I have been trying to find the right words for what has changed since the 14th.

Not just what happened, but what happened afterwards.

For a short moment, there was a kind of national pause. People reached out. Some were clumsy, some were heartfelt, but the instinct was human. Are you okay. Are your family okay. What do you need. It mattered. It mattered more than most people will ever know.

And then, almost before we had even caught our breath, the country moved on.

Life always moves on, I know that. The news cycle turns, priorities shift, people have their own crises. But this felt different. It felt like the concern had an expiry date. Like the compassion was rented, not owned.

Since then, I have been walking around with a strange heaviness, because I feel like the curtain has been pulled back. And what I saw was ugly.

Not everyone. Not even close. There are good people everywhere. There are people with decency and courage, people who check in, who speak up, who do not need a script to understand that Jewish Australians should be safe, and should be treated like full citizens, not a problem to be managed.

But on the whole, something has been exposed. A readiness, in too many places, to excuse things that would never be excused if they were aimed at anyone else. A casual tolerance for intimidation, for slurs dressed up as politics, for the idea that Jews are somehow fair game provided the packaging sounds righteous........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)