A different Chanukah

When we talk about being Jewish, we become aware the very term is ambiguous and ill-defined. Read more

Disbelieving

There have been far too many times in the long and convoluted history of the Jewish People when stark reality has been denied. Read more

This Chanukah, help J-Wire keep the light burning

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Shabbat Vayeyshev

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A soldier’s new mission – fighting antisemitism

On the night of October 10, 2023, days after the massacre in Israel, crowds chanted ‘Where’s the Jews?’ at the Sydney Opera House. Watching the news the next day, Col Michael Scott turned to his wife. ‘I can’t stay silent,’ he said. It was at the moment he realised he had a responsibility to act.

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From Australia’s Jewish past

Mirrie Irma Jaffa Hill, OBE – a prolific Australian composer of her time Read more

Feintooner

This week’s cartoon:  The 3 No’s of Hamas’s Pieces Plan Read more

AI outs Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as HKOPS author

Chat GPT has outed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) as the real author of the four versions of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) published on the purported author Ali Shihabi’s website. Read more

On Both Sides of The Wall: A resistance fighter’s firsthand account of the Warsaw Ghetto

A riveting account of Warsaw Ghetto resistance           Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin Read more

Netanyahu deserves exoneration, not a pardon

Since submitting a formal request for a pardon from Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been issuing explanations for what many of his supporters consider a disappointing move. Read more

Britain’s new far-left party may be Jeremy Corbyn’s undoing

Like a stubborn stain that clings to your shirt no matter how many times you venture to the dry cleaners, Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the ruling Labour Party in the United Kingdom, refuses to disappear. Read more

On the Other Hand

The next time you visit Israel, keep an eye out for United Hatzalah’s newest emergency response vehicle to hit the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Read more

The canonisation of Marwan Barghouti

Celebrity narcissists looking for another virtue to signal have alighted upon a fresh cause appropriate to their moral stature: freedom for a notorious mass murderer of the innocent. Read more

Lunacy unleashed

Journalists and those working in the mainstream news media are familiar with the expression “the silly season.” Read more

Excessive Weddings

It has been part of my life as a rabbi to attend weddings; more often than not to “perform.” Read more

’Tis the season to be jihadi

It’s that time of year again: Christmas trees and Chanukah menorahs; tinsel and dreidels; plum puddings and potato latkes; Christmas caroling and Adam Sandler’s Chanukah song—and, of course, everyone’s favourite holiday cheer: Muslims proving once again that “Peace on Earth and goodwill toward Men” is a Judeo-Christian tradition that they want no part of. Read more

Alon Ohel reveals how he survived two years of torment in Gaza

During an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 that aired on Monday, released hostage Alon Ohel, 24, said he is alive today because he made a conscious decision to survive. Read more

Shabbat Vayishlach

Run or stand? Read more

Podcast: L’Chaim to Life

Malka Lawrence speaks with Bianca Stern, General Manager of ‘All Things =’, a café and social enterprise in Balaclava that celebrates differences and creates meaningful employment pathways for people of all abilities. Read more

Israel needs an end to lawfare, not a presidential pardon

There are some sound reasons for Israeli President Isaac Herzog to choose not to grant a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But none of them have anything to do with justice, defending the Jewish state’s judicial system or even its democracy. Read more

From Australia’s Jewish past

Sydney David Einfeld AO – Politician and Community Leader Read more

A rabbi’s failed attempt to clean up Holocaust distortion

On November 20, Thomas Rose, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, delivered a speech in Warsaw in which he categorised as a “historic injustice” and “grotesque falsehood” any suggestion that “Poland shares guilt for the barbaric crimes committed against it” during World War II, presumably including the murder of millions of Polish Jews in German-occupied Poland. Read more

Why stripping “religion” from terror laws puts Jews at risk

More than two years after 7 October 2023, life for Jewish Australians feels very different. Read more

Feintooner

This week’s cartoon: Interfaith Solidarity Read more

Testimony project helps women in the IDF navigate healing

As attention shifts from the battlefield to the long road of recovery, Israelis are beginning to speak more openly about the trauma of the war triggered by the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023. For women, that process often unfolds differently. According to the American Psychological Association, women are twice as likely as men to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and are also more likely to seek help.

During Operation Iron Swords, officially named the War of Redemption by the Israeli Cabinet, many women chose silence. With hostages held in Gaza and families mourning loved ones who fell in battle, they felt that their personal trauma was insignificant by comparison.

