So many traumatic things seem to have happened to me in the early morning. As a thirteen-year-old, I remember being woken up in the early hours to the news that my father had passed away. Two years ago, a dear friend from Colorado messaged me as I woke up to pass on her love after the October 7th terrorist attacks in Southern Israel. Today I awoke to read that my coreligionists, just across the Tasman on Bondi Beach, were targeted by gunmen while celebrating, somewhat ironically, the Chanukah festival and the enduring nature of our religion.
There is something about reading terrible news before you have properly woken up that makes it sink in differently. Your defences are down, your critical faculties not yet online. You are just you, squinting at a glowing rectangle, trying to work out whether this is real or whether you have misread something in that foggy half-dream state. Bondi Beach is supposed to live in the part of the brain reserved for postcards and holiday snaps, not for words like gunmen and terror attacks.
As details emerged, the familiar and uncomfortable script played out. The attackers believed they were doing something righteous. They thought that by targeting Jews in Australia, they were somehow striking a blow for Palestine, or avenging the very real trauma suffered by their kinfolk in Gaza. In their minds, this was solidarity, resistance, maybe even justice. It is hard to write that without feeling a surge of anger and disbelief, but it is important to name it plainly.
What leaves me incredulous is the leap of logic required to get there. The assumption that Jews everywhere are collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli government and military is not just wrong, it is absurd. It would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. Jews are not a hive mind. We do not vote in bloc, think in unison, or take marching orders from Jerusalem. Many of us have never even been to Israel. Some actively oppose its current government. Others hold complicated, conflicted views that do not fit neatly into slogans or social media posts.
The majority of Jews I know are deeply saddened by what has happened in Gaza over the past years. They grieve for Palestinian civilians caught in cycles of violence they did not choose. They grieve in much the same way they grieve for civilians killed in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Syria, in places that rarely trend on X for more than a day. There is a quiet, weary human response to death and destruction that does not depend on identity or allegiance.
And yet, somehow, Jews are expected to answer for a war fought by a state many do not live in, and a government many did not vote for. It is a standard applied to no other group. We do not hold random Russians responsible for Putin, or random Americans for every drone strike. We understand, intuitively, that states and people are not the same thing. Except, apparently, when Jews are involved.
Chanukah makes this all feel more pointed. It is a festival that celebrates survival against the odds, the refusal to be erased. Lighting candles is not an act of triumphalism. It is small and domestic and intentionally ungrand. The message is not look at our power, but look at our persistence. To bring guns into that space is to misunderstand not just Judaism, but basic humanity.
I am conscious as I write this of how easily words can slide into defensiveness. I do not want to argue that Jews are uniquely virtuous or uniquely victimised. We are not. I also do not want to minimise Palestinian suffering or pretend that Israel is beyond criticism. It is not. Holding those truths together should not be controversial. Apparently, it is.
Living in New Zealand adds another layer. We like to imagine ourselves far from all this, buffered by oceans and good intentions. Bondi is a short flight away, close enough to feel uncomfortably near. The Tasman suddenly seems less like a protective moat and more like a reminder that ideas travel faster than planes. Hatred does not need a visa.
So I find myself back where I started, thinking about mornings. About being woken up too early by news that rearranges the day before it has begun. When I was thirteen, I learned that life can change between going to sleep and waking up. I did not have words then for grief or resilience. I just knew that the sun would come up regardless, and that somehow I would have to meet it.
This morning, like that one long ago, began with a heaviness I did not ask for. I made coffee, stared out the window, and thought about candles flickering against the dark. Endurance is not loud. It does not require guns or slogans. Sometimes it is just the stubborn act of getting up, lighting a flame, and refusing to accept that violence gets to define the morning.
Ben, very well expressed. Your nuance , your clarity. Your humanity. Thank you.