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The Australian
01-08-2025
- General
- The Australian
Ruby Kraner-Tucci always liked the novelty of being both Italian and Jewish. She found anti-Semitism post October 7 to be confronting and scary
I don't easily pass the 'Jew test'. I didn't attend a Jewish school or youth group. I don't speak Hebrew or Yiddish. I live a few suburbs away from Melbourne's Bagel Belt, and I celebrate Christmas and Easter. Growing up, I relished my Jewish identity. With the unwavering support of my father, my mother imparted the value of Judaism in my life. For most in our circle, we were 'the Jewish family' – the only Jewish family they knew – and I never thought that to be a bad thing. We taught our friends how to play dreidel (a game played with a four-sided spinning top, often decorated with Hebrew letters). We introduced them to challah (a special kind of braided bread eaten on the Sabbath). We threw epic Purim parties. We explained why gefilte fish (beloved by many Jews, it's made with ground carp) wasn't really that bad. We were the fun Jews, the exotic Jews. I always loved being the centre of attention in this way, but as I grew older and my social circles expanded, I started to self-censor. When I met someone new and revealed my heritage, I would often notice the second-too-long pauses. The darting eyes. The clearing of throats. Sometimes there was a polite nod, rarely were there questions. People were always more interested in my Italian background. So when a friend made an off-the-cuff Jewish joke, it felt easier to laugh along than to defend myself. When I was told my new haircut made me look 'more Jewish', I smiled politely to keep the peace. When my brother was playfully called a 'Jew dog' by his mate, I stayed quiet. These instances were too sporadic to impact me. It wasn't a big deal. That was until October 7. The flooding of Instagram came first. Each scroll through my friends' virtual lives brought vicious anti-Israel sentiment. Slogans calling for the eradication of Israel, the land that kept my family safe: From the River to the Sea. Slogans I couldn't help but see as personal attacks: Don't Wash your Holocaust Trauma with Palestinian Blood. Why didn't they speak to me, possibly their only Jewish friend, before they spoke out online? Did they think about me at all? I prepared myself for the debate and discussion that was sure to come. For my friends to ask about my views on the war and share their own. But it didn't come. It has never come. No one has been curious about my perspective on Netanyahu. No one has seemed worried about my family in Israel. But I'm the fun Jew so I say nothing. I self-censor. I bottle it up. Instead of speaking out, I deleted the app. As someone part of a generation that uses social media to connect, I was now left completely out of the loop. I missed birthdays, engagement announcements and the welcoming of new babies. I deleted the app, yet I couldn't escape it – this obsession with the Gaza war, as if there were no other large scale, deadly conflicts unfolding around the world. At work, my colleagues and I received death threats: 'Jew, two-faced bastards, burn in hell.' Everyone said it came with the territory. The territory of working in Jewish media. You deserve to be teleported into a Palestinian 'safe zone' moments before the bombs hit. But I'm still working in Australia. I'm still Australian. Yet: 'All you Jews will die.' It's a week after the one-year anniversary of October 7 and I'm at a Chinese restaurant with two non-Jewish friends eating cheap dumplings. 'How's work for you?' One friend asks me, after they've both spoken at length about their jobs and boyfriends and travel plans and parents and latest TV obsessions. 'We just received another death threat. It was so bad we called the police,' I say, ignoring the way they shift in their chairs. I don't usually talk about this topic with these friends I've known since high school. This topic of being Jewish. 'Honestly, I've worked at Jewish organisations before, I'm used to the security guards out front and the need to keep our address confidential, but I've never experienced this level of racism,' I continue, hoping to get some recognition, some validation. They exchange a look. One friend tries to speak but nothing comes out. 'I didn't know Australia could be like this. I thought our generation had gotten past antiSemitism.' I can't help myself. The burden is getting too heavy, and I want these friends to carry some of the load. 'Maybe I could have handled this year, the mourning of my grandmother, if I was on solid ground, but I'm not. I'm terrified. I practically begged my family to stay home on the October 7 anniversary because I was convinced something bad would happen.' Still nothing. The clatter of the Chinese restaurant around us helps to fill the silence. My friends look scared, but I can't stop. I won't stop. 