One can only hope that the terms of any royal commission [into the Bondi massacre] focus explicitly on, among other relevant things, the enlivenment of antisemitism in our community and the various forms that is taking.
As we all know, antisemitism is an ancient hatred with many different expressions: the Roman renaming of Judea around 135CE; Russian pogroms in the 19th century; the Nazi-inspired Holocaust during WWII.
And there are many others. Today, across the world, I think that a new form is finding broad acceptance: anti-Zionism – which simply means that any secure geographic place for Jewish people be delegitimised and then eradicated.
I can’t see how this would not entail yet another catastrophe for Jewish people in the Middle East, and wherever else they may live.
One of the characteristic features of antisemitism is the way it shape-shifts across different times and places, and appears to resist enduring definition.
For anyone interested in deepening their understanding of antisemitism, can I suggest reading Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt, and If Auschwitz is Nothing, by Donatella di Cesare. Both these books are by substantial female philosophers, and have profoundly changed my views on this vital issue.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
