By Deborah Hart on Newsroom…
A kind of weird solidarity with Palestinian people in Gaza means Jewish people are somehow made responsible for the actions of Israel.
As the year winds down and we pause for some reflection, I find myself, as chair of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, contemplating the unprecedented hatred aimed at Jewish New Zealanders.
Antisemitism – the prejudice, discrimination or hostility directed at Jews – has snowballed to record levels, so much so that most Jewish people in Aoteoroa New Zealand will admit to sometimes, or often, being scared.
In Melbourne, Australia, in the last month a synagogue was fire-bombed and one person was injured. The following week a car was set alight and a home vandalised in a Jewish area of Sydney.
The lead-up to the increasing antisemitism looks pretty much like a carbon copy of what is happening in New Zealand. And if nothing changes, it is almost inevitable that we will witness a mirror image of the Australian events, but in our community.
After which, we will see the predictable hand-wringing and statements of outrage and solidarity from civic leaders, and the Government will probably do what the Aussies have done after the horse bolted. They will crack down on Jew hatred, direct policing to protect the Jewish community, actually prosecute hate crimes, and possibly establish a taskforce, blah, blah, blah.
Read the full story on Newsroom here.
