* names have been removed, despite the fact I’d love to name and shame.

Although this blog is largely dedicated to travel, I also write openly about mental health here –  and it would feel deeply wrong not to acknowledge how I’m feeling as a Jewish person after the horrific terrorist attack at a Chanukah event on Bondi Beach just days ago. Jews had gathered simply to celebrate the festival of light, and were targeted for exactly that reason.

I spent the morning in tears, anxiously trying to work out whether anyone I once knew who had emigrated there might have been affected. Not long after, I received a direct message from my now ex-Dutch friend, R who felt compelled to inform me, that footage I’d shared and which was circulating of angry Palestinian protesters disrupting a Jewish Chanukah event in Amsterdam was “a lie”. He reassured me that the protest, which his kind and considerate friends attended, was, in his words, “very peaceful”, seemingly unaware – or perhaps unconcerned – about his own unconscious bias.

What horrified me most was not just the denial, but the ease with which Jewish culture and religious celebration were conflated with Israeli politics. R had no issue supporting friends who believe that protesting and yelling at Jewish people attending a religious festival is acceptable. At the same time, he loudly insists that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are entirely separate – yet, when I pointed out that this was a Jewish Chanukah event, not a political gathering, his response was simply that “everyone hates Israel”. The contradiction speaks for itself. 

So let me put this as plainly as I can, for R and for anyone else who struggles to separate religion from geopolitics. I strongly oppose many Islamic governments and societal practices across the Middle East – including human rights abuses, the treatment of women, the persecution of minorities and the absence of equal rights. And yet, I would never ever protest at a Muslim religious event or festival. Because the two things are not the same. Politics and faith are not interchangeable. If this analogy makes the point more clearly than using Jewish examples, then so be it. It shouldn’t, but for some reason, using Jews as an example goes nowhere. 

It has been an intense, emotionally exhausting few days. I couldn’t not write about my mental health, or about the sheer horror I feel at the current state of the human psyche but I have, as always, been doing some thinking and wanting to put pen to paper; or in this case finger to phone.

I think antisemitism, as a topic, makes people deeply and unconsciously uncomfortable – and that discomfort often manifests as denial, deflection, or justification. But discomfort is not an excuse for silence, and it certainly isn’t an excuse for intimidation or hate.

I was reflecting on this tonight after reading a number of posts about it. Why does antisemitism rarely create the same headlines or evoke the same public outrage as attacks on other minority groups? Why is Judaism so often conflated with politics, when countless countries in the Middle East, each with their own histories, do not face the same automatic association? Could it be because of its links to real-world events?

When antisemitism reached its peak in Europe – including in Amsterdam R – six million Jews were tortured, starved, imprisoned behind barbed wire and murdered in gas chambers. It’s almost impossible to fully comprehend, and for many, mentally disconnecting from the horror becomes a protective shield. It’s hard to imagine now and for many, I suppose it’s easier not to.

But antisemitism did not end there. My ancestors escaped Persia, now Iran, part of the 850,000 Jews that were expelled or escaped from Middle Eastern countries – something that we accepted rather than created a resistance movement too. Although, seemingly, violent resistance seems the socially acceptable form here, so maybe they missed the memo then. Jokes. Those who have suffered persecution but aren’t animalistic in their intentions know that violence is never the answer to anything. Anyway. That was antisemitism then and I’ve not even covered half of it. Today, the Jewish community has extra security at schools, rocks thrown at school buses, additional protections around synagogues, and then, face the horrifying reality of Gazans taking our friends and family hostage – live-streaming the violence, murdering innocents in tunnels, while being ridiculed or dismissed despite their stated goal of targeting Jews. Even terrorist attacks in the name of ISIS don’t always provoke the response they should. And yet, somehow, it still isn’t enough to make the world sit up and truly notice. We are forced to prove our victimhood time and time again, when utter racist acts against Judaism are being showcased right in front of us. It’s still not enough.

I feel totally at a loss now at recognising what it means to be human in a world so hateful and fake. I see how propaganda serving a religious narrative prays on those without the capacity to hold both people’s truth and pain in their hands, and twists their mindset to hate – without them even realising. I see how people react to the plight of those who struggle, and rightly so, and I see nothing for Jewish people. It is of my steadfast belief that the only people who can support the Jews are the Jews themselves. We did it Europe when nobody came to our ancestors’ fates. We did it in Spain – both during the inquisition and now in 2025. We did it when all of our Mizrachi families fled the pogroms and massacres throughout the Arab countries which is always so cruelly forgotten about, which is strange seeing as colonisation seems to be the buzzword of 2025. But the list simply goes on and on.

I just hope that one day, people can take a step back and question themselves. I hope one day, people can separate news headlines from religions; that they take a moment to check in with their friends and ask them questions if don’t understand, rather than fill the empty boxes with propaganda that serves no other purpose other to create and divide.

I wanted to say thanks to a few special people who have lifted my mood though. To my lovely Norwegian friend Julie who checked in today which made me see some light; Marie who attends anti-antisemitism marches with her Jewish friend, despite not being Jewish herself; and two Dutch friends who make me see that the Netherlands, despite being useless towards protecting the Jewish people for decades and who are seemingly pretty useless in 2025 too, might have a chance of being inclusive and kind to all for the future. Or it’s just them two, and I’ve won the Dutch friend jackpot, but you never know.

I’m thinking of everyone affected in Bondi. I hope for a brighter Chanukah for all.