By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in The Jewish Independent

15 September 2026

Australian Jews have reason to feel troubled. Since October 7 2023, our community has lived through some of the worst times in the history of Jewish life in this country, with rising antisemitism culminating in the Bondi massacre.

But antisemitism is not the whole story of Australian Jewish life – and the extent to which some elements of our community have started to embrace a culture of perennial victimhood and grievance is beginning to distort the reality of our vibrant community.

Of late, when something doesn’t go our way, there is an almost immediate rush to the media and a gut reaction to label it antisemitism.

Consider the recent coverage of the documentary Cancelled, about Jewish artists who feel that they have been cancelled since October 7. Some stories about this documentary focused on the fact that it had not been accepted by Australia’s major film festivals or public broadcasters, suggesting a film about Jews being cancelled was itself being cancelled.

But not all documentaries, even really deserving ones, get accepted into festivals or by the public broadcaster. Sometimes an excellent and really deserving book doesn’t get published.

Sometimes you can be a talented artist, and your work still isn’t exhibited.

We need to be careful not to internalise every absent invitation or ordinary rejection as evidence of Jewish exclusion. There is a difference between standing up for ourselves and constantly positioning ourselves as victims.

In 2025, Jewish community author and former editor of The Age, Michael Gawenda, felt he had been excluded from the Adelaide Writers’ Festival and argued that his exclusion was an example of the exclusion of pro-Israel voices.

The festival’s explanation was considerably less sinister: his publisher had not put his book forward, and when Gawenda subsequently approached the festival, the program was already full.

The same dynamic occurred when Stonnington Council in Melbourne voted to defer a decision on installing a public menorah for Chanukah. The deferral prompted cries from the public gallery that “antisemitism is alive and well in Stonnington” and the councillor who proposed the motion was accused of antisemitism.

However, the reason given for the deferral was that councillors had not had a chance to discuss the proposal at a briefing. A week later, the council approved the menorah, which went up in time for the holiday.

Like many Australian Jews, I am the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor. My grandfather’s mother, father, brother and sister were murdered by the Nazis.

But my grandfather didn’t build his identity around being a victim. He didn’t spend his life talking about how terrible things had been for him. He didn’t run to the newspapers and the media every time something didn’t go his way. He didn’t define himself by what had been done to him; rather, he wanted to get on with his life.

He went to parties; he drank great coffee. He loved his children and grandchildren. He started a business; he built a life; he enjoyed himself. He had every reason in the world to be angry, and he certainly had every reason to spend the rest of his life talking about what had been taken from him.

But he didn’t, because he knew it would not help him live and thrive.

That is what makes this culture of perennial victimhood so disturbing. Yes, there are real cases of Jewish exclusion, but when exclusion becomes our expectation, it threatens to become our identity.

Australian Jewish life is rich and vibrant. We have shuls and schools, youth movements and sporting clubs, kosher restaurants and Jewish newspapers. We have a thriving network of communal organisations, universities and cultural institutions. Jewish children grow up playing Maccabi sport and learning Torah. We have built businesses, raised families and created communities that our grandparents could hardly have imagined when they arrived here.

There is so much that is good about being Jewish in Australia right now, even in the midst of this very difficult period. Most Australian Jews still love this country and do not want to leave, and they still see a future for themselves and their families here.

So, what do we do when we are not included, whatever the reason? Rather than sliding into victimhood, we can respond to exclusion by building. If you feel that Jews are being excluded, build your own thing. Publishers won’t publish Jewish books? Set up your own publishing houses. Arts and cultural organisations won’t accept Jewish or Zionist voices? Build your own festivals.

Jewish people have been doing this forever. We have built law firms, schools, sporting clubs, cultural organisations and businesses when we weren’t allowed into existing ones. And often, the things we created because we weren’t welcomed into the existing ones eventually became the things that everyone wanted to be part of.

Our grandparents survived horrors we can barely comprehend, and many of them still chose to build lives rather than allow what had happened to them to become the entirety of their identity.

Maybe we could take a little bit of that from them. Sure, call out antisemitism when it is there. But let’s also build things. Let’s live.