The Christian group Never Again is Now is organising a demonstration against antisemitism in Melbourne on May 19.
This follows the successful event in Sydney recently, attended by 12,000 people.
NAIN founder Reverend Mark Leach said his group wants to mobilize the Christian and secular and non-Jewish community to stand against antisemitism in Australia.
“We want to … say to the community of Melbourne and the politicians and any people who care to watch that the Jewish community is alone, you’re loved. And we as Christians and Jews stand together for inclusion and love and against hate”.
Leach says mobilising Christians and non-Jews against antisemitism has proved to be hard work.
“There is a generation of Christians and secular people in Australia who are unmoved by the Holocaust. Like in in Egypt, there has arisen a generation who knew not Joseph, a generation who don’t know and who don’t care” he said.
He believes there needs to be a 20 year plan to make antisemitism unthinkable in Australia, but that will mean grappling with
Leach said the most important thing that can be done now is to build bridges between the Jewish community and the secular and Christian community so that the rest of Australia understands what it’s like to be Jewish in Australia.
“They don’t have a clue. Most Australians do not know a Jew personally” he said.
Leach believes the most effective outreach to non-Jewish Australians is to focus on the effects of antisemitism at home rather than the situation in Israel.
“So we say to them we can’t solve the problems of the Middle East – this is not about what’s happening in Gaza. This is about what’s happening in Melbourne” he said.
Leach is firm in his conviction that there is a silent majority of Australians who support the Jewish community because Australians are fundamentally decent.
“And I think the liberal media, ABC News and the mainstream press are as wrong on Palestine as they have been on many other social issues, including most recently the voice”.
Leach said the defeat of the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament recently shows that mainstream opinion is not necessarily swayed by elites in the inner cities, the universities and corporations.
“They said you’ve got to vote yes. 60% of Australians said no in the in the privacy of the ballot box” he said.
