Sydney Jewish Museum
31 July 2024
Thank you to the Sydney Jewish Museum for inviting me to speak this evening.
I first acknowledge there are Holocaust survivors here tonight and I thank you for your strength and courage and for your role as a living witness.
I acknowledge Emmanuel Santos whose exhibition we launch.
and thank the Museum’s President Greg Shand and CEO Kevin Sumption.
I also acknowledge Ms Ilana Lenk from the Israeli Embassy and the Member for Wentworth, Allegra Spender.
This exhibition is one of pain and sorrow.
It is one that tells a tale of the very worst of humanity. It is one that tells a dark chapter in the Jewish story. It is one that many here this evening feel deeply and personally. It is vital that this story be told.
Almost 300 days ago, some 14,000 kilometres away, in a place that unites us through common heritage, common values and a spirit for life; men, women and children awoke to an ordinary day.
It was the weekend of Simcha Torah a festival which means the joy of the Torah where we dance with the Torah in the Synagogue as if it was a bride. It is a time where we celebrate our freedom of worship, our freedom to be Jews.
For many of those in Southern Israel, the start of their weekend was met with excitement and anticipation as friends gathered to celebrate life and enjoy a music festival. The anticipation for their weekend was not unlike that which many young people here in Sydney feel. They were in the prime of their lives. They dreamt of their futures. They were, in that spirit, every young person.
As this important exhibition reminds us, that day would end with the worst loss of life suffered on any single day by the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
There are some particularly arresting images.
In one image, food is half consumed on the kitchen table, pots and pans on top of the stove, meals in the fridge, all burnt into a charcoaled state.
In another image a solitary child’s toy – a monkey – hangs from a shelf of charred remains. The caption reads “I can still hear the screams, the voices and the cries of the children before they were put to death.”
Another image is more hopeful. As the caption reads:
“At Kibbutz Karmiya, volunteers from many parts of the world replaced permanent foreign workers who left after the 7/10 onslaught, assisting with the harvests, sorting produce and packaging for distribution.”
These images taken by Emanuel Santos capture both the pain and the resilience of the Jewish people. These images remind us of the past and guide us into the future.
Following the liberation of Nazi extermination camps across Europe at the end of World War Two, the Supreme Allied Commander, and later President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower invited members of Congress and the media to witness first hand the horror within the camp walls. Thinking of years to come, Eisenhower rightly predicted that there would be those who would deny the Holocaust. That there would be people in positions of power who would seek to deny truth and justice to the millions of victims.
The work of this exhibition does the same as Eisenhower did almost 80 years ago – it bears witness to the horrors of October 7 so that they never be forgotten.
A future Coalition Government under Peter Dutton has committed $8.5 Million to Australia’s holocaust museums for exhibitions like this one to commemorate the events of 7 October and remind Australians of the dangers of modern antisemitism.
The response
In the moments after the atrocities of October 7, and in the immediate aftermath, the world’s eyes turned to Israel.
In Australia and other Western countries, many saw parallels to our own lives – such an horrendous event could so easily have happened to us.
Young people preparing for a weekend of music and dancing.
Families getting up getting ready for their day.
However, that horror so many felt, the empathy, the sadness at the horrific news of the rapes, the sadistic murders, the elderly and babies being slaughtered in kibbutzim was fleeting.
Jew-haters across the world wasted no time by calling into question the truth of what happened. They questioned the rapes, the murders, the torture and the taking of hostages of which more than one hundred remain in tunnels under Gaza to this day.
Antisemites pounced and began to operate sophisticated campaigns online and in the media.
Rampant antisemitism ripped through our society. Behind the cloak of legitimate political discourse, elected officials began using events that followed October 7 to justify their Jew hatred, their anti-Israel views and shift the blame for the massacre from the perpetrators to the victims.
The Prime Minister sensed our community’s sadness, anger and fear just days after the October 7 attacks when he spoke to the Jewish community from St Kilda and said;
“You are not alone.
All Australians embrace you in this time of trauma.
We cannot lighten the weight that is upon you, but we hold you in our hearts.
We grieve with you.
We will stand with Israel.
We always will.”
But where is that support and solidarity now?
Our community rightly needs action that matches those words so that we do not live in fear of our today or of what unchecked antisemitism brings.
That action needs to be seen at home and abroad.
What could be more important that demonstrating our shared values and support for a close friend in their time of need?
It is a failure of leadership that the Prime Minister has not visited Israel at all despite so many other world leaders doing so, including our closest allies.
It was a failure leadership for Australia’s Foreign Minister to refuse to travel to Southern Israel to witness the scene of the horrors of October 7.
Right now, the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton is in Israel meeting with political and community leaders the families of hostages and the survivors of terrorism.
He is hearing directly from those who have lost loved ones in the most horrific circumstances.
And Peter Dutton is not alone in demonstrating his commitment to Jewish people at home and abroad. Many of my Parliamentary colleagues have too visited Israel in recent times.
Following his visit to the South of Israel in December last year the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham, said
“Israel needs to hear not just words of support, but to see that fellow liberal democracies like Australia demonstrate support for its existence, security and rights. This is why our Prime Minister, or at least a senior government minister, should have visited weeks ago, just as leaders of our allies and partners have done. The Albanese Labor Government has let Australia go missing when we should have been counted”.
Senator Birmingham was right then and remains right today.
Political leaders must step up. They must speak up. They must confront this oldest form of hatred.
The Jew hatred that has shaped debates at the recent New South Wales, Victorian and ACT Labor Party conferences – where Jewish members of the Labor Party like John Curtin Executive Director Nick Dryhenfurth – were called dogs must not be allowed to continue.
The Government must not sell out international relations with like minded democracies or further marginalise the Jewish community here in Australia.
Reflection
I was asked to reflect the impact of October 7 on Sydney’s Jewish Community in speaking to you this evening. I do so as a Jew and as someone who has had countless conversations with Jewish Australians across our city and beyond.
I do so having witnessed Australia’s response with a feeling that the words ‘Never again’ have quietly slipped quietly away from the consciousness of many leaders in this city and across our country.
Put simply Jewish Australians feel abandoned. I feel abandoned. We have been abandoned by those who are duty bound to protect our community and foster Australia’s social cohesion.
I feel abandoned by institutions like Australia’s so called Human Rights Commission.
We feel abandoned by university leaders and other leaders who refuse to condemn antisemitism in all its forms and take action to stamp it out.
And we feel abandoned by political leaders who have been silent when they needed to speak out. Those who instead of standing with the Jewish community are protecting their own narrow political interests.
I despair that the Prime Minister and his Government members have time and again refused to heed my calls for an inquiry into antisemitism in Australian universities.
I despair at a government which has sat in Parliament and listened to me explain the seriousness of the scourge of antisemitism which is tearing our society apart and turned their backs.
This exhibition serves to challenge and change that.
Closing
This exhibition is a shocking, yet necessary reminder of the atrocities carried out against innocent people.
It is a reminder of the Jewish story told over generations. It is also a reminder of the sacrifice, resilience and resolve of so many.
It is the memory of victims and the honour of survivors that I seek to uphold in my fight against antisemitism in Australia.
I ask that you encourage your friends, families, neighbours and colleagues to visit this exhibition.
I ask that you speak to your local community leaders and elected representatives and encourage them to take a quiet moment of reflection here because this exhibition delivers a powerful message.
It serves to change views and to re-instil empathy and humanity.
This exhibition says to Sydney’s Jewish community, and to those abroad that we acknowledge the horrors of 7 October and that we will Never forget.
It says we stand with you.
I will stand with you today and on every day that follows.
Thank you.