'I've unfollowed so many people on Instagram, people I've known my whole life, and I don't even know if I disagree with them. That's the thing, I don't know what I believe. I know I'm anti-war and it's horrific seeing Palestinians die, but I also care deeply about a Jewish homeland. You know what really hurts? No-one has asked me if I'm okay. No-one checks in with me because they've already assumed that because I'm Jewish, they know what I think and they're holding it against me. I've even stopped telling people where I work. I'm so worried that they will judge my decision to work in Jewish media right now. And if I do tell them, I then feel the need to explain it is a progressive organisation that can be critical of Israel, so I can be accepted. And who is even helping us? The police just tell Jews to stay at home, and the government isn't acting fast enough. I used to vote for the Greens, but I can't anymore because they refuse to condemn Hamas, and I can't vote Liberal because combating antisemitism is the only policy I actually agree with them on. But don't we all want to combat anti-Semitism? Are people our age really anti-Jewish?' I catch my breath. My friends are stunned. They look at each other. I feel a hand on my shoulder. And still, no-one speaks. Dead silence from my friends of over a decade. 'Maybe we should just change the topic,' I offer, crushed. I stifle my tears in our shared Uber home and seek comfort from my fridge. I find a carton of eggs. I boil two and cry. This is an edited extract from Ruptured: Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life post-October 7, edited by Lee Kofman and Tamar Paluch, published by the Lamm Jewish Library of Australia, $34.99 RRP ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ruby Kraner-Tucci is a journalist and writer, currently working as the assistant editor of The Jewish Independent. Her writing has appeared in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald, Broadsheet and Time Out, among others. Ruby was awarded Multicultural NSW's Best Report in Multicultural Media 2025 and recognised as a Young Journalist of the Year finalist at the NSW Premier's Multicultural Communications Awards 2024. Review A mythically jacked Jason Momoa leads a sweeping Hawaiian epic. Plus: the cosiest crime drama you'll watch all year. Review The action-packed The Gringo Hunters, set in Baja California, follows a Mexican police unit capturing American fugitives.
Fox News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
This isn't just about the Jews. It never was
In the aftermath of what's now being called the "12-Day War," involving Israel, the U.S. and Iran, antisemitic rhetoric and incidents have reached new and disturbing heights. This is beyond even the devastating rise we've seen since Oct. 7. The Anti-Defamation League's recent report should stop every decent human being in their tracks. For many of us in the Jewish community, it was not a surprise. Painful, yes. alarming, absolutely. But shocking? Tragically, no. We didn't need the data. We live it. For the Jew today, especially high school and college students, this isn't just a sociological trend. This is the air they breathe. Young Jews are coming of age in a world that bombards them with slogans not about political policy, but about their very identity. From graffiti and shattered windows in cities across the country to violent chants on campuses and real threats of harm, the current climate does not reflect honest debate about international politics. Instead, it reveals a barely hidden, and often blatant, hatred of Jews, normalized in places where people are supposed to feel safe. I wear a yarmulke. I wear tzitzit (traditional Jewish fringes). I walk in the world as a very visible member-of-the-tribe. Before a single slur is thrown my way, no one asks me my thoughts on the last Israeli election. No one stops to inquire about my stance on a two-state solution. Like so many others who wear their Judaism proudly and publicly, I am targeted not for anything I've done, thought or said, but simply for who I am. They see a kippah, a mezuzah, a Jewish name or symbol and they lash out. That hatred is not academic or theoretical. It's real, it's visceral, and it makes no distinction. I've experienced my fair share of aggressive and dangerous antisemitism, but what chills me most is not my own experience. It's fear in the eyes of the next generation. Students who feel they must hide their identities. High school students walking out of their Jewish Student Union (JSU) clubs wondering if they should remove their Star of David necklaces before their next class with a certain teacher. College kids who are afraid that simply being Jewish might make them social pariahs, or worse. They are expected, sometimes obligated, to celebrate everyone else's identity, but always hide their own. The double standard is glaring. Let me be crystal clear: thoughtful and critical discourse about Israeli policy is not antisemitic. In fact, it's necessary. Israel is a democratic country with its share of flaws and tough decisions to make. But when I hear people shouting, "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" or "Globalize the Intifada," this is not policy critique. This is not intellectual opposition. This is a genocidal threat. We cannot let ourselves pretend