‘If you empathise publicly with Jewish people, you get silence or outright hostility’

A proud Christian activist who has been arrested numerous times for her advocacy for gay and lesbian rights, media personality Julie McCrossin is unequivocal about what she describes as “the three drivers” which impel her to speak out in support of the Jewish people during the current upsurge in antisemitism.

“My lifelong friendship with Sophie Inwald – whose mother survived the Warsaw Ghetto –has influenced me most profoundly,” she tells The Jewish Independent. “I didn’t learn about the Holocaust from a school excursion to a museum or from class lessons, although I did do both.

“My Holocaust education was in a lounge room in Dover Heights. And from meeting Jewish people with numbers on their arms and hearing their stories of survival. And from travelling to Auschwitz with Sophie and her mother Irene, and sharing that remarkable experience with them.

“All this occurred in the context of both my parents serving in Bomber Command in the United Kingdom during World War II, my father as a pilot and my mother working at the same air force base. Sophie, whose grandparents perished, says the Holocaust for her was like water is to a fish; a fish doesn’t know it’s in water. We’re two girls who happened to sit beside each other at SCEGGS Darlinghurst (Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School), and we’ve been talking ever since. Our entire lives.

“So I have a deep understanding of the Holocaust, an emotional family connection,” says McCrossin. “The minute October 7 happened, I thought this is a classic pogrom and the intergenerational trauma will be unbelievable. That was the primary factor for me to speak out – to tell the Jewish community that someone who isn’t Jewish understands.

“I’m ashamed of much of the Western media for abandoning fundamental principles of journalism, so I began sharing quality articles to show that a non-Jew cared and understood. Also, to show non-Jewish people the articles in the hope that they might read them. Although I became increasingly discouraged, I got so much positive feedback.”

The second factor motivating McCrossin is that “I wanted to actively show empathy. I know that it matters. I’ve felt I was lesbian since the age of 13, yet homosexuality was regarded as criminal for the next 20 years.

“I’m definitely not comparing my suffering to that of the Jewish people, but I experienced what it was like to be a member of a minority which was regarded as unacceptable. When people show empathy, it’s a salve to the soul. Many Jewish people thank me for speaking out, which I find deeply moving.

“And the third factor is that peer pressure is as powerful for mature adults as it is for teenagers. If you empathise publicly with Jewish people or express a critique of antisemitism, you primarily get stony silence or outright hostility. I’m trying to show that you can resist peer pressure.”

When McCrossin came out as gay at the age of 18, there was distress in her family. Sophie Inwald’s family provided vital emotional and practical support. Her declared “sacred place” is South Sydney Uniting Church, where her marriage to her lesbian partner was blessed.

She lives in Adelaide yet attends services there weekly on Zoom. Her media career ranges from presenting Life Matters on ABC Radio National to the comedy quiz show Good News Week to appearing as a clown on Play School.

McCrossin is sanguine about the opprobrium she encounters in response to speaking up for the Jewish community and condemning antisemitism. “It doesn’t touch me,” she asserts. “Longstanding friends have publicly abused me on social media. So I was deeply touched when I was invited to chair two public screenings of Sheryl Sandberg’s chilling documentary Screams before Silence about October 7.”

McCrossin is at a loss to understand the silence of many of her peers. “I find the question very hard,” she acknowledges. “There’s a part of me that thinks there’s something unique about antisemitism. It has a virulence and capacity to shape-shift, to change form.

“I believe the Christian Church has a huge responsibility. There is still a common belief that the Jews killed Jesus. We see neighbours turning on you. We don’t have a history of violence in Australia, except towards Indigenous people and the Chinese. But the silence is an issue.”

Responding to repeated assertions by NSW Premier Chris Minns and others that most Australians care and are concerned at what’s happening, McCrossin is adamant: “I’ve learned to never make assumptions. Unless we conduct surveys with large samples, taken regularly, we don’t know what people are thinking.

McCrossin visited Israel with Inwald as a teenager and a further three times to attend an International Conference for Educators at Yad Vashem and as a participant on NSW Jewish Board of Deputies mixed-faith and progressive-organisation missions.

Having recovered from life-threatening cancer which saw her undergo radiation therapy for 33 consecutive days, she currently hosts Wolper Hospital Wellbeing Webinars. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community, particularly through LGBTQI advocacy roles and the broadcast media.  

But she is now wary about the profession she grew up in. “We see bias in some of the mass media, and young people massively sharing problematic material on social media. So we don’t really know. I’m ashamed of many journalists who’ve shown that you don’t have to be objective to be a journalist.”

McCrossin and Sydney Catholic scholar Teresa Pirola “often share ideas and comfort each other that we care and that it’s okay to care”, she says. “I can count on one hand the number of people in my friendship circle who engage with combatting antisemitism.

“I’ve met many Jewish people who are absolutely shocked at what has happened. I fall into the group who aren’t surprised at all. It was ever thus. But I think I’m very non-representative.”