about housing or education, but about creating a Palestinian state. I chatted with a friend today, who is also Muslim, but from Indonesia, and she had no idea that this group even existed. The public talk about Muslim votes assume that most Muslims who vote are either Palestinian or support Gazans. And yet… we have many Muslim Australians from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Malaysia and various African countries. I do not know if there is a voting pattern for all these people from all these backgrounds. Some are fully integrated into Australian society, some maintain boundaries and stay largely within their own communities.

My guide to the elections three years ago was a lot simpler. Right now, it feels as if life was a lot simpler three years ago.

PS Just in case you want to know what advice Jewish voters have been given, it’s “Make up your own minds, you’re adults.” We have, however, been given a guide to making up our own minds. 2025 federal election – ECAJ

A Week in the Life…

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m in the final throes of the thesis-writing. In five weeks, my thesis will be submitted for examination. This means the complete thing needs to be done by this Friday. Sounds fine? Except… this Saturday is Passover. Some friends helped me with some of the shopping and I’ve ordered everything else for delivery plus the fresh stuff at the market), but I need to have the flat clean (since I will be hosting) and the kitchen made as proper as I can. I come from a family that had special dishes for the festival, but my health makes a whole bunch of things not possible and complete kashruth is one of them. I do a best-I-can version, which is not at all suitable for anyone religious.

I do some thesis, do some Passover prep, meet another deadline, deal with the latest panic (my mouse died over the weekend, for instance and my printer is currently sulking), do some thesis, do a little work on my tax, do some of my exercises, wonder if I’ll get any sleep, worry about my mother (who has COVID, as do two of my close friends), do some thesis, do a little work on my tax, and so on until I can sleep. It will all be sorted by Sunday, and then I will quite possibly not wake up for 36 hours.

Tomorrow I have coffee with a neighbour. Normally I would ask to not do anything extra this week, because I’m already doing 18 hour days, but he’s very seriously ill and can be quite difficult even when he’s well and I cannot leave it long. So… tomorrow.

I will have to send someone a note about a Wednesday meeting. It’s with a local candidate. We have elections on 3 May, you see. I really need to talk to him and I’ve tried and tried and failed and failed and finally he comes to the Jewish Community Centre and it’s the Wednesday before my thesis has to be sent and before Passover. His timing is so bad.

He should have asked to see us last week, or left it until the week before the election. The timing suggests that he really doesn’t see antisemitism (or us, as the local Jewish community) as a high priority. Also, his office gave me the run around when I offered to talk to someone about why things are the way they are at the moment – and this is part of my academic expertise and I can be really useful… The staff of two politicians have given me the run around. I so miss my previous self, who was asked about things! Anyhow, I’ve decided not to offer my knowledge and understanding to politicians any more. I’d rather meet my deadlines and enjoy cooking for Passover.

Other people are asking me about things, which is a bit of a relief. My big insight for today is that it’s actually very easy to identify who is marching for hate and who is marching with hope that they can improve the wrongs of the world. It’s not what side people take (the good side of history that so many people claim right now… not actually how most of the world operates).

The way people march tells us so much. Look at the body language and listen to the slogans. Do the slogans provide methods to effect change, or are they declamations that lead nowhere. Does the group prevent others from passing, or block access to anywhere? How angry are the people, and what reasons do the slogans give for any anger? Do marchers stop and talk and listen, or do they simply shout, or do they accuse strangers of… almost anything. Telling strangers who the strangers are and shouting in their face is the issue here: actual change agents talk and listen, because change happens when people can see they’re a potential part of solutions. Those marches that breathe fire and brimstone and don’t take a moment to stop being angry, those marches where (as happened this week) a group surround a single stranger and bullies them – they’re the marching equivalent of Nazis in the 1930s. This doesn’t mean their cause is terrible: it means that these particular people are bullies.

Look at how people march and what specific goals they aim to achieve with the march, and whether not even a small part of those marching bully anyone watching or anyone trying to get past and you get a good notion of whether they really care about others… or whether they are informed by hate. If you don’t want to carry that hate with you, you need a way of winding down.

