What will I tell my daughter?

I recently attended a beautiful and touching memorial between the Australian Jewish, Hindu and Iranian community. While there, I noticed a girl draped in an Israeli flag to my right. She could not have been older than my seven-year-old daughter. I burst into tears, unable to hold in the emotions culminating from almost two years of sadness and fear. 

I thought about my naive and proud Jewish princess. She thinks being Jewish is remarkable. She's never heard, let alone understood, the term antisemitism. But soon she will. And then what am I to tell her? 

Until October 7, I thought Jews in Israel and the IDF were untouchable. That worries about antisemitism were, crude as it may sound, the paranoid obsessions of Holocaust survivors. That Judaism and Zionism could be separated. That most critics of Israel weren't antisemitic. But now I’m not so sure. 

My daughter attends JLearn, an incredible before-school Jewish studies class. Each Monday, as we're rushing to school post class, she beams with pride as she tells me of her latest discoveries about her Australian Jewish identity. Just last week, she excitedly shared her learnings about Esther Abrahams, a Jewish woman who came to Australia on the First Fleet. 

Last term, my daughter’s public primary school celebrated Harmony Day. The students were encouraged to come in their cultural dress. My daughter couldn't wait to draw a magen david on each of her rosy cheeks. Then she asked if she could drape herself in the Israeli flag.