Shoshana is among the Australian Jews speaking out against Israel's military action

Key Points

Shoshana Rosenberg grew up in Israel where she said messaging supports “heavy duty military and combat approaches”.
She is among a group of Jewish Australians calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Almost 700 Australian Jews have sent a letter to the government backing a ceasefire.

Shoshana Rosenberg came to Australia as a 13-year-old to avoid compulsory military service in Israel and the “brainwashing and Zionism” she said came with it.

She is among a number of Jewish Australians, some of Israeli background, calling for a ceasefire in the current conflict between Hamas and Israel and an end to “Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine”.

Rosenberg said that, in her view, people in Israel were indoctrinated to believe “heavy duty military and combat approaches” were needed to keep Israel safe from Palestinians and this mentality was fuelling the ongoing conflict.

Gaza has been bombarded by Israel’s military for the past month, on 7 October in which 1,400 Israelis were killed and about 230 taken hostage.

Israel’s government has vowed “unrelenting” until Hamas is destroyed and hostages are freed and has called its service men and women from around the world to fight.

Reservists have travelled from all over the world, and in Israel there have been large-scale displays of support for the military action. In Australia, there have been and to call for the release of the hostages.

But not all Jews endorse Israel’s military approach.

Almost 700 sent to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and a number of ministers as well as MPs in electorates with large Jewish populations. The letter calls for Australia to support a ceasefire and for the release of hostages.

“As Jews, we hold a variety of views on what will lead to sustainable peace and freedom for the people of the region. But we are unanimous in our understanding that Israel’s current actions put that goal further out of reach,” it reads.

“We reject the claim that the Australian Jewish community unanimously supports the actions of the Israeli government.”

A person holding an Israeli flag behind them and others wearing the flags as capes.

Demonstrations have been held separately across Australia to show support for both Palestinians and Israelis in the wake of intensifying conflict. Source: AAP / Brent Lewin

Relations between Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians, who are in the minority in the area, .

Hamas’ 7 October attack was an escalation in the ongoing conflict and Israel responded quickly, bombarding Gaza with shelling and .

Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group, which gained power in the Gaza Strip after winning legislative elections in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. New Zealand and Paraguay list only its military wing as a terrorist group. In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted against a resolution condemning Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.

Over the last month, an estimated 1.4 million of the just over two million people in Gaza have become displaced and according to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 10,000 people have been killed. Aid agencies estimate around 4,000 of those are children.

Little aid has made its way into the country and Palestinians are unable to leave with border crossings closed. When the Rafah crossing into Egypt was open for a few days earlier this month, only foreign nationals and a selected few designated for hospital treatment were allowed to pass.

Amid calls for a humanitarian pause in hostilities, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far

Last week, that time was “running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

A childhood spent in Israel

Rosenberg supported protesters who entered Defence Minister Richard Marles’ Geelong electorate office last week calling for the Australian government to “withdraw diplomatic, economic and military support for Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine”.

Rosenberg said her mother’s determination for her to avoid when she turned 18 was the main factor in the family relocating to Australia from Israel.

“It is brainwashing into Zionism and into thinking that the military is a good thing, and I think we just recognised that that was not going to work with me,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg, who has a doctorate through the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University, said she remembers living in Israel.

“You are indoctrinated, you are subjected to Zionist propaganda daily that tells you that the military is good, that the State of Israel is the only thing that is keeping Jews safe, that the only solution for Jewish safety is through a heavy-duty military and combat approaches to other people.”

“That is a really prevalent attitude, although I will note that there has always been dissent and resistance against the IDF in Israel,” Rosenberg said.

She said she was “anti-Zionist.”

Zionism and anti-Zionism

Ian Parmeter, a research scholar at the Australian National University’s Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies explained Zionism as “the movement that there should be a national home for the Jewish people”.

“It started in the late 19th century, and very quickly grew to be a movement that sought to establish the Jewish people in their original homeland, which was broadly what was at that point Palestine.”

In 1917, Britain took control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire and , which set the foundations for the establishment of Israel and led to the gradual migration of many Jews to the new state.

“It also made the point that nothing should be done to prejudice the rights of the existing people there, so, it actually added that and that’s sometimes forgotten,” Parmeter said.

