I am angry that as a Jew I’m expected to answer for Israel

I have spent the past year feeling angry that I am expected to answer for the actions of Israel because of my religion, no other reason.

After years of participating in Jewish holidays and services, learning and soul-searching, I converted to Judaism in 2023. At my Bet Din at a Progressive shul, one of the Rabbis asked me some tough questions about antisemitism. “Why,” he wanted to know, “do you want to join with Jewish people in risking being hated?” It was a good and important question — that I’d been asked before — but one that felt, in the first half of 2023 in Melbourne, to be largely hypothetical, or at least focused on future possibilities rather than current realities. That soon changed.

The horrific pogrom of 7/10 happened as we were celebrating Simchat Torah here in Naarm/Melbourne. At shul we tried to find the will to celebrate whilst feeling sickened and afraid by the reports coming out of Israel. For a year I had anticipated the thrill of being able to hold and dance with the Torah for the first time at Simchat Torah now that my conversion had been finalised — and yet, on that night, I didn’t feel able to. I felt many things, including pride in the steadfast resilience and devotion of the congregation I was with that evening, but there was no joy.

It has been a strange time to become Jewish.

I have seen my child struggle with antisemitic bullying at school for the first time. Friends were doxxed. I have felt estranged from friends in the queer, leftist communities that once felt like home. Not because I disagree that the suffering in Gaza is appalling and indefensible, but because I insist on living in the space of the AND.

The deaths of thousands upon thousands of Palestinians is a human tragedy AND the slaying of people celebrating at a dance festival was an act of horrific violence. Protestors should have the right to free speech AND Jewish students need to feel safe. Taking civilian hostages is an horrific act of terror AND the international community must condemn mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners of war. Women and children are suffering appallingly in refugee camps AND the sexual violence on October 7th was shockingly real and has been deliberately glossed over, even (especially) by prominent feminists. All lost lives can and should be grieved, but we won’t be able to do that if we can’t live with ‘and’.

Too many people I once viewed as thoughtful are in a state of denial that human complexities exist. We will not find solutions to the domestic issue of growing social divisions in Australia if we can’t accept and embrace complexity, and reality. No matter what you want history to have been. It can’t be fought with flags and slogans just because the present is too messy and frightening to truly acknowledge.

Some of the Jewish joy I longed for was stolen on October 7. But in its place I have found the embrace of Jewish community and a strong will to grapple with hard questions and to wrestle, always be willing to wrestle, with ambivalence.