Facing a new year with the knowledge life can be better

The image of a clean slate or a fresh page is one of the most appealing aspects of the Jewish New Year.

In a culture that places so much emphasis on tradition and history, it is an annual reminder to look forward as well as back, to refresh and renew in the knowledge that we are not trapped by what has been. We can be different and we can be better.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah, it is natural to look back and reflect on the year that has passed. It has been an annus horribilis for the Australian Jewish community, arguably the worst we have ever known.

Already at this time last year, we were weary and traumatised by everything that followed from October 7, 2023. We were battered by two years of suffering in Israel and Gaza, including the weeping sore of the hostages still in captivity. We felt misunderstood by the international community and our non-Jewish neighbours. Internally, we were torn by conflict, doubt and recriminations.

But the past year has taken our anguish to a new level. The horror of the Bondi massacre affected us all, in our grief for those directly affected, in the could-have-been-me knowledge that shadowed us all, and in our deep disappointment with an Australia where this could happen.

The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has confronted us week after week with the worst of Australian society: examples of hatefulness, exclusion and prejudice that had a cumulative traumatising effect on all Jewish Australians.