Published: 13 April 2026
Last updated: 17 April 2026
My first trip to Israel was when I was 11 years old, my pre-bat mitzvah gift was a trip to a country that I already loved despite never having visited. More than 20 years later, I can still remember the texture of that visit: my first view of the Western Wall bathed in the soft late-afternoon light, vending machines stocked with kosher food, climbing Masada and thinking about the people who had held out there under Roman siege and eating falafel that tasted fresher than anything I had ever eaten in Melbourne.
I fell in love with that version of Israel. Or more honestly, I fell in love with the way I experienced Israel at that age, uncomplicated, immersive, and entirely certain of its meaning.
I have been back to Israel many times since, usually for something significant, like my sister's wedding or accompanying an Australian parliamentary delegation as a staffer. I am not Israeli; I am an Australian-born Jew with a deep family history here. My family has been in Australia since the 1860s, and my mother's ancestors are buried in the Jewish section of the Ballarat cemetery.
And yet, when I arrive in Israel, there is a relief at not having to explain the basic contours of my Judaism. For once, I am not the "interesting Jew", as I am to so many of my non-Jewish friends and colleagues at home. I love being in a place where my religious practices require no translation, where kosher food can be assumed and where Shabbat is built into the structure of the week.
The Israel I fell in love with and celebrated feels vastly different from the one I am watching today.
For a long time, I have found it easy to sit inside my dual identities. I am Australian, but I have a deep love of Israel. I speak Hebrew, I follow Israeli news, and I understand, at least in part, the national sensitivities that shape Israeli public life. Yet, despite this love, I do not want to move to Israel, and I feel culturally very Australian.
Comments10
Rachel Sussman23 April at 05:33 am
Hi Nomi
I identify with much of what you are trying to express. It is important to understand that loving and supporting a country is not subject to agreeing with everything the government does at a particular time, even though it is much easier when we are aligned with a particular government.
Like you I am worried about Ben Gvir and Smotrich and the violence of some extreme right youth on the West Bank towards the Palestinians. Like every country Israel has its shares of social and political problems, these needs to be addressed, without deserting the country if you know what I mean.
It is also important not succumb to misinformation. I also dislike the death penalty, nevertheless, it does not project discrimination nor apartheid. Palestinians are not Israeli citizens and fall under different juristriction, this must be clearly understood. Discrimination is if Israeli citizens have different sets of laws due to religion or race.
Likewise with Bart’s comment that current behavior is extension of 1947-48 ethnic cleansing, the fact that the Israeli Arabs population grew to more than 2million, answers this ‘misinformation’.
So lets stay diligent, strong, fact full, and unapologetic in our love and support.
Bart18 April at 02:15 am
Hi Nomi, I think your article captures a significant and under-discussed aspect in the debate. Although you don’t name it, I think you capture what most diaspora Zionist Jews understand as their ‘Zionism’: an emotional attachment to Israeli people, places and culture that is both shallow as the contents of a political ideology but also very deep as an identity.
One aspect of that identity is this perception that the current period is an aberration, what you describe as a new extreme “version of Israel” contrasted with a vanilla Israel you were taught about.
While this belief is necessary to maintain an ideology, it is insulated from the facts. Extremist-right governments have been in power for 40 of the last 50 years in Israel, their values are the dominant values of Israeli society, and Revisionist Zionism has long since buried Labor/Liberal Zionism.
Israel’s actions today are just an extreme extension of the war crimes, ethnic cleansing and apartheid structures introduced from 1947-48 and reinforced every decade that followed.
A starting point has to be acknowledging Israel as what Israelis have chosen it to be, not what diaspora jews imagine it once was or dream it to one day be.
Ruth Fleishman17 April at 04:17 am
The nuances of what it is to be Jewish is wide and varied. That Jew-vibe deep inside is kinda hard to shake – even for those of us who did not grow up in Caulfield and get the trip to Israel.
Trying to explain the joys of this complex identity to anyone who is not Jewish is a complicated business at the best of times. Add Israel to the conversation and you are often looking at total discombobulation.
These people you apparently respect but speak about Israel, as a genocidal state, an illegitimate political project, and yet you also call these people informed and thoughtful.
I have news for you: they do not care for your complex relationship with your milk-and-honey-soaked memories of Israel in your youth or your troubled urge to find “middle ground.” This is what antisemitism looks like. What is happening with Israel is simply not your fault. ” Is collective blame not as nuanced as you hoped?
