- Like Gawenda, I am the son of Jewish refugees, although I grew up in a totally secular home.
- I think of myself as Jewish, although on the census forms I tick “no religion”.
- I am also friends with several of the people he criticises, particularly Louise Adler and Peter Beinart.
- Gawenda came out of a specifically left Jewish tradition, that of the Bund, which was secular, socialist and, in its origins, opposed to Zionism.
- Most of his examples revolve around left hostility to Israel, which as we have seen recently can too easily turn into crude antisemitism.
- He is particularly critical of former foreign minister Bob Carr, whom he claims exaggerates the power of the Israeli lobby.
- While Carr may be prone to exaggeration, my own experience suggests the most active supporters of Israel in Australia are capable of bullying and intimidation.
- Gawenda claims many on the left lack “a genuine and consequential commitment to Israel’s survival as a Jewish majority state”.
An age of tribalism
- Gawenda taps into the underlying anxiety all Jews feel whenever debate about Israel moves into antisemitism, as happened in very ugly ways in the past few weeks.
- Of course, Israel also has some strong defenders among people who are antisemitic, such as sections of the American Christian right.
- There is hard evidence antisemitism is growing in Australia and I wish Gawenda had spent more time analysing it, rather than relying on overseas examples.
- Currently, our universities are arguing about which definition of antisemitism to adopt, rather than thinking through how best to tackle the root causes of antisemitism and racism.
- My Life as a Jew is so focused on opposition to Israel it passes over the more pervasive low-level antisemitism we encounter all too often.
- As Freud observed: “Only in logic are contradictions unable to coexist; in feelings they quite happily continue alongside each other”.
Dennis Altman received a small ARC grant forty years ago to research the deabtes about Israel within the Australian student movement
And I have acknowledged my connections to several people criticised by Gawenda, which should also have included Bob Carr