My way is often thinking about food. I have learned a whole new bread-making method in the last few weeks, entirely to handle the antisemitic hate I encounter. This week is not about that bread, however: now that I’ve sorted out how I will obtain all the things for cooking, I have most of a menu for Saturday night.

We begin, of course, with the ritual things. I have horseradish (it cost an arm and a leg, but I have some – it’s simply not in season in autumn) and matzah. I will serve the matzah with charoseth. My father’s charoseth recipe is wonderful: apples and almonds and sweet wine made from Concord grapes and enormous amounts of cinnamon.

After the charoseth, there will be the traditional eggs and potatoes, to be dipped in salt water. I have organic free range hen’s eggs from my local egg farmer ($25 for 60 large eggs, for those tracking the prices of eggs), and also a little packet of quail eggs. There will be no chopped liver – I have the ingredients (the liver is in the freezer) but intend to eat it on Friday week.

After that, of course, chicken soup with kneidlach (matzah dumplings) both of which I make according to old family recipes. The main course is roast chicken (with lemon and garlic) and vegetables. The roasted vegetables will be potato and lotus root. I haven’t decided all the side dishes yet, but there are two types of pickled cucumber, and the same kind of ancient olives that grew near Jerusalem around the time the Temple fell. There is a story behind why these olives grow in Australia, and that story has family connections.

I was going to make cakes (an orange-almond one and a choc-nut one) for dessert, but I think we’re skipping dessert and going straight to afters. The Passover meal I grew up with is far, far too large for modern Australia. A friend found me chocolate macaroons and I have dark chocolate, and the best organic dried muscatels from a local farm. I will have fresh figs with this, and maybe some other autumn fruit. I may make one of the cakes during the week… or I may not.

Tomorrow, to give me time away from my computer on such a busy day, I shall make bagels. That’s the last of the flour and yeast. Tomorrow lunch is the last of the rice and the last of the nori. Step by step I sort my world, and then I cook the big dinner on Saturday.

II live such a simple, slow life.

Witter-time and dissertations

personby Gillian Polack
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For the next few weeks everything’s going to be a bit rushed and my mind may be a tad wayward. I have, you see, put in my notice to submit my thesis. This is my least favourite part of doing a PhD, normally, and a bit worried because right now I am kinda enjoying it. What’s wrong with me? I don’t sleep at all well, and I want it finished, but right now, the revision and thought is rather fun. When it stops being fun, then I’ll know I’m nearly finished.

While our dissertations are not that different to US or UK or European dissertations, the Australian examination process is its own thing. This is because it was set up at a time when distance and cost prevented committees from meeting in person and before modern technology allowed online meetings. Because of this, most Australian PhD examinations are still done through three examiners evaluating the written text. That’s it. I’ve been an examiner, and you are sent the document (it used to be a printed and bound document, but these days printing and binding mostly happen later) and read it and fill in a form and that’s that.

I enjoy examining others’ theses, but do not at all enjoy mine being examined. You sit and wait and sit and wait and sit and wait. Mostly, everything is done within three months… except for my first PhD examination, which took three years. It was also fraught. It left emotional scars and also cost me my first career. It’s very hard to get job interviews when your PhD has been under examination for about as long as it would take to do a whole new PhD.

I have maybe two weeks to finish writing the thesis, then a few more weeks for all the various other stages to be complete. Ticking boxes and jumping hoops.

It’s very good training for fiction writers, actually. I am much pickier about sending manuscripts to publishers because of this training. I don’t wait for an editor to sort my grammar and check for typos and ensure that the house style is met: I do it myself. I’m not as good at these things as I used to be, however. I miss the days of more energy and better eyesight and being really annoyed at stray split infinitives or commas. My thesis still has to have all these things sorted, along with proper citations and formatting. Several of the weeks before I submit, then, are to allow a copy editor to take a look. It’s part of the system right now, and good for me… but I’m determined to see how little work I can leave for the copy edit: it’s a matter of pride.

