{"id":4750,"date":"2026-07-27T16:49:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T00:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=4750"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:49:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T00:49:02","slug":"jewish-in-australia-a-brief-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2026\/07\/27\/jewish-in-australia-a-brief-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish in Australia – a brief update"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week the Australian Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is a mixed bag, but it\u2019s all very close to home. The Royal Commission is talking about learning and educational resources today, <\/span>for example, <\/span>so I have to watch. I need to know how what I do (or did when I had lots of teaching and do on the rare instance I’m back teaching) fits into good practice. I also need to be critical of what everyone else is doing. Not bad-critical, but aware-critical. Today then, is an in-service for education outside the tertiary sector.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then there are three days of things I know but need to understand better. Learning and education require this, and just because I\u2019ve been excluded from much of the education I used to give, doesn\u2019t absolve me from learning and updating. It\u2019s ironic that I\u2019m updating my understanding of why I\u2019ve been excluded, but that\u2019s only a small slice of a vast pie about education in Australia and how it fits with being Jewish in Australian.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Friday, as I told everyone on Facebook, is my personal hellscape, because it’s about antisemitism in the Arts and Creative sector. It\u2019s not my once-life and hope-to-be life: it\u2019s my current everyday. I say \u201chope-to-be\u201d but the silencing and how Jewish creatives now live in a different world to most others hasn\u2019t yet been tackled and may not be tackled. The focus here is on the hate, not the side effects of hate. The introduction for this week (by counsel assisting) has already noted how many of us are isolated and drifting thanks to the antisemitism, which is a big advance.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Outside the Royal Commission, people are blaming Jews for all kinds of things still. The new thing they (those who hate) have is an assessment of the Royal Commission while not paying any attention to what everyone says in it. The investigation into antisemitism itself becomes an excuse for antisemitism. I read something that suggests that people who do this enjoy hating. I wish they were wrong.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I asked my Facebook followers to consider. \u201cAnyone who has political opinions on these subjects, listen to the evidence at the RC first and maybe think on how things affect me and other Australian Jews in your vicinity. Is your opinion on my page more important than my safety or emotional stability? Your choice, of course, but I’d rather you made it an educated choice.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

None of this was going to be today\u2019s post. I had completely different ideas. But in the background, I\u2019m hearing a rabbi talking about healing the staff at Bankstown Hospital, which is known to be antisemitic. So many people are taking their religion off their hospital record, for their own safety. There was discussion in Sydney about even finding alternates to hospitals because of safety. The State government is now talking about what to do. Healing is going to take a long time. Safety is still an issue. At least, however, more people are now talking about this.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to learn more about our Royal Commission, you can find it here: <\/span><\/span><\/span>Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week the Australian Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is a mixed bag, but it\u2019s all very close to home. The Royal Commission is talking about learning and educational resources today, for example, so I have to watch. I need to know how what I do (or did when I had lots of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,636,56,270,17],"tags":[656,112,580,970,76,39,390],"class_list":["post-4750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-life","category-life-experiences","category-medicine","category-rants","tag-antisemitism","tag-australia","tag-jewish","tag-jews","tag-mental-health","tag-racism","tag-self-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4751,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions\/4751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}