I am gobsmacked by the utter stupidity of the wave of anti-semitism that is sweeping the world in response to Israel’s military campaigns in the Middle East. Targeting Jews who live in other parts of the world is not only morally repugnant, it is completely senseless. Do you think that expat Jews living in Australia or the United States have any influence over the actions of the Israeli government? Of course not.
Furthermore, just as the Jews living in Israel are divided over whether they support Israel’s ongoing military actions, so too are expat Jews living in other parts of the world.
For instance, the Melbourne synagogue that was recently firebombed is the worship centre for a community of Australian Jews who are almost certainly divided over this issue. It could even be that the majority of families in that community of faith are uncomfortable with or even opposed to Israel’s ongoing military aggression. Many of them would be people who have chosen to leave their homeland to escape religious and sectarian violence and live in a land of peace. Many others in that community would be people who have been born in Australia and are Australian citizens whose allegiance is more closely tied to the country of their birth than to the country of their parents’ or grandparents’ origin.
Firebombing the worship place of this innocent, peace loving expat community is utterly moronic. The only thing it achieves is to reveal the complete lack of intelligence of those perpetrating the violence.
Whatever your viewpoint regarding Israel’s military actions, attacking innocent Jews in your own country makes the perpetrators guilty of exactly the same violence that they are apparently protesting about.
The only effective thing anti-semitism achieves is revealing how few brain cells the perpetrators have. Einstein once said, “𝙊𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄’𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙧.”