This leads to some odd moments. I was supposed to rewrite a paragraph yesterday, and instead I spent ten minutes analysing the text and seeing if I really needed my second footnote. This is not a document with many footnotes, unlike my History PhD. Different disciplines have quite different requirements. I used to have so many footnotes that I wrote 103 footnotes into my first novel. The editor had me take some out…. But it is still a footnoted novel. Back then, we had to assess the space for footnotes on each page: it wasn’t automatic. It’s ironic that now the word processor does this, I only have very occasional footnotes.

My first PhD was formatted by me, myself and I on a MacSE. Two floppy drives and much blue screen of death. That machine cost me 25% of a year’s scholarship. It was that long ago. I would print my drafts out on a dot matrix printer, and took discs into the university printer to print the final and photocopy it. The printed copies were then bound and sent to examiners, one of whom was in Canada. My then-thesis contained a vast amount of Old French and a little Latin, which totally thwarted any spellcheck by anyone who was not me.

Everyone was so impressed I was working on the computer all by myself back then. That’s how long ago it was. Desktop computers were exciting and new and I was able to do all the things myself. I typed other people’s theses in the last year of my undergraduate life. Not many theses, but I was a fast typist and accurate and now… I’m neither.

I wish I could claim age for this loss of skill, since I was an undergraduate over forty years ago, but the sad reality is that when I joined the public service it was at a time when there was much mistreatment of young women with typing skills. So many of us developed RSI. In my case, my supervisor was really annoyed that I had a PhD and he didn’t, even though I was still waiting for the examination results. He would give me pages of typing at 5 pm. “It’s urgent,” he claimed, which is how he skipped sending it to the typing pool. I was a policy analyst, not a typist but he would give me the work and then go home. A small sliver of his personality helped make up the composite boss-from-hell in one of my novels. So, so many people who read that novel tell me that they had that boss.

I am wittering, aren’t I? This is avoidance. I need to finish editing the Introduction and Literature Review. By the end of today, I have to apply one set of comments to the whole thesis. Then I have marked up text to sort out. Then another set of notes. I have until the weekend to have done all of this and I am, right now, procrastinating. Most of my Monday was spent clearing urgent stuff so that I could immerse myself in sorting out the thesis. That was also procrastinating. I’m nervous of Chapters Two and Three and Four, you see. Very nervous.

personby Gillian Polack
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The changes in the US are reaching out over the world. Added to the increase in antisemitism and many more people are looking through a red veil and seeing hate or despite when the reality is we’re not communicating clearly. Whether I’m right or wrong or entirely evil in whatever I say, I feel like a mouse with cats both visible and invisible, just waiting to pounce. Some of my friends have gone quiet, which is sensible. I am sometimes not so quiet and a random cat pounces. The cat might be pouncing because I’m vermin or because they’re hyper-aware and see me as vermin, but either way…. they pounce.

And I need to think of nicer things. Not the cyclone. It was not, as cyclones go, a very big one. In fact, it was hardly a cyclone at all. The parts of SE Queensland and NE NSW it hit, though, included much flat land that was easily saturated with water. People talk about the hills of Brisbane, and yes, they are pretty. But Brisbane airport is 3m above sea level and it’s not the only part that’s so close to sea level. When there’s too much rain, the land becomes saturated quickly and Brisbane floods and the floods do not roll down the mountains to the sea… because a large part of the city has low elevation. On the Gold Coast, there is very little beach left, but beach can be restored. So far, all my friends and family in that region are fine, which is something.

You need some good news, right?

The first bit of good news has to do with water… from the opposite end to floods. There is a new book (ebook right now, and I’ll make a formal announcement when the paperback comes out) that talks about water and that intends to raise money to help people in very dry areas (Sahel-dry) manage water. I have an alternate history sarcastic little piece in it. You can find the ebook here:  Yemoja’s Tears

The second bit of good news is that later this week is Purim (the feast of Esther) and it’s obligatory for me to get drunk. This year I think I need it.