“Quite clearly they [the rights of the existing people] have [been prejudiced]. There is not a Palestinian state.”

While some people equate anti-Zionism to Parmeter said the two were not interchangeable.

“Criticising the State of Israel for actions it takes is not the same as antisemitism, antisemitism is really anti the faith.”

He said the term ‘antisemitism” was often used “quite loosely.”

A person holding a placard with an image of a person with a 'Free Palestine' headband and a piece of tape over their mouth which reads 'antisemitism."

Anti-Zionist sentiment has existed in some Jewish communities in different parts of the world for some time. This poster was part of a 2019 protest outside the US consulate in Toronto, Canada where Jewish protesters denounced the continued occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel. Source: Getty / NurPhoto

“It is very often equated with criticism of Israel, which is not in my view, antisemitic. I think you can be critical of the political and military actions of Israel without in any way being anti-Jewish.”

‘Anti-colonial’ Jewish Australians

Jewish Israeli-Australian Naama Carlin believes the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is a “worrying trend.”

“It’s one that’s used to weaponise Judaism and antisemitism to kind of justify Israel’s action,” she said.

Carlin is part of Tzedek Collective, a group of Jewish artists and activists in Australia that aims to cultivate a community “that is Jewishly rooted in anti-colonial, justice-based values and action”.

The collective has had this aim long before the 7 October Hamas attack and in its statement calling for a ceasefire, it said “while the Israeli government recently declared war in Gaza, its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago.”

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Naama Carlin is a Jewish Israeli-Australian who is part of Tzedek Collective, a group of Jewish artists and activists in Australia. Source: Supplied

She said a growing number of people within the Jewish community supported a ceasefire.

“Israel’s indiscriminate attack in Gaza, and the collective punishment in Gaza and also in the West Bank, makes it very difficult to justify and defend and I think that many people in the Jewish community are realising that this brute force is being used without justification,” Carlin said.

Israel has insisted on the right to defend itself, a position backed by countries including the United States and Australia.

“The rhetoric coming from the Israeli government and [some] Israeli ministers, who call Palestinians animals, vermin, call to expel them … this is a very dehumanising rhetoric and again, it didn’t start now, it’s been ongoing for decades,” Carlin said.

She said that, while many Jewish communities might hope for a return to the status quo to, the Tzedek Collective is calling

“We don’t want to go back to the status quo, there’s no meaningful solution to the conflict without the end of Israel’s occupation,” Carlin said.

She said voicing her opinions on the issue has led to people in the Jewish community questioning her Jewishness.

“They’ve said that I’m not really Jewish.”

“They have called for ‘herem’, which is a Hebrew word which means excommunication — excommunication of us Jews,” Carlin said.

A different view on anti-Zionism

When asked about this by SBS News, Alex Ryvchin, the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said “no one has been excommunicated”.

He said he believes anti-Zionism “represents the fanatical hatred of Israel, based on a denial of Jewish peoplehood and indigenous rights”.

He said “historically anti-Zionism meant support for Jewish assimilation over statehood and was favoured by “a minority of Jews”.

Ryvchin said while its meaning has changed over time, anti-Zionism “frequently involves plainly antisemitic themes of Jewish money, power, bloodlust”.

ECAJ does not support a ceasefire. Ryvchin said an interim ceasefire would allow Hamas to “replenish its weapons, plot its next attack and claim a victory”.

“You do not grant respite to a murderous band of sadistic killers. A terror organisation does not set the terms,” he said.

Ryvchin said the only way to achieve lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians was through the defeat of Hamas “and its replacement with leadership that cares more about the lives of Palestinians than the deaths of Jews”.

Worldwide calls for a ceasefire

calling for an end to Israel’s offensive on Gaza and the release of the hostages seized by Hamas.

Two men wearing Jewish caps (kippot) in the foreground, looking down at crowds of people gathered for a protest in Grand Central Station.

United States-based organisation Jewish Voice for Peace organised a gathering of protesters at New York’s Grand Central Station on 27 October, calling for a ceasefire. Source: Getty / Kena Betancur

Many of these, including one that brought New York’s Grand Central Station to a standstill and a number in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, have been supported by Jewish communities.

Israeli ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon has defended his country, telling the National Press Club in October, “we are the victims, we are not the aggressor.”

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