Never Again is Now - Melbourne
On Wednesday, the first of May, a meeting was held at Crossway Baptist Church Melbourne at the invitation of Senior Pastor Dale Stevenson. The purpose was to inform Christian and Jewish leaders of the reasons for the upcoming anti-hate Rally in Melbourne on May 19th. Rev. Dale Stevenson will be one of the keynote speakers.
The meeting was addressed by the Sydney Anglican Minister, Rev. Mark Leach, the founder and chairman of the Never Again is Now organisation. Mark spoke of the first Rally held in Sydney, which 12,000 attended. There has also been a rally held in Adelaide, South Australia. Mark Leach, along with Rabbi Yaakov Glasman, addressed an audience of around 60 people. NewLife has reported on Melbourne's inaugural meeting in a previous edition, but Mark's introductory remarks are salient.
"We are building a movement of allies to the Jewish community, and we are building a movement committed not only to supporting the Jewish community but supporting a vision of a socially cohesive Australia, where we love each other, where the idea of discriminating against; or persecuting or attacking anyone because of their ethnicity, or their religion, or sexuality or their identity is unthinkable.
However, the problem in Australia at the moment, which is a problem around the Western world, is that it has become thinkable. We divide our culture into different groups and set them against each other. We set up a hierarchy of oppression and victimhood and then mobilise those dynamics to turn the culture against different segments and different people who are assigned to these different identity groups. That is a dangerous trend. But as we've seen over the last 3000 years, typically, the first people who cop it in any society are the Jewish people. They are the canary in the coal mine. The persecution and the turning against any people group in Western culture is a sign of a much deeper cultural malaise."
The second speaker was Rabbi Yaakov Glasman from The St Kilda Sheol, president of the European Council of Victoria. Rabbi Glasman reminded the audience that Melbourne has the highest number of Holocaust survivors per capita in the world, outside of Israel.
He said, "I am the product of that. All four of my grandparents desisted now; my mother and my father's parents were survivors. They went through the camps. They lost their entire families. They came to Australia, which opened its doors to them. They made a conscious and deliberate decision that they were going to work extraordinarily hard to become part of the Australian landscape, to maintain their proud Jewish identity, but to do so in a way that complements and does not detract from this beautiful country."
Rabbi said, "They immersed themselves in culture—some would say too much, yes, I'm a Collingwood supporter—but they brought up my parents with a deep sense of gratitude, to never take anything for granted, and to be grateful for the surroundings that we have in what is supposed to be a multi-cultural, cohesive, and peaceful society."
However, it is becoming clear that our society is fast changing, for we see the protest rallies at our Universities and the very strong Pro-Palestine rallies, almost weekly, within our capital cities across Australia. Rabbi Glasman highlighted his experience from within his own very large Jewish congregation in St Kilda that, over the last six months, has brought home the truth, things have changed. Glasman said, "I've heard story after story that really gives me goosebumps. I speak to university students who are hiding their Star of David inside their shirts. I speak to an academic who attends our synagogue regularly, and she tells me that the unspoken narrative is now becoming the spoken narrative."
Rabbi Glasman also referred to the events taking place at Sydney University, where militant students enter classes and ask the students to raise their hands if they are pro-Palestine. They then take photos of that group. Then they ask for who is pro-Israel. When hands are raised, their photos were taken. But there was a greater interest in those who chose not to put up their hand. This started a campaign of shaming publicly across the campus of those who were pro-Jewish and those who would not take a stand. It was apparent that this became a recruiting campaign across the campus to change the minds of the undecided students.
Rabbi Glasman pointed out how disturbing it has become for the elderly people within his community, for this is a horrid reminder of what it was like pre World War 2. He said, "You could just imagine how they're feeling".
Rabbi Glasman was thankful that the Prime Minister visited after October 7 and 9 and promised the Government support for his people across the nation. Also, the leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, despite being just three days before Passover, which is the busiest festival in the Jewish calendar, 500 people attended his meeting from across the city. He also promised to stand with and for the nation of Israel.
Rabbi Glasman reminded people that this is not about Israel and Palestine, for those struggles, he said, should remain where they were created. We are Australians, and we all have our views and beliefs, but the moment international conflicts are imported into our society as if they were here, is the moment that social cohesion starts to disarray. That is the core point of this gathering. This is not about picking sides; this is about an Australian movement who is here to say that what we are seeing on our streets is un-Australian. To pick on any group and to demonise them in any way, shape, or form is wrong and evil.
Rabbi Glasman finished his speech with a final point. "When I came home from synagogue yesterday, I was just wearing my traditional Jewish garb. A guy came swinging around the corner in his vehicle, windows rolled down, yelling Free Palestine. When I heard that, my instinctive response was to come back with "Free Palestine from Hamas". But I didn't because I am one block away from my home. They could follow me and find out where I live, and that would expose my whole family to danger."
Sadly, this is what has become of our society and what the Jewish communities now face daily with the powerful hate campaign orchestrated against them. But here is a call to challenge that by coming behind this anti-hate speech. The organisers of "Never Again is Now" are asking people to come and stand with them on May the 19th. They request that you go to their website and register to attend. When the location is finalised, you will be contacted about the location of the Rally.
Al Watson