Seeing things Jewishly

personby Gillian Polack
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So many strangers are telling me right now that I’m not Australian and that none of my relatives are Australian and… my mind keeps returning to what this means for the Arts in Australia. Certainly it’s much more difficult for anyone Jewish to earn money in the Arts here: there are some places I won’t even fill in the forms until I see that things have changed. I don’t have much physical capacity and when something is obviously a waste of my time, I do something else with that precious time. However… it struck me that I see the world through my upbringing. I talk about books from non-Jewish Australia a great deal, but my own view of the world is shaped by my family and their friends and the stories I was told as a child.

We all see the world from our own eyes. If someone were to ask me how I see the arts in Jewish Australia, I’d only give a partial answer, because there is so much stuff I forget. The first thing I think of, in fact, is what has impacted me and when and why. I thought, this week, then, I’d give you a little list. The list is little but it contains many words, because I annotated it. Welcome to the Arts in Australia seen Jewishly, through my life.

Let me begin with family and friends.

My mother’s family arrived in Australia before World War II or died in that war (save one person, who is not part of today’s story because he was not an artist, musician or writer). Mum’s immediate family was all here by 1918. It was a big family in Europe and is not the smallest family in Australia. Of all my mother’s cousins there are two who were well-known as writers. Very well-known, in fact.

Morris Lurie was Naomi’s brother. Naomi was so much a forever part of my life that even now she’s gone, I still think of one of Australia’s better known writers of plays through the fact that his sister was Naomi. Every time Naomi was in Melbourne, she’d shout “Sonya,” across the street to my mother, because they were very close. Mum hates loud voices and Naomi thought that Mum hating the noise and the laughter was hilarious.

I know about Morrie, and I collected his plays when I was a teenager. One of the lesser known facts of Gillian’s life is that, for twenty years, she collected plays. I still have my collection, but most of it needs a new home. I never met Morrie. He wasn’t much into meeting our side of the family. Even if we had met, I suspect we wouldn’t have had a lot in common. Naomi, on the other hand, was someone I would spend any amount of time with. She was my bridge to the Yiddish-speaking side of the family, and is the main reason why I don’t use that in my fiction: it’s her culture, not mine. My cultural self is from my father’s family. Loving Naomi, though, sent me to understand klezmer and Sholom Aleichem and so much else. I need to re-read Morrie’s plays. Maybe now I’m no longer a teenager I’ll like them more. Maybe not. I’ll see.

Arnold Zable is, as my mother explains, a family connection. His refugee cousin married Mum’s refugee cousin. Arnold is Victoria’s great storyteller. He also wrote an amazing book about the family left behind: Jewels and Ashes.

My father’s side of the family is so very musical. One of my father’s best friends was an extraordinarily well-known performer… but that’s another story. This is one of the days when stories lead to stories and those stories lead to more stories. Between family and friends, I grew up with music the way I grew up with rocks. Science and music and Doctor Who kept our family together for a very long while.

The most famous musician/composer/music critic in the family (she was never just one thing, nor was she a simple person) influenced me a great deal in my youth. Linda was my father’s first cousin, and spent time with me when I was very uncertain of where I fitted and who I was. She accompanied my sister on the piano when that sister was doing more advanced music. She told me some of the stories of her life, but never the really private ones.

Linda was Linda Phillips She described her own music as “light classics.” We played them on the piano at home… but never well. Her music was a lot more than ‘light classics’ as was Linda herself. Her daughter, Bettine, also wore her talents lightly. I knew that she had acted on stage with Barry Humphreys as an undergraduate, but I had no idea that she was a famous radio actor back when radio was the centre of so many people’s entertainment. They were both quiet about their achievements.

Here I need to explain that, not only were they modest and exceptionally fun to be with, but they were nothing close to my age. Linda was my father’s first cousin, to be sure, but she was born in the nineteenth century: she was sixty years older than me. Linda lived until the twenty-first century, and we lost Bettine to COVID. They were part of an enormous change in the Arts in Australia, beginning with Linda’s early career as a pianist over a century ago. I grew up with this, taking it for granted that there was a life in the Arts and a world and so much enjoyment… but seldom enough money to live on.

