Published: 20 March 2025
Last updated: 20 March 2025
“How are you?!” A friend I haven’t seen for some months asks me. Her face is one of joyful expectation to hear some piquant developments in my life. Or just inane news befitting a party conversation.
“Not good,” I say, even though you’re not supposed to say such things to the tune of Beyonce, among overflowing drinks. But sometime after October 7, I resolved to becoming a walking advertisement for my people’s troubles, to make our haunted situation in Australia known wherever possible. “You know, it’s not a great time for Jews.”
My friend looks genuinely surprised: “Aren’t things getting better?” She’s a bright woman, I should say. Numerous degrees, a high-powered job. And a caring person. She’s had some tough stuff happen to her, so she's no stranger to adversity. I adore her.
But.
How did our worlds drift this far apart?
I love parties. Years ago, I even organised them for a living in Tel Aviv’s wild nightlife. I love looking at everyone’s fancy clothes and showing off my own. I love seeing my friends loosen up in the darkness, strangers become less strange. I love the undercurrent of flirtation running through even the most mundane exchanges. Parties make me feel young again, irresponsible, sexy.
Comments10
Simon Tedeschi24 March at 10:21 pm
Bravo, my friend
Rob Acquroff24 March at 06:31 am
My heart weeps for all my wonderful Jewish friends and like you I’ve lost friends because of their incredibly irrational newfound (read fashionable) hatred of Jews and Israeli even though Israel is the most tolerant and multicultural society in a region otherwise totally lacking in similar humanity.
I speak out at every opportunity to defend the right of Israel to defend itself from the terror and tyranny that’s been underlying it seems for ever but now has been emboldened by the sheer weight of cowardice. I have many people who avoid me because of my views because I can argue them into dust with facts and history but I will forever stand with Israel, the Jews are my friends and my colleagues and my inspiration and I no longer want or need friends who don’t sympathise with the plight of Jews given the unrivalled and unprecedented gifts the Jews have bestowed upon humanity.
I spent 4 months on Kibbutz Dan with views of the Golan Heights in 1973 just prior to the October war and my heart bled then and the tragedy is that it still does.
Shalom and I don’t care if you print this or my identity because i am a proud Jew maybe in another life.
And may god or whoever someday see his or her way clear to let the 6 million Jews in this world live in peace I would be eternally grateful. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
Michel Lewin24 March at 03:19 am
Thank you, Lee, for putting into words what so many of us have been feeling…
Bruce Hartnett22 March at 05:25 am
An excellent reflection Lee. I am not Jewish though my wife and daughter are. I have had the same experience with non-Jewish friends and I recently sent a group of 6 that I have lunched with for over 20 years – calling them out for their silence, for downplaying the clear evidence of mounting anti-Semitism in Australia, for failing to respond when our daughter had to move from Darebin to escape the daily encounters with anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas graffiti and the Council flying the Palestinian flag in the place of the Indigenous flag, for their moral equivalence views of Hamas & Israel – my wife encourages me to continue with the lunches with this group but – having posted my challenge to them on WhatsApp- I want to withdraw as I don’t want to continue the argument and fuck up a lunch and likely end the friendships but now being silent I feel complicit.