otherwise. Antisemitism is no longer hiding in the shadows, rather showing up in polite society. The ADL report is chilling: mainstream voices are spreading conspiracy theories that Jews control policy, while slogans calling for Israel's destruction and "Death to America" flood social media. What's worse, White supremacists, radical Islamists, far-left activists and college professors now unite in their hatred of Jews. We've heard this before. We know where it leads. If you're not Jewish, reach out to your Jewish friends. Learn. Speak up. Challenge hate. When only one people is asked to justify their existence, something is deeply broken. Call it out. Above all, understand this: antisemitism is not a Jewish problem. It is a human problem. Wherever Jew-hatred was allowed to grow, so too grows the targeting of all other minorities. Societies that target Jews first never stop there. We Jews will not disappear nor cower. We will not apologize for existing. But we ask, simply, for your hand to stand together. Will you stand with us? Not just because we are your neighbors, colleagues, classmates and friends. But because all our children deserve a world where hatred is called out, justice is pursued and no one has to hide who they are. I still hold onto that dream. A world with more light, more courage and more compassion is possible. Let's build it together.
BBC News
18-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Birmingham council first to recognise Sikh and Jewish identity
Birmingham City Council is to become the first in England to recognise Sikh and Jewish identities when collecting data from residents.A motion tabled by Birmingham Labour group to change the way the information is collected in the future was carried at a full council City Council questionnaires do not currently include the categories, despite the city having more than 30,000 Sikh residents and a 2,000-strong Jewish Labour group said the historic move would help the council understand its communities better and tackle discrimination. It added that while Sikhs and Jews had been legally recognised as ethnic groups for more than 40 years, data was not routinely collected by public group argued Jewish and Sikh people were "rendered invisible" to policymakers by the omission. The motion was brought by councillor Jamie Tennant and seconded by councillor Rinkal said it showed Birmingham was "leading the country as a diverse and welcoming city" and he would lobby colleagues in other authorities to follow herself as "a proud Sikh woman who lived in Birmingham the last 34 years", Shergill said the change marked an important step pointed out the NHS did not classify Sikh and Jewish communities either, despite them being disproportionately affected by particular diseases and during the pandemic. The motion was backed by Edgbaston MP Preet Gill, who previously raised the issue in Parliament."It is absurd that most public bodies don't include these groups in the equalities data they collect," she said. "I am delighted Birmingham City Council is taking action to put this right."It has also been supported by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Sikh Federation (UK) and local gurdwaras, Tennant told the chamber. This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
New York Times
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Lynn Freed, South African Writer With a Wry Style, Dies at 79
Lynn Freed, a South African-born writer whose mordant, darkly comic works explored her Jewish upbringing during apartheid, along with the jagged feelings of displacement experienced by expatriates and the ways that women negotiate their identities and sexual desire, died on May 9 at her home in Sonoma, Calif. She was 79. Her daughter, Jessica Gamsu, said the cause was lymphoma. The author of seven novels, dozens of essays and a collection of short stories that were originally published in The New Yorker, Harper's and The Atlantic, Ms. Freed was praised by critics for her spare, wry and unsentimental style. 'If Joan Didion and Fran Lebowitz had a literary love child, she would be Lynn Freed,' the critic E. Ce Miller wrote in Bustle magazine, describing Ms. Freed's writing as 'in equal turns funny, wise and sardonic.' Raised by eccentric thespians in South Africa, Ms. Freed immigrated to New York City in the late 1960s to attend graduate school and later settled in California. Her first novel, 'Heart Change' (1982), was about a doctor who has an affair with her daughter's music teacher. It was a critical and commercial dud. Ms. Freed caught her literary wind in 1986 with her second novel, 'Home Ground,' which drew generously on her upbringing. Narrated by Ruth Frank, a Jewish girl whose parents run a theater and employ servants, the book subtly skewers the manners and lavish excesses of white families during apartheid. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
29-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Post-WWII Germany's first Jewish cabinet member on embracing her roots, countering rising antisemitism