There is a third family musician, my own first cousin, Jon Snyder. His life is another story. He was in a very popular band (Captain Matchbox) and became a music teacher. His professional life began in the sixties, so the age differences are still there, but not as great. So many of the friends of my schooldays also became musicians, and three of them play in the same band, in Melbourne. That’s another story, however. I am no musician. I had some talent, but words were always more fun and, to be honest, I used to be tone deaf. I love music and the artists who create and perform it, though, because until I left home, it was part of my everyday. In fact, even when I left home, music crept up on me. I kept running into friends of Linda’s. They would send messages to Linda through me. Stories breed stories…

Also, this stopped being a list almost as early as it began being a list. I’ve only talked about a third of the writing side of the family. But this post is long enough. The rest can wait.

PS I have not at all forgotten the questions I promised to answer. There are only two questions, but the answers require a lot of thought. My everyday is a bit over the top at the moment. When things calm down, I will answer those questions. I promise.

Intermission

personby Gillian Polack
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I am barely in the US Monday as I type. By the time this post goes up, it will be your Tuesday. I meant to write something 24 hours ago, but everything became too complicated, and I needed to breathe. I took medicine and I breathed, then I went to sleep.

This morning, my body told me to go back to sleep. It does this from time to time. I’m chronically ill, and there are times when bedrest prevents a whole host of problems. I listened and I slept. Since then, I’ve been catching up with everything and finally, finally in the early evening of my Tuesday and the cusp of Monday and Tuesday in the US, I can write my post. In that intervening time, I have left the questions my readers asked in such a safe place that I can’t find them… and I don’t want to talk about which bits of my body hurt and why, or the fact that this summer is never-ending.

Summer is always never-ending in February in my part of Australia. Then autumn hits with storms and leaves and arbitrary weather and it is as if summer never was. Only some parts of Canberra have the leaves, and there is a moment when pretty colours seem very exotic and Canberrans go driving around admiring these foreign trees and watch them shed their leaves. Last year I took some spectacular photographs from a local park. It’s too early this year for spectacular photographs. We’re still at the period of spectacular fatigue.

That we actively have to look for leaves in certain suburbs is why so many Australians subdue a chuckle when someone from the US talks about Fall. Not only is our autumn at a different time of year, but you need to be in very particular parts of Australia for there to be autumn leaves at all.

This moment of perpetual summer is when school has gone back after the long break, it’s when the heat is more likely to bite, and when university begins. Everything starts up, and so many of us just want to sleep until the more comfortable weather comes. It’s one of those times when all kinds of work deadlines present and many demands are made and those of us who are sensitive to the heat suddenly dream of the northern hemisphere.

Why do I call it an intermission? I’ve been writing about Todorov and that moment he describes as a hesitation, when you don’t know what the world of the novel will bring you. Anything’s possible. There could be horses, or unicorns, or fast cars, or slow bicycles. I often stop at that point in a novel and dream my own story, the plunge in and see where the real story will take me. That’s what life feels like now. As if it could go in a thousand different directions. Only I haven’t stopped to dream my own story (it’s tempting) because it’s too darn hot.

Different places, different troubles, same times

personby Gillian Polack
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On Sunday, I put up a Facebook post. The reaction to it was a lot more positive to the one I was expecting, so I’m sharing it here… with an update.

I’ve been trying to find words to say this all day. I’ve given up trying to find decent words and I hope that what I say is clear. This post may get me a lot of people arguing, but it’s important, so it’s public. Be kind, please. None of this stuff is easy, for anyone.

For the past little while, so many people around me have blamed everyone Jewish for even the smallest thing someone else Jewish or Israeli might have done. They’ve translated antisemitism into false flags and are full of spite and opinions. I don’t know if 75% of Jewish Australians are Zionist, because I don’t know what definition of Zionism those who claim it use and I’ve never been asked as part of a survey… and nor have most Jewish Australians I know. I know I don’t worship Satan. I certainly know I’ve not killed 30,000 children. That sort of thing. Life has been… rather difficult.

Lots of folks on the left demand a shibboleth, that I publicly denounce or deny this thing or that thing before they will talk to me. I’ve just accepted that I don’t get to talk with them, and I’m sorry, but saying “OK” and giving them what they demand is adding to the bigotry around by playing the games that let people determine good Jews and bad Jews and I try not to play those games.

