Building within a new Jewish community
JVL Introduction
Sarah Schwartz is on the Executive Council of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), a diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers, with over a thousand Jewish people in Australia (and growing) having signed up to its core principles.
JCA recognises that Jewish safety is not at odds with Palestinian freedom and is united in opposition to Israel’s continued policies aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life.
It provides an independent expert Jewish voice in Australia, supporting human rights and opposing antisemitism and racism.
She grew up, like so many of us, taking support for Israel for granted. Now she explains, she has to speak out, “not in spite of my Jewishness but because of it.”
“I now build within a new Jewish community – one which sees Judaism as diaspora and solidarity, not unquestioning support for a state. One that resists the conscription of our symbols into violence, the twisting of our history into justification for murder. One that sees Never Again as a promise, not a threat.”
RK
PS: The Jewish Council of Australia issued a statement in the wake of its government response to the Bondi beach atrocities, arguing that “Unity, safety and prevention — not fulfilling divisive pro-Israel wishlist — must guide the Government’s response to Bondi attack” (see below).
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Mon 8 Dec 2025. Read the original here.
When you first heard me speak against this genocide, you heard my words as betrayal. But they were meant as love
Not speaking would go against everything I was taught to honour: the righteous among the nations – those who refused to be bystanders to injustice
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Being an anti-Zionist Jew in this age feels pretty risky these days. We are mostly ordinary people living ordinary lives; but our lives are overcast by by two threats which are really the same threat in two forms. Zionist Jews face the same threat but they only recognise one form of them, and that is the rise in antisemitism round the world and the increasingly obvious dangers that creates for all Jews. But the second threat, the more pernicious one, is the attack on anti-Zionist Jews which happen precisely because we are Jews who are anti-Zionist. Such as we must be punished as traitors to our people. So we are attacked by Jew-haters and we are attacked by Jews. And it does not help knowing that many of those Jew-haters have been encouraged in their actions by Israel, the self-proclaimed Jewish state, committing genocide in our name, and in the name of those Jews who also hate us. It is a mess.
So how to deal with it? By being true to ourselves. We must never forget that we are Jews who believe that the full range of human rights we claim for ourselves are universal and are not the sole possession of Jews; that we are not all of one mind, being as diverse as any other nation or society; that we live according to our faith and our principles, not the interpretations of these imposed on us by zealots; and that we always speak out for those whose great suffering is at the heart of this entire tragedy, the people of Palestine.
I found this to be a very emotional story. She explained the dilemma of supporting Jewish people but not supporting Israel.
She is aware that the Israeli leadership will use this mass murders as Jew hating but it’s driven by the Genocide, which is being carried out by Zionists, Zionists that call themselves Jews to hide behind anti Semitism.
The majority of Jewish people across the World are totally against what Israel is doing but you never see this in the MSM, which supports Israel.
This leads to some people to believe all Jews are responsible and a few nut cases will do harm to Jews.
We need to condemn them and let it be known that the MSM are complicit by not publicising the fact That the majority of Jew across the World are against Israel’s Genocide and War Crimes.
Bless you Sarah Schwartz and the Executive Council of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) for your reassuring sanity and your enlightened sanity and wisdom.
Sarah Shwartz’s article made me well up with Pride – Pride in her strength. And With admiration of her humanity. Wow.
Safety is among the attributes of a pluralistic society. Equal Rights is unambiguous, and assumes those, same universal rights. The invaders are too late to save themselves from the ghosts of the slaughtered “lambs” lingering deaths of agonizing pain and starvation.