We are devastated by the vicious attack in Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Our hearts and prayers are with the Jewish community of Australia. How do we continue to celebrate in the wake of such darkness? The Maccabees were faced with this same question over 2,000 years ago. At the conclusion of their brutal guerilla war, they came to the desecrated Temple and found one small vessel of oil. Their optimism, the choice to search for pure oil and then to light the small amount anyway- this is the Jewish response to darkness and uncertainty.
Thank you for standing with us. Please enjoy the message from CFOIC’s Shira Shaked, below. Happy Hanukkah from all of us at CFOIC Heartland.
Dear Friends,
I was born amd raised in France. For most of my life, antisemitism was a distant concept, discussed in books and academic lectures about the Holocaust. I studied it in my literature classes. I listened to my grandmother’s childhood stories. It was something other people dealt with, in other times, in other places.
But I’ll let you in on a secret: it never really meant anything to me other than an abstract concept I couldn’t comprehend.
Whatever I heard, whatever brushed past me over the years never touched me deeply or shaped my daily life. Antisemitism existed far away, behind glass in a museum somewhere.
And it’s true. Back then, you could sweep it under the rug, ignore it, and tell yourself it wasn’t your problem. And for a long time, that was possible.
But not anymore. Now it’s absurdly in your face to the point of nausea.
I am a child of the 80s. I grew up being taught explicitly that all people are equal. That every skin color is beautiful. Benetton-style ads always impressed me. I remember images of children holding hands, embracing across differences in some of my story books. I remember being told that racism is something that is taught, not something we are born with. And I believed it. I still do.
And so I cannot comprehend how we arrived here. How did we move from “never again” to again, openly, shamelessly? How did this hatred that we thought had been exposed and dismantled return straight to the center of public life?
More and more, antisemitism is breaking through the surface, it’s no longer subtle or deniable. And with that comes an uncomfortable truth: neutrality is no longer an option. Somewhere along the way, we became numb. We scrolled and rationalized. We explained things away. And that’s dangerous.
My moral compass tells me that if it hurts you to see the news of the Bondi attack, you’re still on the right side. Pain means your humanity is intact. If it doesn’t hurt and you feel contempt, if you feel numb and tempted to justify and say “it didn’t happen in a vacuum”, then it’s time to wake yourself up. Numbness is not neutrality; neutrality is not numbness, it’s a warning sign… Standing against antisemitism is not about whether you know a Jewish person. It’s not about whether you like a Jewish person. It’s not even about Judaism.
It’s about values, about the most basic moral line: believing someone is wrong will never mean you are allowed to harm them, erase them, or kill them. And yet, again and again, we see exactly that justification playing out, especially in the hands of fanatics, of radicalized extremists who convince themselves that violence is a moral duty. They dress it up in religion, in ideology, in righteousness but it is still murder. The world does not work like this. It never should.
And here’s the part we can no longer escape: you will not be able to say it wasn’t you or that you didn’t know. That time has passed. What’s happening now demands a choice. History will not accept silence as innocence.
You will have to choose a side. So the question is no longer abstract, and it is no longer rhetorical: what side are you on?
I invite you to do something simple. Tonight, after dark, light a candle. Even if you’re not Jewish. Even if you don’t belong to any faith. Even if you’re unsure where you stand. It doesn’t matter.
Light a candle and place it by your window. Let it be seen. Let it be a statement.Stand with the light. Stand with what is good and true. Stand with life, not death.
Blessings,
Shira Shaked
Christian Friends of Israeli Communities