You know about some of this because I speak about it when I can.

This week, it has taken a turn, or even a twist. Not an unexpected twist, but one that saddens me. The sort of bigotry I’ve just described is infectious, and this is the moment I can choose to not be part of spreading that infection to other Australians. (And the medical metaphor may alert some of you of what’s to come.)

Right now, Australia’s facing the case of two nurses who I, personally, never, ever want to meet. I am not going to make the same assumptions about Muslim Australians from the example of these two, that people make about Jews from whatever examples they use. I would like the hospital at Bankstown to look closely into things and, if there is a pattern of bigotry embedded, to do something about it. I would like both nurses to be tried, fairly, with all the evidence laid out. I will not ask any Muslim Australian (whether they’re a friend or complete stranger) to give a particular opinion on what the nurses said or did before I am willing to talk to them about anything.

Things are going to be very difficult for Muslim Australians for the next few weeks and not a single one of them needs my demands on top of everything else. They don’t need any of our demands. Any questions or needs should be sent, courteously, to whichever governing body is responsible for the specific thing you need to know. If it’s a religious opinion, ask religious experts. If it’s a medical opinion relating to Bankstown Hospital, then Bankstown Hospital would have the right people to talk to. Your local dentist or wifi expert is not responsible for what those nurses said and should not be put on the spot about it. The only organisations I want to hear from, myself, are the ones linked to the two nurses and who moderate the ethical behaviour within their communities and professions. Some of them have already spoken out. I can wait for the others.

Yes, as a Jew, I will try to avoid the hospital in question … because these sorts of attitudes often belong to a community in a location and because I’ve heard other rumours. I hope they’re only rumours. Even if they’re true, the vast, vast, vast majority of Muslim Australians wouldn’t even know those two nurses. Many of them don’t even come from similar backgrounds to the two nurses.

I will not let my personal fear turn me into someone who hates a bunch of other Australians just because they share a religion with two people I do not ever want to meet. My favourite local grocer is still my favourite grocer (and owned by a Muslim family) and my favourite local butcher is still the halal butcher in Mawson, just next door.

Update:

Organisations linked to the nurses are beginning to speak up. One public statement in particular is worrying. I looked into the organisation that issued the announcement, and the announcement appears to reflect their identity (and may make them part of the same community as the nurses, with some of the same views as the nurses), in which case, they would not like me at all. They still comprise only a tiny fraction of Muslim Australia and give absolutely no excuse for treating anyone else badly.

It does mean that there are places that anyone Jewish may have to be careful (more places, I mean) and this is bad, however, I will continue to check out all the statements, and continue to not judge anyone who has not done anything in need of judging. My friends are still my friends and I am deeply disappointed that I have far too much coffee and don’t need mincemeat and my pantry is full and therefore no excuse to go to Mawson and buy favourite things. I go for coffee and mincemeat and emerge with three bags of food I love.

I often talk about food when I’m distressed, and the nurses thing has riled up even more hate than other events and… I am still determined not to hate just because others have fallen into that hole.

I am the Red Queen

personby Gillian Polack
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I am so the Red Queen this week. I am running so very hard and would love to be able to feel that I’m on top of anything. I still can’t do long posts answering questions, but I have such good reason.  Six things have happened and any one of them would be enough to demand I re-order my day and drink much coffee.

Let me explain the things in random order. All of this has happened since Friday.

