Since its inception, this blog has proceeded on tiptoe. Ever since my own inception as a person conscious of myself, this blogger has walked on the tips of his toes. We have been moderate, fair, civil, politically correct. This blog and I don’t like stridency. Not for us the megaphone,but the voice of sweet reason. We’ve been progressive, we’ve been likeable, and we’ve been liked.
Until we ceased being likeable and started to appear tribal. Tribal is not so likeable. This blog has not been liked much since… well, since October 7 last year. Over that period we tiptoed less.
Allow me to explain what I mean by tiptoe, and why we do it. By ‘we’ I mean Jewish Australians. But I could just as easily refer to minority Australians of all stripes. We walk on tiptoe, careful, so careful not to tread on the toes of others. We walk on tiptoe as an act of self-humbling, as an act of apology really. We understand how a turban or a hijab or kippah marks us as different. We understand how difference piques discomfort. We don’t wish to offend or confront. We tiptoe so we’ll be excused for being not entirely the same.
From very early in our lives as minority Australians we know we represent our tribe. As children starting school, we know that all of us Sikhs, all of us Moslems, all of us Jews, all of us Africans, Asians of every origin, all of us Indigenous people – we all must behave nicely in public, because we kids stand for all of us. If one of us misbehaves or offends or speaks our foreign language too loudly in public, we all will be judged. Our entire group will be judged by the worst of us. Speaking only for myself, this self-consciousness has weighed but lightly. It feels good to behave likeably because Australian people broadly reward us with affection.
There’s a very good reason for anyone – for everyone – in Australia to tiptoe. Once they see past the difference, once they see you’re just like them, Australians embrace you. You feel the love, you return the love.
Over the decades that I have worked among AboriginaI people I have witnessed much conduct that seems placatory in nature: voices normally loud, lowered for the whitefella; rage directed at their own people rather than at the dispossessor; humble acceptance of the Gap that never closes. It’s at once excruciating and absurd that a First Owner might feel obliged to live a life of apology.
Tiptoeing can be detected, I think, in highly unexpected places. Have a look at photos of women in public life. Note how many face the camera with head held a little aslant. You don’t see this posture in the public male. When I see this, the woman’s face is invariably smiling. The posture and the smile win trust; they say, ‘Yes, I am successful, I am known, but don’t worry, I’m not a threat.’ In a country where a woman dies every week at the hands of a man, such tiptoe might be ingrained in childhood. I like the images of a woman facing the camera squarely, without the obligatory smile.
Until the turn of this century, my tiptoeing was unnecessary. If I tiptoed, I did so, not on account of outside hostility, but on account of my own native timorousness. Until about the year 2000, I had tiptoed beneath my public kippah. But tremors, intimations, opinions, voices, all drove my kippah into hiding. I walked the ways and byways of this beloved country with my kippah in hiding beneath a non-sectarian hat. Only within Aboriginal communities was my kippah nakedly seen. My mob was much honoured by their mob.
Was I being over-sensitive in the mainstream? Possibly so. But come October 8 last year, when the mob outside the Opera House howled and burned flags and hunted Jews, there was no mistake. Look online where hatred of Jewish people has found its voice, where all shame has been shed, and know why I might walk on tiptoe.
But I’ve stopped apologising for being Jewish. My kippah can be seen again wherever I go now. It asks Australia a question. And Australia answers with a nod or a smile or a pat on the back, as I guessed it would. But not so on this blog: I suspect I have confused my readers, whom I guess are mainly of progressive mind. Since October last year I have written as a Zionist – albeit as a supporter of Palestinian aspiration – and I sense progressive peoplefind this confronting. I think my readership feels nonplussed. Hence the likeable bogger is no longer ‘liked’. I imagine also that my gentle readers wish to protect my feelings by their reticence.
Hence, silence.
But I’m not afraid of civil debate. We can agree to disagree. Most days I disagree with myself.