Berlin — When Karin Prien's mother brought her to Germany as a little girl in the late 1960s, she gave her one urgent warning: "Don't tell anyone you're Jewish." Nearly six decades later, Prien is now post World War II Germany's first Jewish federal cabinet member, having been selected as the Minister for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Prien told CBS News she intends to use her platform to confront the rise of antisemitism in Germany and further afield, and the fragility of democracy in a country still reckoning with its past. "Well, in a way, I'm proud," the minister told CBS News in a candid interview. "Proud to be a minister in the federal government, but also that I'm recognized as Jewish and that German society is now so far [advanced] as to accept that Jewish people have a right to be a self-conscious part of this society." Prien's political career, and her personal story, represent an arc of conflict, tension and reconciliation that echoes that of post-Holocaust Germany itself. Karin Prien, Germany's federal minister for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Christoph Soeder/picture alliance via Getty Images "A question of responsibility" Born in the Netherlands to Holocaust survivors, Prien moved to Germany at the age of 4. Even as a child, she was heavily aware of the silence surrounding her family's identity. Her mother's warning that it was still too dangerous to talk about being Jewish — more than two decades after the war ended — shaped her early years. "There was always fear. My mother was afraid that there were too many Nazis still around," Prien said. "It wasn't taken for granted that you could talk about being Jewish. It was something you kept inside the home." But that silence eventually became intolerable. As a young teen, she said she began to understand that the democratic values she cherished — freedom, human dignity, anti-discrimination—- required defending. "I decided, 'I have to do something about it. Democracy is not something you can take for granted,'" she said. But Prien still waited decades before publicly acknowledging her Jewish identity. The turning point came in the early 2010s, when she was already a member of state parliament in Hamburg. Prien began pushing for systematic documentation of antisemitic incidents in schools. When a journalist asked why the issue mattered so much to her, she paused and then told him: "Because I'm Jewish." "That was the moment I realized I had a political voice," she recalled. "I had some kind of influence. And for me, it was a question of responsibility." Lessons from the past for the threats of today That sense of responsibility weighs heavily on Prien in today's Germany, where she said antisemitism is no longer confined to the political fringes. "We see rising antisemitism all over the world," Prien said. "They dare to be openly antisemitic. I think it's now more than after the end of World War II. They dare to be openly antisemitic, and that's also in Germany getting stronger and stronger. That has changed. And so we have antisemitic tendencies on the margins, but we also have it in the middle of society." While Germany once appeared to be a model of historical reckoning, Prien said she fears complacency is setting in. After some "honest decades," during which Prien says Germans confronted themselves with the stark realities of their country's history, "now, people are dying. And now we have to find new ways to talk about that." Prien thinks that should include a shift in Holocaust education. She wants German schools to expand from their current focus on the atrocities of World War II to also teach the history of Israel, the cultural contributions of Jewish Germans, and the origins of antisemitism. "Jewish identity is part of German identity," she told CBS News. "Young people need to know that Jews are not only victims. Jewish people are diverse. They have a voice. They are part of this society." Prien said she draws inspiration from figures including Margot Friedländer, a Holocaust survivor who famously coined the phrase: "Be Human." That, Prien said, should be the foundation of any education system in a democracy: teaching empathy and human dignity. But it's not only historical facts and universal dignity that need defending, she said, it's also Germany's democratic fabric. "We are an immigration society," Prien said. "But we're not very good at having fair and equal chances for children who start with more difficult conditions." She sees educational equity and national democratic resilience as intrinsically linked. Prien is now leading efforts to limit mobile phone use in German elementary schools, warning that parents and policymakers have been too naive about the risks of digital exposure for young people. "We are anxious about the real world. We drive our kids to school and into the classrooms but we are not anxious about the stuff online," she said. "That has to change." Asked what message she has for young Jews with political ambitions in Germany today, Prien didn't hesitate: "Stay. Don't pack your luggage. This is a different Germany. This is a country where you can live safely. And it's our job to make that promise true every day."