  1. I can see! Because I have unusually problematic eyes, new glasses are not so easy. I needed 3 pairs. Two pairs came last year and it took me about a week to get used to them. The third arrived on Friday and it took until today for my eyes to be able to interpret the world without dizziness. The new specs are very smart and I like them a lot, but, for me, buying glasses is always a bit of a gamble. If I have someone with me with good taste (as I had for the first two pairs) their good taste makes me look respectable. I cannot see things for myself, and for some reason, taking pictures of my in empty frames and then looking at the pictures on the screen just makes me want to walk away. I don’t know how I look, in other words, until I have the new glasses.
    Some of my friends hear the news and say, “New glasses!” They show me their reading glasses and tell me which chemist one can buy the best $10 pair at or that they were only $3.  Mine cost a lot, lot more than this. All three of mine together, in fact, added up to $1,000, which, given my eyesight, was a bargain. When I buy in Australia, I have to go to a specialist shop. It takes about two weeks once I’ve ordered, because the lenses have to be cut in Japan. Occasionally the optometrist loses my order (this happened last year, for the first two pairs) and I have to start from scratch. The new glasses are from France, and the same price as the Australian… but the glasses are lighter and easier to wear.
  2. My computer was dying.  On a bad day, it took eight hours to boot up. I have a new computer and it’s lovely. It arrived just before lunch yesterday and… I’m still sorting things out. Because I don’t like buying new computers, the technology changes a lot in between computers. I’m still adjusting to the new one. This may take a while.
  3. This is the week of my literary review. I sent 9,000 words to my supervisor and get comments on Thursday and then have to complete it. By Monday I also have to change a bunch of other things, and the Monday after (if I’ve got the dates right) then 65,000 words ought to be ready to go. In normal times, this is not a big deal. My normal self is seriously good at this kind of thinking and writing. This month is not normal times.
  4. My email didn’t transfer over properly from my old machine. All the saved categories mysteriously disappeared. Most of the deleted mail re-appeared. I found myself with well over 90,000 emails from just one account… and they included things that need to be done this week. I’m working on it.
  5. I have had a health blip recently. Since about November, in fact. On Sunday, my body announced that it may be deciding to recover from the blip, but it’s not certain. I feel a lot better than I have been. but I need to rest… a lot. Also, I lost 3 kg on Sunday, all inflammation deciding it didn’t like me (which is a good thing). It’s a bit too exciting. Blood tests are tomorrow, which is also a bit too exciting.
  6. I now know the shape of left wing antisemitism in Australia. I made a simple statement in public and received some very interesting and mostly vile responses and matched them to a bunch of previous knowledge. If anyone needs to understand the new antisemitism better, I can now explain it. That’s the good thing. The bad thing is that most of its purveyors want to tell Jews what we are and how we think and do not stop to listen. This is where the “All Jews murder children” stuff comes from, and I can now  explain how it begins in simply not listening, to not respecting, to bullying, to turning individuals invisible, to outright hate. If anyone wants to understand how the Left does this, ask me. I already knew about the right wing stuff, and have reached the stage where I can talk sensibly with many people on the right and we can come to a bit of an understanding given time and space. The irony is, of course, that I’m of the left.
    The reason I am the historian I am is because I refuse to dismiss all bigots out of hand. Most of them are really fine human beings who can’t see where their ideas and their hero-worshipping leads them. Right now, though, we’re at an odd point and it’s rather difficult to get past the hate and talk to the fine human being. This is the moment when violence is about to begin. This is also the moment when most people who are developing this problematic stuff are both moving into self-defensive mode and into a place where their ideas are consolidating into passionate beliefs. I’m seeing more theology of hate than I’ve seen in such a long time.
    I so miss being allowed to teach these things so that people can understand themselves and their friends and make their own decisions about which direction they’re going to travel in and why. Dumping people like me from teaching is, of course, a small factor in what’s happening. None of this is cheerful… but at least I understand more.

Is this enough cause to be late in the Treehouse and still not answering my readers’ questions?

Such a week…

personby Gillian Polack
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Part of the annual report into antisemitism in Australia was released last week. Also last week (just before I left Melbourne to come home, in fact) a synagogue was firebombed. Thankfully there were no casualties in the attack. But..

I am now facing the deluge of comments one gets after the news was released. So many of those talking about the attack believe it is by “Zionist Jews.” I want to stand up and shout that every single one of these people is a bigot. They’re using the fourth definition to “Zionist” to replace most of the poison inherent in the words they’re using to replace “Zionist”, such as “Jews.” This definition reflects the emotion and hate in the mind of the user. It does not reflect Australian Jews at all. Take my siblings: some support Israel, some don’t, some are quiet on the subject because they believe it’s not anyone else’s business. And one of us (not me) is Ultra-Orthodox and has links to the burned synagogue. None of us have any wish to burn down any synagogue, much less one filled people books we love and people who know members of our family.

