‘If I have to pick a hill to die on, exposing antisemitism among ‘the good’ is the one’

Deborah Conway says she became “a poster girl” for the 600 Jewish artists who were doxed last February, with the Prime Minister repeatedly citing her as an example of those whose personal details were splashed on social media. 

“That said, I was largely unaffected by the doxing as I was already out there as a Jewish artist,” she tells The Jewish Independent. “I was interviewed on ABC two months earlier by Patricia Karvelas to discuss the equivalence, or not, between my husband and I wearing blue and white, a Magen David and a kippa when we performed at a Mushroom Records concert and the three actors who wore keffiyehs at a Sydney Theatre Company play. 

“I thought the issue was interesting and could provoke robust discussion, but my interlocutor was more interested in talking about Gaza. It was a combative conversation and in the cut-and-thrust I said something that has been taken out of context and has put a target on my back. By the time the doxing happened, I was already demonised. I went from being deified to vilified. It was Ground Zero for my fall from grace.

“Being accused of supporting genocide, of feeling glee at the suffering of children, is devastating. But as the movement collected more scalps, I realised it was a tactic - Jew equals child-murderer - straight out of the ancient blood-libel playbook.” 

Conway believes the “antisemitism meltdown” in this country contradicts the claim that Australia is a multicultural success. “That said, I suspect it’s less widespread than many think. I regard the ugly protests, the worst excesses, as coming from a small minority. I believe the large majority has become disgusted and is wondering what’s happened to the tolerant fair-go country they knew.

“If the majority decides they’ve had enough and is significantly revolted to do something about it, we have hope. If they look the other way, we have a problem. The authorities have been remiss in their tolerance. I’ve had many conversations with people who are very despondent.

“That said, the Queensland election is indicative that the general populace finds the antisemitism platforms of the far Left and the Greens repugnant. If you vote Green, you’re not voting for the environment, you’re voting for antisemitism. They’ve made that clear.

“There’s no attempt to sugarcoat it any longer. The Jewish creatives who were doxed largely identify as progressives and as a consequence have experienced not only the ugliness of antisemitism, but the sharp pain of betrayal from groups and individuals once considered allies.” 

Many festivals and artists now avoid her, Conway says. “Metaphorically, people cross to the other side of the street, literally they walk back invitations. They don’t want to be targeted. Some employ security to protect me while others hurl accusations of genocide. The Byron Bay Writers Festival, which prides itself on its diverse program, decided I was too diverse for their sensitive souls. 

“A protest in Hobart that interrupted our show four times to hurl invective at me challenged the most basic trust that performers rely on. You’re up there with lights in your eyes, looking into a dark auditorium. You have no idea what’s behind those lights, you hope they’re picking up on what you’re putting out there and that the most negative thing they might do is look at their watches. The Hobart protesters ripped through that sacred trust with smug self-righteousness.”

Conway grew up “in the bosom of my Melbourne Jewish family”, the name evolving from Podnovsky to Podnow to Cohen to Conway, all in the interest of averting antisemitism. Her Jewish education was “patchy - kindergarten, Sunday school, summer camp, Shabbat dinner with my grandma”. She began to “hanker after” her Jewish identity in her twenties.

“I felt a deep lack in my life. I needed to reconnect with who I was. It was always there. I knew I’d come back to it. I met Willy Zygier, a Jewish guitarist, and the spark has fuelled 33 years of collaboration on everything there is to collaborate on - three daughters, ten albums, two Jewish music festivals. I’ve sought inspiration from the Haggadah.

“The songs my first band played were inspired by 1980s politics. I’d encountered socialists as a teenager on kibbutz (she visited one while on holiday with her parents), but 1986 was the beginning of the end of my unquestioning. We thought of ourselves as anti-capitalist with a worldview in which the far right produced egregious evil. Why didn't we interrogate the far Left's responsibility for unimaginable horrors? It took me too long to work out that the apparent polar opposites are close cousins.”

Addressing the Sydney Institute recently, Conway noted wryly that “humans need challenges, and Jews have been fortunate in that regard – conquests, expulsions, slavery, persecution, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, Hamas. In every generation they rise to annihilate us. There is an argument that this animus prevents us fragmenting.”

When she was a student at a Church of England school, her parents would ask if she experienced antisemitism. “I thought they were paranoid. Antisemitism is something from history, I thought. I saw antisemitism on the rise after 9/11, and since then it has become more explicit. What is so distressing is that no-one seems able to answer why we are so hated.

“We saw the extent of the festering condition of Jew-hate on and immediately after October 7. On October 9 we saw men screaming “f… the Jews”. The protests were not an outlier. There are too few consequences for vandalising offices, intimidation, hate preached from pulpits, incitement against academics, the doxing. The UN, EU, universities, led the way. Journalism, unions, the medical establishment, the law, the arts, feminists, the literary world, all climbed aboard the antisemitic train.

“I’ve never felt I could do anything other than stand my ground. Self-defence against insanity. There are friends I haven’t spoken to. I'm sure they know we're not bloodthirsty lunatics; you’d think that would have come out.

“I'm not sure how much of a warrior I can be at 65, but if I have to pick a hill to die on, exposing the antisemitism among the ‘good’, the ‘kind’, the ‘righteous’, the ‘educated’ - people I never imagined would fall for it - is the one. Antisemitism is a war that has to be fought.” 

Conway was named among the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence and a Living Legend by Rolling Stone Magazine; nominated as Australian of The Year; awarded an Order of Australia; inducted into Music Victoria’s Hall of Fame; and received a Best Female ARIA award. She instigated the Shir Madness Melbourne Jewish Festival and recently published her autobiography, Book of Life, which has been shortlisted for a Nib Award.