A Jewish student picked up her artwork and noticed her teacher wearing a Star of David. As they discussed the current challenges on campus, the student recounted a recent experience.
While walking along the beach, she bent down to pet a dog. As her own Star of David slipped out from under her shirt, the dog’s owner asked if she was Jewish and then proceeded to tell her that he didn’t want any Jews touching his dog. She told him she felt sorry for him and walked away.
This story was not heard in a Shoah Foundation video testimony. This happened on Bondi Beach in Sydney in 2025.
Just one of the many antisemitic stories that have reached the previously sheltered shores of Australia since October 7, 2023, the frightening parallels to the experiences of Jews in 1930s Germany is an unsettling irony for many Australian Jews. It has become increasingly difficult for the community to turn the other cheek away from their historically comfortable and safe lives.
Though I’ve lived in the United States for 35 years, in my heart, Australia remains home. Sydney is where I was born, raised, and educated and where all my extended family still lives. I visit as often as I can.
My connection, though, runs deeper than that felt by many expats. As the child of a Holocaust survivor, my loyalty to Australia is very personal, one that embodies a sense of gratitude born out of my own family’s experience as new immigrants to this young country.
Between 1945 and 1952, nearly 31,000 Holocaust survivors fled to Australia, seeking a new beginning far from the continent drenched in the blood of six million Jews. Dubbed the “edge of the Diaspora,” Australia allowed these survivors to shed hundreds of years of entrenched antisemitism and religious persecution. The small but dynamic communities of Sydney and Melbourne made enormous contributions to society, especially in industry and business, changing the way Australians lived their everyday lives.
For many of these survivors, it was easy to blend into a multicultural and accepting society. Yet the shadows of the past still lurked behind them, so they built synagogues, schools, and hospitals to ensure a secure Jewish future for their children and grandchildren.
As is typical of immigrant children, we were mindful of our parents’ sacrifices and adopted their strong work ethic. Unburdened by quota systems or academic prejudice, we flocked to universities and then to the professions, determined to give back to the wider community through public service and philanthropy.
This post-war legacy, which I have always proudly shared with my American friends, is now under siege. Antisemitic protests erupted at the Sydney Opera House even before Israel’s military response in Gaza began. This was a wake-up call, as soon after hateful graffiti began to appear in public spaces and on the gates of the homes of prominent Jews.
Already tight security was made even tighter due to threats against day schools and Jewish institutions, one of which resulted in a firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue. One of the most recent and shocking incidents involved two Muslim healthcare workers gleefully boasting – on video, faces uncovered – about having executed Jewish patients in their care, causing panic among Jewish patients in hospitals all around Australia.
A growing sense of anxiety
ON BOTH my recent visits to Sydney, I sensed a growing anxiety and palpable fear within the Jewish community particularly for the future of the Australian Jewish community.
Historically, Australian political parties have offered bipartisan support for Israel, but since October 7, this stance has radically shifted. I watch and listen as the Jewish community unites to strategize and identify alliances as a federal election looms.
The question, though, remains: How did a distant conflict in the Middle East ignite such a firestorm of antisemitism in Australia? Like much of the condition of the world we are living in right now, the answer is elusive.
It’s without a doubt that the Jewish community will confront this wave of unrest with the same resolve and sechel (intellect) that has always been the hallmark of the Jewish people. Yet it’s quite possible that life for the Jews in Australia, certainly as I remember it, will never be the same.
I will continue to share my admiration for Australia with my American friends, acknowledging the country that gave my father and thousands of survivors a chance at a new life, but it’s hard to ignore the growing hostility.
My life in America feels relatively secure and “normal,” given the country’s size, diversity, and reputation as the greatest country in the world. The outspoken and fearless American Jew I discovered as a new immigrant 35 years ago is still a marvel to me. Maybe after all these years, this is the country I should really be calling home.
The bigger question, though, remains. Should the concept of a strong Diaspora be reconsidered? Should “next year in Jerusalem” be an imperative and not just a wistful yearning at the end of our Passover Seder?
Whatever the answer, I remain grateful for the gift Australia bestowed upon me and countless second-generation survivors: the freedom to embrace our Jewish identity and to grow up freely and proudly as an Australian Jew.
During the recent Los Angeles fires, I received messages from many people in Israel. Perhaps this message from my cousin, Maya, unlocks the quandary.
“I find it quite remarkable the way we conceive the reality of the world: You see a danger in the State of Israel, and I fear for the Jews outside of it. I still feel very safe and secure in my country... The most important conclusion is that Am Yisrael [the Jewish people] cares for its own and stays united. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la zeh [all of Israel is responsible for one another].”
The writer is the founder of the Winkler Lowy Foundation.