Awful conflict in the Middle East has polarised Australians. A hush has fallen. For many, feelings are too strong for calm utterance. I understand this, because my own feelings are so strong and so painfully conflicted. But that conflict on other shores need not silence us on racism on our own shores. I feel confident the silent majority of Australian people detests anti-semitism. The majority is nonplussed, often offended and irritated by this hatred and wishes us well. The great problem here is the very silence of the silent majority. Anyone who is offended by racism and who remains silent misses a precious opportunity to protect and repair harmony in our community.
howardgoldenberg 
Well, Howard, I’ve been reading your blogs for more years than I care to remember. I can’t recall a bad one, actually, yet this one connected even more acutely than wont. Thanks for expressing yourself fully and frankly, and consider yourself truly endorsed by at least this partisan reader.
Keep at it (as if you need to be so advised!)
Louis – Louis de Vries Director Hybrid Publishers PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204 Telephone (03) 9504 3462 — See our web site at http://www.hybridpublishers.com.au http://www.hybridpublishers.com.au/

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Louis, you stiffen my wavering spine. Thank you
howard
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Wonderful blog old Man, thank you!??
Regards, Pablo Wundheiler
t: 0447 439 362
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Husband and I went to see the movie Lee last evening, about Lee Miller a Vogue camera woman who photographed and brought to the world a record of the unbelievable outcome of Hitler on the people, to get rid of people the they didn’t want in the world.
It is very difficult Dr Goldenberg for people to see the horror on TV every day for Palestinians. Netanyahu speaks and acts with horror to press into hunting the enemy Hamas and in the process tens of thousands are killed maimed and made homeless. We see a smile on his face as a white suprematist who has the biggest backing in the world.. the USA. President Biden at the outset told him not to go too hard so as to leave regret later, we heard these words but N went into war anyway and it’s is horrible. It appears or reads to many of us like the past Holocaust must now be repeated on someone else, those who are innocent.
Dr.. we have been to the Middle East.. spent time in Israel as independent travellers on our way to Ghana as missionaries. We went to Hebron and got into difficulties there and we saw the underclass Palestinians, powerless is all I could say. We saw the Police knock down the houses of some poor folk and stones being thrown, the only defence they had.
I don’t know how we can watch it all without feeling the overreach. You mention the Palestinian people but don’t tell us how those who care for them are assisting them in their own terrible suffering. It goes on and on. I suspect the whole story isn’t being told on mainstream media.
An eye for an eye.. and we are all blind.
Can I leave you with a Christian teacher who is a Pastor that helped me in the current USA election. And an art piece that I had in an exhibition recently that had a prophetic idea echoed in the title Pressing on Upward.
From Pastor David Shepherd. I woke up this morning to the news headline, “A new world order! Trump wins US election.”
What followed, depending on what journalist you were reading, were either articles depicting a great sense of ecstasy, hope and confidence that America was back on track, or, articles dooming not just America, but the world to a period of great darkness, trouble and global uncertainty.
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that politics is polarising.
And, if we are to believe the news and opinions sites, it seems as if we are left with only one of two options – the liberal left, or the conservative right.
So where does this leave the church? In such a contested and divisive space, how should we respond, and with whom should we stand?
It’s here that a little passage in Joshua is helpful:
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Joshua 5:13-14.
Joshua is about to go to war against Jericho when he has this profound encounter with the commander of the army of the Lord. Scholars are divided over who this commander is. Some say the arch angel Michael, while others argue that this is indeed an encounter with the pre-incarnate Son of God. Either way, the message God gives Joshua is significant – God wasn’t for Jericho or Israel, he was for himself.
God wasn’t interested in a person or a party’s political agenda, he was interested in his agenda being outworked on the earth. The agenda of righteousness, justice, and shalom. God was calling Joshua (and Israel) to engage in HIS fight, not the other way around.
To me it resonates with Peter’s exhortation in 1 Peter 2:11-12, “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Peter was asking the church to engage in the affairs of the pagan nations in which they dwelt, but to recognise they weren’t living for their own agendas, but for God’s. Which means when it comes to the church and its interactions in the political sphere we must remember that we are not ‘left’ or ‘right,’ rather, we are ‘up!’
We must not be ignorant or indifferent to what is happening in the world, we must engage! But we do so not with a left wing, right wing or moderate agenda because we fit none of those categories. We do so as citizens of a different kingdom. We do so with the agenda of heaven.
