Published: 11 August 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ON NOVEMBER 9-10, Jews around the globe commemorate Kristallnacht, a day in 1938 when around 7,500 Jewish businesses and 191 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of Jews were taken to concentration camps or murdered by the Nazis.
It is said that in the entire world at that time, only one group – the Australian Aborigines’ League led by Aboriginal activist William Cooper – protested that horrendous event by leading a march to Melbourne’s German consulate to object to the treatment of the Jews.
When William Cooper marched on the German embassy in Melbourne, he saw the moral imperative to fight against racism at home and abroad. Eighty years later, Black Lives Matter movements have focused attention on the prejudicial treatment of Indigenous peoples and other people of colour, yet in Australia, Jewish communal organizations and the Jewish press have seemingly not engaged with their struggles.
While the Jewish community is happy to applaud the actions of William Cooper in his fight against antisemitism, this heroic act of the Australian Aborigines’ League in 1938 has not been reciprocated in any significant way.
Whilst there are, and have been, individuals from the Jewish community who have made noteworthy contributions to racial justice in Australia, today we must ask, where are the Jewish-led protests against the current mass incarceration of Aboriginal peoples at disproportionate rates?
Or against the number and nature of Aboriginal deaths in custody? Or opposing the discrimination against indigenous people in health care, child removals and policing?
FULL STORY Australian Aboriginal activists protested against the Nazis; time for us Jews to return the favour (Haaretz)
Photo: A man and woman cross arms in front of an Aboriginal flag as thousands gather at a rally supporting the Black Lives Matter and Black Deaths in Custody movements in Sydney, July 5
