We need to choose our friends more wisely

As a young Jew with a kippah on my head and a magen david around my neck, I have become an all-too-visible target for antisemites. Long before this war began, I have had coins hurled at me from car windows and Jewish slurs spat at me on my way home from work. Only last month a stranger stopped me to ask whether I had a visa to be in his country and a few weeks earlier, someone else pointed at my kippah and laughed. Both before and after October 7, people have constantly shouted “Free Palestine” in my face - always before they bother to ask about my political beliefs.

Despite having actually faced less harassment over the last 11 months than before, I feel more unsafe than ever: I choose to sit at the back of the bus so fewer people see my kippah; I tell stories about my gap year while carefully avoiding to mention where I spent it; and I deliberately avoid the main entrance of my university library to steer clear of being personally targeted with anti-Israel rhetoric.

My experience as a young Jew has become constrained by the shackles of identity politics that force me to constantly censor myself and conceal my identity. Although I may have been subject to less attacks, the language of antisemitism has become normalised around me… and that is terrifying.

Surrounded by blind hate, I keep asking myself how a war on the other side of the world has so profoundly impacted my life in Australia.

Is it because the Left has gaslighted our community by attempting to define Jewish oppression for us? Is it because the Right has exploited our suffering to score political points? Or is it because our own community perpetuates a narrative of victimhood that makes it nearly impossible to escape feelings of isolation? Perhaps, a combination of all three.

It’s become easy to blame the Left. Even if we were to overlook references to the “tentacles” of the “Jewish lobby” or the failure of many to condemn a terrorist organisation that calls for the genocide of Jewish people, it remains inexcusable that challenging the lived experiences of Jews has become normalised in progressive circles.