This means the secular world will hate our stance on Biblical righteousness, morality and the exclusive nature of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But it will also see the way we live out that salvation by loving the least, embracing the broken, feeding the hungry and seeking justice on the earth and be amazed.
The kingdom call is in equal parts confusing, convicting and compelling to the pagan society in which it lives.
So regardless of how you feel about this morning’s news, remember your call. We are not called to left or right, but the kingdom of God! Why? Because we know that the true world order does not shift or change with the election of new presidents, but rests firmly in the palm of our soon coming King – Jesus Christ.
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” Colossians 1:15-18
Amen
From Sheila Whittam.
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Dear Sheila, Thank you for writing your heartfelt comment to my blog post on Two Silences.
This, my response, reaches you tardily. I actually created a response immediately on reading your deeply felt comments. IT technical difficulties defeated me: i was unable to publish what i wrote. If you are reading this now, it is with the help of my daughter who enables her inept father to post.
“You certainly broke the first silence, Sheila. I invited readers to express themselves, you did so, and I respect the sincerity and the strength of your feelings. You wrote: An eye for an eye.. and we are all blind,
I find that a compelling thought. Thank you.
In my post I refrained from expressing my conflicted feelings about the war. But it appears you have drawn the correct impression that I believe Israel has no choice but to act, so as to prevent any future attack like that of October7 last year. Hamas has publicly vowed to repeat such attacks until Israel no longer exists. Israel takes Hamas at its word.
(Hamas has declared its intention to clear all Islamic lands of infidels. Christians too should take Hamas at its word.)
You, Sheila – like me, like anyone capable of empathy – are appalled and distressed by the images on TV of civilian suffering, most acutely of children suffering. You consider Netanyahu’s war against Hamas to be morally wrong. I don’t think anyone can suggest that any act of warfare that harms civilians is morally perfect. But anybody who believes there actually exists any morally perfect path open to Israel must provide a morally perfect response to the following scenario:
Your neighbour sits down on his balcony, overlooking your front yard. Your neighbour places his toddler on his knee.
That neighbour then picks up an automatic weapon and starts shooting at your family, including your small children who are playing in the front yard. Members of your unarmed family fall injured, dying, dead. Your neighbour continues firing.
What is your morally pure response? What course of perfectly innocent action can you take?
I have sought an answer to this dilemma that is less ‘wrong’ than Israel’s response. Ever since October last year, I have not ceased looking for any purer way for Israel to defend its people. In all the righteous ink spilled in condemning Israel, I have not read of a purer path. Anyone who stands in judgement of Israel without addressing this dilemma, without acknowledging the moral agony of the situation, is failing all the peoples of the region. To condemn Israel without reference to this aching complexity is to enjoy a hopelessly compromised moral smugness.
I am unable to express myself calmly in face of this complexity. Few people who care about human suffering remain calm. The uncalm is felt here in Australia as everywhere. It tears us apart.
For some, the human pain generates anger, and the anger lands on fellow Australians, in the form of antisemitism. We experience a rending of the fabric of community in our country. The silent majority rejects this hatred of Jews. Our community cannot afford to be silent. On this category of silence, I call on my readers to speak out.
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Wonderful blog, old man. I for one continue to read you and admire you. I think the solution to our many conflicts, disagreements and differences is to focus in all that is common between us and all beings, namely our wish to be happy and free from suffering, instead of the little that separates us. And you’ve been teaching me that lesson for decades now, for which I thank you. I hope you have a lovely shabbos!❤️
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pablo, ever loving, ever kind
thank you
viejo
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I will forever remember you in your Kippah and red socks. But mostly for the fun that usually ensued during a visit to the doctors. My favourite memory was when you came into the waiting room and scooped my newborn son off my knee and skipped back to your consulting room with him whilst I followed on. I hope you get back to that time, when you were unapologetically you, very soon. May the future bring no more tiptoeing and much more fabulously fun you!
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and i remember a small girl with a ready smile who somehow became an adult, a mum, and a faithful reader
it’s always been a warm connection
long may it continue, leonie!
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