We have all lost safety, friends, colleagues, and safe work environments. That’s what antisemitism looks like. You might have to take a hit for the team, I’m afraid.
Pat17 April at 02:17 am
You express perfectly the ambivalence I feel about a country whose right to a peaceful existence I would defend against all comers. However, the actions of the government and, sadly, too many of its cirizens I cannot begin to defend.
Arlene16 April at 08:30 am
Nomi, your vexed article is unfortunately only too common in a lot of people. So much ambivalence and disbelief in some of the internal structures within Israel. But , I keep asking myself, do we turn our backs on a homeland in trouble with enormous conflicting challenges?
I hope for a change in government in October to afford this beloved country the chance to repair.
Dror Doron16 April at 07:25 am
What you describe is 100% correct and is the reason thousands of liberal Israelis are leaving it in the past years (including myself).
Israel has become a distorted version of the state its founding fathers planned.
Dominated by violent branch of Judeism, corrupted politicians who are willing to do what ever it takes to stay in power, and weak democratic institutions, has turned it into a an unlibral and violant country heading in the way of a failed democracy.
A sad reality which is hard to accept, let alone explaining to others.
judy16 April at 06:42 am
this article raises israel’s recent death penalty law and observes this might be a “move towards a country that has a legal system that distinguishes on race rather than on a shared and consistent legal standard for all people” …
i asked dr google for what that might be called – “legal system that distinguishes on race.” the good dr g responded with this:
“generally referred to as systems of institutionalized racism, segregation, or apartheid”
… systems used to:
“create, maintain, and justify inequalities between different racial groups, often designed to privilege a dominant group while limiting the rights and ownership of others.”
should we not use the proper word: racism? apartheid? or is it – the reflection in the mirror – just too frightening?
especially when the myth of youth (yes; i shared it, too!) is smashed by the reality of today?
peace,
judy
Joseph Silver15 April at 05:52 am
Nomi, your ambivalence about Israel has apparently appealed to Crikey magazine who have published your article expressing your doubts about Israel’s future direction. It says a lot that a left-wing publication, ever critical of whatever Israel does, has embraced your article.
Israel doen’t want to get into perpetual wars with its neighbours, but because of the enmity that it faces it has been forced to adopt measures that no doubt don’t appeal to many irresolute Jews.
Mark Light15 April at 12:00 am
Israel is not a Utopia but a Reaction to the helpless of Jewish People during the Holocaust .
Almost completely unarmed the Jewish in Nazi Occupied Europe had poor chances of survival and their deaths were due to lack of strong armed forces
Israel was created in war and the National Ethos is warrior state surrounded by enemies that are against an Armed Jewish Nation in the Ancient Holy Land .
A Warrior State fighting battles will always be cruel unlike the Ambulance Services and Heath Workers that save lives and attempt to relieve suffering.
In the Bible we learn that King David was refused permission by the Holy One to build the Temple because he was a man of War whereas his son Solomon who would forge Peace by diplomacy would be allowed to build the Temple .
All efforts for the equality in the sharing of the Ancient Holy Land failed and Herzl’s initial hopes that the Arabs living in the area of Ancient Israel would welcome the skills of Jewish People in heath safe water and food and agriculture and industry were almost completely unrealistic .
Israel is Creative but Military.
Lani14 April at 09:30 pm
It is complicated Naomi. I think there is an element of moral failure which is associated with the path Israel has taken, rather than with the idea of a Jewish state itself, unfortunately. Perhaps this is the assumed “moral failure” your colleagues and friends are referring to.
Australian Jewish organisations and known authors have come out criticising the death penalty.
What surprises me though, is that they are surprised.
Israel has been one step away from passing this type of law for a long time.
Unfortunately the problem now goes deeper than Ben Gvir, and stems from an entrenched belief that Palestinians cannot be trusted, negotiated with, that the only option is forever war.
Part of this is an understandable response to living under constant attack, and global anti Israel bias, and antisemitism.
But understandable or not, the response has taken the country in a direction where is was perfectly ready – ripe – for the introduction of this death penalty law.
Can you imagine if this law was passed in the Australian parliament today? No. You likely cannot, because while we do have racism here, we are far from where Israel is today.