A Normal Week
Here are all the things I would love to explore in the detail they deserve, but can't.
Half-written reports and reflections. All of the below takes place outside my 40 work hours, so excuse the brevity.
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Sunday 31/8/25
Right-wing host Freya Leach tears anti-Zionist activist Sarah Schwartz a new one on Sky News. I’d like to write a piece about the dubious position Sky’s advocacy for Jewish Australians puts classically left-wing Jews in. Polling data might help, but it’s hard to quantify an ideological shift for proper analysis. Anecdotally, it seems irrefutable.
I appeared as a guest political commentator on Sky a couple of weeks ago, and found it a very grounding experience. Disagreements were voiced with candour, respect mutual, and common ground easily established. I look forward to my next appearance and am grateful to be able to hold conversations across the political divide. Something unachievable without mutual respect.
Murdoch’s visit to Central Synagogue and Rabbi Wolff’s quotes—which I have, of course, meticulously filed away from earlier in the year—would be interesting to reflect on.
Do the antisemites take Jews more or less seriously for being defended on Sky? Are they defending us, or just using us against “the Muslims”? Am I too cynical? Can it be both, or neither? If only there was any interest in further exploration… (show your interest here).
Tuesday 2/9/25
Disinformation and misinformation circling last week goes published by major Australian outlets.1 The seven-page document I’ve compiled picking apart this disinformation will go mostly unread and unseen.
The misinformation will provide yet another layer with which people can continue painting the Jewish State as exceptionally malevolent.
My work circulates among some close friends: academics, analysts, etc. We despair at our own impotence, failed by our institutions and media outlets, as more analysis goes unpublished. We grieve the skerricks of power we once had—the power to be listened to, and engaged with as people whose opinions were worth hearing—that has been stolen from us by antisemitism.
Later, I host the weekly 12-Step recovery meeting in a community hall nearby. For a couple of hours a week, I don’t touch politics or culture.
Wednesday 3/9/25
I’ve given up on getting my piece on the West’s failure to learn from extremism placed in an outlet, and opted for self-publishing it instead.
The antisemitism conference on the Gold Coast is underway. I offered to fly up and report on it for a couple of outlets, but there wasn’t much interest.
Thursday 4/9/25
Attended a private ******** function at a $** million mansion in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Jeffrey Smart, and many others are present on the walls. The hosts are incredible people, and the evening’s speaker unfortunately makes too much sense to ever be heard by the broader population.
Good chat with ******’s Democrat staffer ****. Interesting insights from a young Jewish southern-state Democrat.
Friday 5/9/25
Shabbat dinner at Newtown shul. Peta Jones Pellach of Women Wage Peace speaks at dinner. There must be at least 50 of us eating.
A handful of accomplished activists and academics discuss peace, and the parsha on Amalek is inverted. Some Gematria. The numerical value of Hebrew letters in Amalek (עמלק) is 240, the same as the word for “doubt” (ספק). What are we really fighting? Too many assume that being on the same side is the same as fighting for (or against) the same thing. Too many stuck in ‘side’ mindset. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Being above sides is the only path out.
“You don’t make peace with your friends; you make peace with your enemies.”
Saturday 6/9/25
Back at the shul. I listen to a debate between orthodox and reform Jews.
Met Michael, grandson of ‘father of NAIDOC’ William Cooper—the Indigenous activist who rallied against the persecution of Jews in Germany in the wake of Kristallnacht. Chatted with Michael for hours. He’s a Christian, and he shared his testimony with me.
Long talk and walk with Abe Shwarz, an activist for Indigenous peoples, through Glebe and Newtown. Abe went to Rabbi Mordechai’s for an interfaith dialogue, and I went home to my family (a cat, a dog, and my partner).
Meanwhile, a person who calls herself DJ Big Rig has been posting antisemitic garbage about the antisemitism conference. They unfortunately do not understand that antisemitism is not simply anti-Jewish racism—it is a conspiracy theory.
Case in point: a conversation about antisemitism is, in and of itself, impossible to hold without being deemed illegitimate or malevolent, because of course any action to discuss antisemitism is assumed to be part of some international ploy to steal and murder.
I politely offer to put her in touch with some friends involved in the conference—councillors, staffers, non-Jews. Then I remember this is someone who, in the immediate aftermath of October 7, joined the screeching mob on the streets with pictures of her own grandfather: a socialist Zionist who became disillusioned with Israel when it failed to live up to the Soviets’ hopes for a communist enterprise in the Middle East.
Watch Abe Shwarz’s documentary about William Cooper here.
Sunday 7/9/25
Went to The Jewish Independent’s HQ in Glebe to listen to peace-inspiring dialogue between Peta Jones Pellach (Women Wage Peace) and Riman Barakat (Feelbeit). Unfortunately my partner (Peta’s niece) and I are the youngest in the room by decades—save for one other young woman. Where are the people who need to hear this? Why is it that everyone I’ve mentioned this event to has no idea it’s happening? This is the most important conversation going on in the country today. Meanwhile, people are running around on the beach with flags being fools.
They discuss, among many things, that it is a shared future and not a “shared narrative” that lays the foundation for their peace movement—which is once again gaining momentum.
I have a long conversation with a friend, artist, and academic at USYD ***** *****. Together we mourn the thousand opportunities squandered by those with the means to make a difference.
Meanwhile, Lee Kofman is once again being tormented online by bullies. Bullies with institutional backing. Writers Against Genocide? I’ll believe it when I see it.
On the conversations and experiences I’ve omitted: it’s been a long week. Special mention goes to Melinda Jones for helping me to understand something I’ve been trying desperately to avoid, and to Rabbi Feldman at Newtown shul for living up to his reputation and handling a diverse crowd with grace and decorum.
Sources of hope, information, activism, or space from the week:
Women Wage Peace
Feelbeit
Newtown Shul
Ruptured
The ABC (2025-08-27)
Foreign Policy (2025-04-01)
Al Jazeera (2025-04-02)
Middle East Monitor (2025-04-02)
A France 24 English (2025-04-16)
Amnesty International (2025-08-11)
John Simpson (BBC World Affairs’ News Editor) (2025-08-12)
Please explore the Sky Murdoch phenomenon!
“A shared future rather than a shared narrative”. That’s everything. There’s a universe in that sentence 💕