By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in The Jewish Independent

3 February 2026

President Herzog’s upcoming visit to Australia is causing me genuine anxiety. After the summer that Australia’s Jewish community has just endured, his visit feels badly mistimed and, worse, likely to backfire spectacularly on the very people it is meant to honour and support.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has characterised the invitation to Israel’s head of state as an opportunity for the president to “engage with members of the Jewish community who are grieving the loss of 15 innocent lives”.

But the visit is already spurring protests focused on Israel’s conduct during the Gaza war, and on ongoing proceedings in international courts. Inevitably, it will focus attention on Israeli politics and conflate the issue of antisemitism in Australia with concerns about the Middle East: exactly the slippage that endangers our community. 

I’m also worried about the mental health of our community. We have just lived through a hellish summer. It began in the first week of the school holidays, when 15 people were murdered at Chanukah by the Sea in Bondi. So many of us knew people who were killed, and most of us are still processing the trauma of what happened. In the aftermath of Bondi, like so many Jewish families, all my hopeful summer plans were immediately interrupted with endless prayers for the injured, the exhausting fight to secure a royal commission, and vigil after vigil after vigil for the dead not to mention funerals.

After Bondi, every single Australian Jew is fragile. We are exhausted and depleted.

Which is why it is so perplexing that, in the immediate aftermath of the Bondi massacre, Prime Minister Albanese extended an invitation to the President of Israel.

Why now? President Herzog is not responsible for Australian Jews. We are not Israelis. His presence does not restore our safety and a visit by him does not help our children feel less vulnerable. While his visit may give a short-term sugar hit for many in the community who will feel support from his presence, the long-term ramifications of the turmoil brought by him will be worse for our community overall.

President’s Herzog’s visit is going to bring chaos and drama to our community. It is almost a guarantee that every public appearance by President Herzog will be protested. Every event that he attends will require enormous security and disrupt the normalcy we are trying to recreate for our families and kids. Every movement he makes in Australia will be accompanied by police, barricades, media trucks, and enormous shouting crowds. After two solid months of a relentless spotlight on our community, who has the emotional resources for another circus like this?

Since his visit was announced, tensions have been rising. Furious opinion pieces are being written before he has even landed, both for and against his visit. Instead of focusing on rehabilitation for our traumatised community, we are diverting attention, and resources into managing a visit for a president who has no influence over our safety here.

Israel’s president can and should be welcomed to Australia at the right time. But right now, our community needs space to heal, not another symbolic battleground onto which our grief and fear will be projected.

President Herzog’s visit also threatens to send a troubling message that confuses Australian Jews with Israel. By inviting the Israeli president at this moment, what exactly is the Australian government saying? That Israel bears responsibility for Australian Jewish safety? That Australian Jews are, by implication, an extension of a foreign state?

That is precisely the opposite of what we have been arguing, urgently and repeatedly, for the past two years. We have insisted that we are Australians. That we are citizens whose safety is a domestic responsibility, and that the Australian government should do more to help us.

An invitation like this may be intended as solidarity, but it risks reinforcing the very conflation that has made Jewish life here feel so precarious. It risks validating the idea that Jews, wherever we live, are fair proxies for Israel’s actions.

Right now, Australian Jews need quiet and protection. We need our leaders focused on rebuilding trust, ensuring our safety at all our schools, synagogues and institutions, and allow us an opportunity to step out of the glare. We do not need another upheaval that a presidential visit is bound to bring.

There will be a right moment for President Herzog to visit Australia. I am certain of that. I just do not believe that moment is now.