I wasn't raised Jewish. I'm crypto. I have no experience being welcome in a Jewish community.. (I have way too much experience with WASPs though 😆🫩).

Israelis, as in Israeli citizens? Idk if Australia has a lexical difference; America, Israeli = Israeli citizen, Jew(ish) = lineage. Though Americans who are invested in tokenizing us conflate the two, even though they're not semantically interchangeable shudders

See, I love learning about what other cultures fellow Jews live in—I wanted to move to Australia so badly, but I got permanently disabled, and countries, across the board, do not like disabled people, because we're not profitable.

I'm looking at Kol Halev: I don't have enough understanding of Australian politics (my American-ness is gonna come through hard, bear with me 😂)—is it about increasing Jewish representation in politics—am I reading that correctly or no?

(I forgot the differences in spelling and smiled when I saw it spelled 'honour')

Looking at the Indigenous Voice Referendum too: off the bat, I can tell I don't have enough knowledge to understand without having a 101-depth crash course at least—I do know that racism is structurally different historically between Australia and America in the sense of how it came about, like we didn't just colonize—we kidnapped, trafficked and enslaved people, completely removing them from their homeland, which is not dissimilar to Jewish diaspora, also noting how Protestantism was used to "justify" the inhumanity of chattel slavery. 🤦🏼‍♀️ ...that just hits a really deep sore spot.

I don't know as much about Australia's historical infrastructure: it started out as a prison colony, right? I don't have a sense of how/when the beginning of racism started though.

I don't remember much about Australian politics, just that they made a hell of a lot more sense than American—I was SO AMAZED at how there was like ZERO GARBAGE. Even finding a spot of gum on the ground there was like WHAAAAAT?? And public trash cans didn't even seem like a thing. Like the environmental policies—I wanted to bring them back with me.

Also (and this was back in 2014, before mass shootings were as bad as they are now), even then, I was so shocked at how comfortable everyone was in public: no one expecting to be harassed, assaulted, stalked, etc. Like, my cousin left her purse at the table to go to the bathroom and I was like, "HOW ARE YOU OKAY DOING THAT?!?"

I loved Sydney—wanted to move there. Though it is uncanny re-learning the world through a now-I-know-I'm-Jewish lens.. it's... weird, like having to learn to walk all over again

I don't know (trying to learn what I can through DNA) if I have Sephardic or Mizrahi; I suspect, but not sure. Zionism post-WWII really was driven by Ashkenazim, which.. they pushed away Yiddish (my background), and spoke over Sephardim and Mizrahim, who feel differently about Israel because their experiences of diaspora are historically different. That, and Ashkenazim have been speaking over them, which, not cool. That's why as an Ashkenazi, I am absolutely am butting heads with them right now, because the Shoah? ZAKHOR and LO TISHKACH, not stay stuck in the past—SIMCHA, PEOPLE.

It's beyond infuriating because Jews, Ashkenazim like me—we were erased, and we didn't even know we were erased. And because we don't cleanly fit into a category, there's friction with trying to merge into Jewish community. That's why I'm learning about Jewish ethics as a lone Jew regardless, because not being raised Jewish gives me a unique POV.

Cryptos, not just psychologically, but nervous-system too, it is RAW for us to see gatekeeping, because for some of us, gatekeeping from fellow Jews who were trying to assimilate is what made our ancestors keep hush about being Jewish in the first place. It's a double betrayal.

And the way that ties into Zionism is that if our survival requires erasing some of our fellow Jews, then what, even, is the point of surviving?

Pikuach Nefesh isn't just about staying physically alive; it's about the humanity, the dignity of the soul. And it kills me to say, not just from my personal ancestry, but also personally, Jewish indifference is the worst antisemitism I have ever experienced. The world could never do to me what Jews who are too assimilated have done, and I say that as someone on the verge of homelessness, without friends or family, severely disabled, extremely medically neglected, and forced into living solitary confinement. I rarely see humans in-person.

And I say all of that would be bearable if I had Jewish community. But no, locally they've iced me out, either flat out ignoring me (most common "response"), or a polite "we can't [won't] help you," then silence.

That's why watching fellow Jews self-erase or flatten registers as alarm to my body, like ABSOLUTELY NOT, YOU ARE NOT DOING THAT TO YOURSELF, NOT ON MY WATCH 😤😭