A Festival Desecrated

This is the first day of Chanukah – the Jewish Festival of Light. It has been desecrated by the forces of darkness, with the murderous “Islamist” attack on Australian Jews celebrating it.

The word “Islamist” is in quotation marks because Islam, by its nature and very name, is a religion of peace.

So the last thing that should happen now is Islamophobia. Indeed, it was a Muslim who heroically, and at considerable personal risk, disarmed one of the gunmen. And for the current dreadful Israeli Government to link this dreadful event to Australian recognition of a Palestine State is an outrageous politicisation of a tragedy.

The debate in much of the Western world is dispiriting and simplistic. If you speak out against the actions of the current Israeli government, you get called a 'self-hating Jew' or worse (as I have been) or tarnished as an anti-Semite. And if you try to defend Israel's right to exist and to defend itself, you get called a baby-killer or other insults which are resonant of centuries of antisemitic abuse.

All people of faith need now to join hands to assert our shared ethical values. It is another welcome light in the darkness that so many people, of all faiths and none, have reached out to the Jewish community to express their horror and distress. We are truly grateful to all of them.

PHILIP GOLDENBERG

Member of the Jewish Faith