Anti-Semitism is a sickness that spreads across the world… even to distant Australia

O

ne Succos, I was on bed rest in a sterile white-and-gray room at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, lonely and bored and missing my family. There’s something about the quiet of a hospital on Shabbos and Yom Tov that creates a bond between patients and staff, and many a nurse who came to attach me to a monitor or check my temperature, hearing my accented Hebrew, would ask, “So where are you from?”

“Australia,” I’d answer.

And each nurse would raise her eyebrows as if to say, why would you leave paradise for a war zone?

That’s how so much of the world views Australia: as an exotic island at the end of the earth, full of white sandy beaches to surf at, koalas to cuddle, and kangaroos to bounce alongside — as if the rivers from Gan Eden flow through there.

No matter where I go — London, New York, Yerushalayim — people look at me like a scientist might look at a species believed to be extinct, full of delight at their discovery. “Really, you’re from Australia? Sydney or Melbourne? How long does it take to get there? I love your accent. Can you talk some more? Does the water really run backward in Australia?” they ask.

Which is probably why I’ve been asked so many times over the past year how I feel about the rising anti-Semitism in Australia, why it’s made headlines in the world of the Jewish and Israeli press — somehow, Jewish schools being shot at in Montreal is insignificant compared to a shul being firebombed in Melbourne.