Every decision is run through a filter of constant vigilance

How hasn’t October 7th, 2023 changed my life?

There are some moments in life that split our world into before and after. For me and so many in our community, October 7 was one of these world-splitting events.

Now I live in the after. Where there is no part of my life that hasn’t been shaped by the attempted genocide of Jews on that day, the war that has followed and the onslaught of global antisemitism that has enveloped us all in its wake.

Now I live in the after. Where on October 8th I turned to my husband in tears saying “I can’t believe it took 200 Jews being murdered for the media to not be against us.” Only to realise by October 9th that it was far far more precious souls than 200, that it was worse than anything in 75 years and that the media gave us less than 48 hours to grieve, not even enough time to identify the bodies before turning on Israel and spewing rhetorics of “context” and “occupation” and “but Islamaphobia” and every other buzzword they had been trained to muster in order to smear Jews at every viable or inviable opportunity.

Now I live in the after. Where I will talk about Israel and Judaism to every person who will listen if there is even the slightest micro possibility of them having enough of an open mind to consider that Zionism is not racism, that Israel is not the source of all that is wrong in the world and that Jews having a homeland after thousands of years of persecution is not actually such a bad thing.

Now I live in the after. Where since taking a stand against Hamas terrorists and for that ‘crime’ being doxed by local terrorist supporters I can no longer post happy snaps or really anything personal on my instgram or social media.

Now I live in the after. Where every day I open my phone to a barrage of antisemitism, lazily disguised as antizionism. I have experienced death threats on my public Instagram profile  – and professionally when monitoring the social media accounts for a Jewish organisation, I have seen far far worse than I even imagined.

Now I live in the after. Where my entire professional career has shifted from creating for any brand or business to writing exclusively for Jewish or Israeli brands or charities. This is both by choice – I  have actually never felt more filled by purpose in my entire career – and by force -after having been excommunicated by my professional network of advertising professionals since speaking up for Israel and against antisemitism.

Now I live in the after. Where every parenting decision needs to be run through the metric of “will my kids’ experience antisemitism there.” The familiar debate over high school choices has been shifted by my fear that “if we send them to a public high school will they experience antisemitism there?” being met by my husband’s pragmatic assertion of “if you shield them from antisemitism in high school then they will get even more of a shock when they inevitably experience it in university.” Now if that doesn’t send a chill down your spine then you can probably stop reading here.

Now I live in the after. Where I wear a Magen David every day and in doing so I rule out the possibility of safely going into my beloved Melbourne City on the weekend and certainly not into terrorist supporter strongholds like Collingwood or Northcote on any day of the week.

Now I live in the after. Where in every interaction I am my people-pleaser best but am also constantly vigilant. Keenly aware of if my words or actions are having a negative association on that same Magen David or if the people I am interacting with are treating me differently after clocking my jew-ellery.

Now I live in the after. Where every friendship and relationship is different to how it was before. There are people I considered friends who have ‘unfriended’ the only Jew they knew because I wasn’t the ‘good Jew’ they could quote when pulling out the ol’ “some of my friends are Jewish but…”  Yet some precious friends have stood by me in ways that make them more valuable to me than people I have known for a lifetime. Where I have actually received messages from these friends, now family, saying things like “you are safe with me.”

Now I live in the after. Where every decision is run through a filter of constant vigilance. Where I never again want to make the mistake of buying from brands that I thought were supporting local mums but actually are just our local antisemites. Where I won’t follow a social media account or buy a book, or watch a tv show unless I have done a deep dive into whether that person is harbouring a deep desire to see more dead Jews. Where apathetic, or silent on the subject of dead Jews is sometimes the best I can hope for.

Now I live in the after. Where nothing is the same. Nothing, for me, is unaltered by October 7th and nothing will ever go back to being the same again. And honestly in some ways, nor would I want it to. Sure I would love to be able to stop being vigilant, to relax my guard, to not have to dedicate every second thought to our people trapped underground by terrorists in Gaza, Oh and to talk about literally anything else. But I also would never want to go back to a time before October 7 where I was asleep at the wheel in my Judaism. Where I wasn’t as enmeshed in this beautiful, complicated, loving community as I am now. Where I didn’t know that the people I surround myself with are truly ride or die. Where I know for a fact that I am Am Yisrael and there is no other people I would ever choose to be.