Now is the time to act as our foremothers did

March is Women's History Month, a time to pay respects, to celebrate, and to learn from the Jewish women in our lives.

One way we can do this is to look back at the brave and intelligent women in our Jewish history, and the important lessons they offer us for our current times.

The recent Torah portion, the episode of the Golden Calf, offers one of those lessons. In the passage, the Jews are waiting for Moses to return from the top of Mount Sinai. They have made camp at the base of the mountain, and they wait and wait, but in their loneliness and in their fear, they begin to act with mob mentality.

They ask Aaron to make them a new god, any god that will stand before them. Some of the men remove their jewellery, take their children's gold and use it to make a golden calf to pray to. The women, however, do not. They are not complicit in praying to false idols, they do not lose faith in the foundations of their society – even when those foundations are questioned, when the masses scream that there are cracks appearing.

We can learn something from the earliest of our Jewish ancestors, these courageous women who stood up to public pressure.

All over the world, in the US, Europe, Australia, and Israel, we are seeing the rise of populist leaders. Men who proclaim to be the “one” who can fix it all. Idols, who are attempting to raise themselves above the rule of law, who are questioning the foundations of our democracies.

In the US, Donald Trump has been re-elected after spreading doubt regarding the validity of elections. There have been insurrections in the US and in Brazil over the past four years. In the latest elections in France and Germany, the far-right have made a resurgence and won a record number of seats. In Australia, similar rhetoric has created rising tension and hostility surrounding protests and national holidays.

These parties, and the leaders that stand as their spokesmen, call into question the ideals of democracy, questioning people's belief in the benefits of diversity, acceptance and the strength that comes from a shared humanity.

Now is the time that we must act as our foremothers did. We must hold on to our faith, believe in democracy and move forward together.

We can’t let strongman politicians push us down the wrong path. Trump might have three years to go but that doesn’t mean that we can roll over and follow him on our knees. Netanyahu has been in power for decades, and the protests in Israel are the right way to say it is time for a change.

The current trend of high-profile celebrities and politicians mimicking Nazi salutes and using historic antisemitic slurs – Elon Musk, Kanye (Ye) West and Jacob Hersant to name just a few – should be enough of a sign that these men are not to be shrugged off, that the danger they present should be taken seriously.

The misinformation and isolationist rhetoric of leaders like Marie Le Pen and Alice Weidel needs to be countered. The false facts that they spread are akin to the fears of the Jews that said Moses was not coming down from Mount Sinai in the episode of the Golden Calf, that he had left them stranded in the desert.

We are strongest when we work together, and we must choose to not allow these messages to cloud our judgement. By no means can we give our support, our gold, to the false idols of the far-right.

This March is a reminder of the courage that the women had waiting at Mount Sinai and the courage that we must have all over the world today.