“Women experience war very differently from men,” said Ronit Shoval, CEO of the Eden Association, a nonprofit that supports girls and women across Israel. “War is not only about combat. We wanted to look at it from many perspectives.”

Shoval pointed to the moment Israeli families were forced into bomb shelters on Oct. 7 as one of the clearest illustrations of gendered responses to crisis. “Mothers immediately took responsibility for calming children and separating them from the terror outside,” she said. “Many men searched for weapons and took on the role of defenders.”

Women also process trauma differently, she said. While men often look for practical action, women tend to seek emotional expression. Within days of the Hamas massacre, Shoval and her colleagues began asking what could be done.

“One week after Oct. 7, we sat together and asked what our contribution could be,” she recalled. “A woman from the Nova festival wanted to tell her story again and again. I realized that documenting stories was essential to healing. Trauma needs a beginning, middle and end. But history also erases women’s voices. Wars record generals, not individuals. This project became both therapy and testimony.”

Out of that realization came “October 7th-Her Story: Voices from the Frontline,” a testimony initiative that documents the experiences of female reservists and combat soldiers who fought on the battlefield to defend Israel. To date, some 80 women have shared their stories.

Video testimonies

Adi Weiss, the manager of the project, said it initially began as a podcast before shifting to video testimonies.

“We saw how important it was for these women to speak, to process their trauma on their own terms,” she said. “Trauma victims feel the need to repeat their stories. But over time, details fade or become blocked. We wanted to preserve their voices.”

Weiss added that many women who survived attacks in shelters, at Nova and on kibbutzim spoke openly about their fear of sexual assault.

“They said they feared rape more than death,” she said. “And today we know this fear affected men as well.”

When word of the project spread, women began approaching the Eden Association, wanting to participate. For many, it was the first time they told their story to anyone, including family.

“Some canceled multiple times,” Weiss said. “They wanted to speak but were afraid. Our model focuses on control. Trauma steals control. We ask questions carefully and make sure the women remain in charge of their narrative.”

Telling their stories

The stories they shared are harrowing and powerful. Meital Feldman, an imaging specialist who served as a reservist at Camp Shura identifying casualties, described the emotional toll of her duties.

“I was dealing with death constantly,” she said. “I ran my hands over the body bags, whispering, ‘You are a hero of Israel.’ When I came home, I would scrub myself in the shower to bring back the feeling of life, because death clings to you.”

Maj. May Talker, the commander of a body recovery team at the Nova Festival site, recalled the moment that fractured her emotional defenses. “Next to one of the bodies was a phone. It rang with ‘mom’ on the screen. That was the first moment my focus broke. A mother was searching for her daughter, and I knew the truth.”

She said the war proved the quiet strength of women. “Women did powerful things, not only in combat but throughout everything that happened,” she said. “We should talk about it more.”

For female soldiers, the challenges are layered. They face combat like their male counterparts while also navigating issues of acceptance, identity and physical boundaries in overwhelmingly male units.

“They fight three battles,” Weiss said. “On the battlefield, in their personal lives and in defining who they are.”

Capt. Dr. Bar, a medical officer in the Armored Corps, described the additional pressure. “Because I am a woman, I have to prove myself more,” she said. “So I don’t complain, even when it is hard.”

Some women found expression through art rather than words. The project has already produced three exhibitions featuring artwork and photography. Thirteen women were photographed in environments where they felt most at ease, reclaiming control over how their stories are seen.

For Shoval, the project’s meaning is clear. “This is not only documentation,” she said. “This is survival.”

Bernstein and Busoni   

An opera review by Shirley Politzer Read more

Trump hoodwinked by MBS in White House meeting

President Trump was hoodwinked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) during their meeting in the White House on 18 November. Read more

Between two blades: Global squeeze on world Jewry

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that the global Jewish Diaspora is facing an unsettling squeeze, one that is closing in from both ideological extremes. Read more

On the other hand

Save A Child’s Heart (SACH) – This Israeli humanitarian organisation, founded in 1995, has treated almost 8,000 children from 73 countries where access to pediatric cardiac care is limited or nonexistent. Read more

The Islamists’ Trojan horse

The “progressive” world is defined by its unchallengeable adherence to two causes: Palestinianism and international human-rights law. The two are symbiotically linked. Read more

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