I saw walls of Talmud charred to black and it reminded me of the times when (in Europe) supersession saw Jews expelled from their homeland of hundreds (possibly up to 1400) years, and in other places saw cartloads and cartloads and cartloads and cartloads of Talmuds burned. Those burnings were to make certain that Jewish culture and religion was frozen at the time of Jesus, because that was the only relationship with Jews that these particular Christians could handle. Note I said “these particular Christians.” Most contemporary Christians and contemporary Muslims do not condone barbaric acts. They are not the people crying that all Jews need to be deported from Australia, to make way for a return of the old White Australia.

The ‘old White Australia’ is a fiction. “White Australia” is complex but has very little in common with what those shouting think. I want to sit down and teach them some history. Literally, in terms of people, before Europeans came it was not White at all, and when the First Fleet arrived… there were Jewish convicts on it. The members of the public shouting about Australian Jews not being White and not being wanted here has returned, but I’m still told I have White privilege. Most of those telling me I have White privilege and should be deported came from families who arrived here after my own. And the shouts are louder right now.

I can give you the old and new definitions of Zionism if definitions can help you deal. I can also give you a photograph. The photograph is more, fun, so I’ll only give you the definitions if you want them (just ask!).

Why the photograph? The Myer Christmas windows are a feature of the Melbourne landscape at this time of year. This year, the pro-Palestinians marchers (some of them are the same people who want me deported and blame Jews for everything that hurts) protested against them. We all looked for reasons. Maybe it was because Myer was founded by someone Jewish… except Sidney Myer converted to Christianity. Maybe they hate all people who have Jewish ancestry? That’s the purity of blood notion, used to hurt those who could not shake off their Jewishness enough in Early Modern Spain and Spanish territories. If you’re not familiar with this long moment in the history of the Spains, look up ‘Torquemada.’  Jewish ownership of business? Myer is not owned by Jews. This means that either the Christmas windows themselves are deeply offensive (and aimed at children, therefore problematic) or those protesting them are idiots. I’ll let you decide:

 

The Irwins looking at parrots in the Australian Outback, Myer windows 2024
Melbourne, December 2024

Some Days

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m writing this late on my Monday evening because I was so worried about what was happening in my hometown. Not where I live now (Canberra) but where my family has lived since 1858. Outside a synagogue not at all far from my own childhood one, and half a suburb away from where my mother lives, there was going to be a pro-Palestine demonstration. Given what happened in Montreal over the weekend, I did not like this at all. Given what happened a few minutes away last year, during a Friday service on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, where my mother’s first cousin was one of the people ‘evacuated’ into a violent anti-Jewish crowd… I was very worried.

I’ve just seen the video clips of what transpired and Australia can sometimes be quite uniquely itself. Before I saw the video clips, however, I realised the angry crowd might be a bit smaller than last time. This notice was circulated on the interwebz shortly before the event:

Protesters still came. They were thoroughly covered, except for their eyes, and while this might have been sensible to hide their identities, it wasn’t such a good idea. Melbourne was not as hot as Canberra today, but Canberra was in the thirties… so these poor blokes must have been seriously uncomfortable.

I saw a bunch of clips of what happened after they arrived and there was no violence. Two of the pro-Palestine protesters were gently ushered into a police van and I’m pretty sure I heard someone say “Have a good day.” The angry violent Jews shouted “Go home. Leave us alone” in unison. well away from where the protesters stood.  I interpreted this (since I come from that community, I trust my interpretation) as “You’ve driven half an hour or an hour to be a pain, now just turn around and drive back, please.” They waved Israeli flags and Australian flags. They sang Hatikvah (mostly off-key) and several of them used the great Australian salute to the group of protesters.

No-one was hurt. Everyone got their point across, including the police. The worst loss was to the dignity of those who were scared of the young woman who led the “Go home” shout.

I wish more protests were like this.