By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in The Jewish Independent

6 February 2026

I have never met Sarah Schwartz from the Jewish Council of Australia. I suspect that if we sat down together, we would disagree on most things relating to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But like all Jews, she is part of my people.

That is why I was horrified when Lillian Klein debated her on ABC and accused of being an “anti-Jew” because of her political views.

“Sarah might be a Jew but she is an anti-Jew whose views are not reflective or representative of the mainstream Jewish community here in Australia.” – Lillian Kline, speaking of Jewish Council of Australia CEO Sarah Schwartz on ABC Radio

I want to be clear. I am an Orthodox Jew and a Zionist, and my politics are not Sarah’s. But I would never, ever hurl that accusation at a fellow Jew, and trust me it’s not because I am too polite or too conflict averse. But rather, because Judaism itself does not allow it.

At the core of Jewish life sits a principle that is both deceptively simple and brutally demanding: Ahavat Yisrael. Love for a fellow Jew.

In Jewish tradition, every Jew, religious or secular, Zionist or anti-Zionist, left wing or right wing, lactose tolerant or deeply lactose intolerant, possesses a Neshama, a soul. A literal spark of the Divine.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad movement, teaches that every Jew has a nefesh Elokit, a Godly soul, that is one and indivisible at its source. Because all Jewish souls share this single Divine root, we are commanded to love other Jews based on their essence, not their behaviour or temperament or politics. Love is not contingent on how palatable someone is to us, and it is certainly not earned by ideological alignment. Rather, it is demanded precisely when those things are absent.

This is where Ahavat Yisrael becomes uncomfortable. It is easy to love Jews who look like us, think like us, vote like us, and make us feel morally affirmed. It is much harder to love Jews who unsettle us, embarrass us, anger us, or articulate positions we believe are deeply wrong. But the mitzvah does not ask us only to love our fellow Jews when it feels easy.

I do not always find Ahavat Yisrael easy. I am human. I have certainly had my share of arguments, and over the years I have fallen out with people. I have been hurt and I have hurt others. But beneath all of that, I try to hold onto a deeper discipline. To remember that beneath the very real disagreements, that between all Jews there is a shared essence that does not disappear simply because I am uncomfortable.

In the immediate aftermath of October 7, I found myself in multiple WhatsApp chats where emotions were raw, and lines were being drawn quickly and aggressively. In one of those chats, someone suggested that anti-Zionist Jews were “not part of the Jewish people”.

I physically shuddered when I read that. In my 33 years on this earth, I cannot recall encountering a statement so bone-chillingly inaccurate according to Jewish tradition.

This is not how Judaism has ever worked. You are Jewish because you are born Jewish, or because you convert sincerely according to Jewish law. And that’s where the litmus testing stops. There are no ideological entrance exams to being a Jew and no political loyalty oaths.

Once you are Jewish, you are Jewish. We do not believe you can opt out. We do not believe you can revoke your membership. Even Jews who convert to another religion are still regarded, painfully and paradoxically, as Jews. That has been the position of Jewish law for thousands of years.

The attempt to redraw the boundaries of Jewish belonging based according to political positions is profoundly un-Jewish.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the twentieth century, understood this deeply. In 1976, he launched a campaign identifying Ahavat Yisrael as one of the core mitzvot that should shape Jewish daily life. He emphasised that this love must extend across every divide: age, observance, affiliation, and ideology. It was not solely reserved for those Jews that were likeable. The Rebbe emphasised that Ahavat Yisrael was a spiritual obligation precisely because it ran against human instinct.

I take the Rebbe’s teachings seriously. That is why I can say, without hesitation, that accusing a fellow Jew of being “an anti-Jew” because of their political views crosses a line. You can argue and you can criticise their positions. Judaism has never been afraid of disagreement, heck, we wrote the Talmud which is basically hundreds of pages of arguments. We have built an entire civilisation on argument.

This is not a claim that only other Jews deserve respect. Absolutely not. Judaism insists on the dignity of all human beings, insisting that all humans are created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. People do not need to be Jewish to deserve respect. Ahavat Yisrael is not about superiority, it is about obligation. Precisely because Jews are bound to one another by a shared covenant and, in mystical language, a shared neshama, the ethical demand is heavier, not lighter.

As Jews, we are exceptionally good at fighting each other. History suggests this is not a new skill. But when our internal battles begin to fracture our most basic commitments to one another, something essential is lost. The point of Ahavat Yisrael is not to flatten difference, it is to insist that difference does not dissolve belonging.

Sarah Schwartz is a Jew. I am a Jew. We do not need to agree on our politics for that to remain true. We are part of the same people, the same stubborn, fractious, enduring tribe. And if we cannot hold that line, especially now, then we have misunderstood something fundamental about who we as the Jewish people are.