In 1964 I left my Jewish school and my kippah entered the world. My kippah was the first to appear on a university campus. My kippah spoke to the world. My kippah said, I sit on top of a person who is Jewish. I’m a symbolic expression of that person’s belief in a higher Being.
My kippah asked a question of Australia: Can you accept me, can you like me, can you see the person beneath the kippah?
An answer came from the man on the train. As the red rattler rattled its way to Oakleigh, Howard Goldenberg nodded off. His sleep was disturbed by a light percussion on his head, a tap, tapping of a newspaper rolled into a cylinder. Howard woke up, he looked up and saw a man standing over him. The man held a furled newspaper above him. The man spoke. He said, Good on you son. You keep wearing that – another tap with the newspaper – you keep wearing that; it’ll never let you down. With that the man turned and exited the train at Hughesdale Station.
On campus came a similar response. Here too, my kippah spoke. It said, Beneath me you see a proud Jew. He ventures to hope that the country he loves will love him.People on campus, students and staff alike, were united in their rejection of racism. They knew of the Holocaust. Antisemitism was dead. Never again,said the campus. The campus was yet to learn the mantra, Zionism is racism. The campus embraced the kippah and its wearer.
Emboldened, my kippah travelled all over Australia, meeting occasional puzzled looks and many more smiles. My kippah said to Australia, what it had always said, beneath me you see a proud Jew, a happy Australian.
Around the turn of this century, my kippah started to hide beneath secular headgear. No longer sure of itself, my kippah often took shelter, whispering to itself, Never Again has become Once Again. Jewish schools hired armed guards; outside synagogues, men in kippoth with walkie-talkies patrolled the streets.
Windows were broken, swastikas appeared, Jewish graves were defaced. A Neo Nazi group showed its face. In 2022 they numbered one hundred thousand. Social media became antisocial media. My kippah remembered Darkest Europe. It decided to go underground. It sat atop a proud Jew, now intimidated. It peeped out and saw a community polarising, fragmenting. It saw and it cried the beloved country.
Until October 7, 2023. Following those acts of depravity my kippah came out of hiding and found its voice. It exclaimed, beneath me you see a proud Jew. Beneath me you see one whose family has been proudly Australian and proudly Jewish since the 1840’s.
My kippah showed itself and asked every Australian it encountered, Can you love me? I’m a Jew. I’m a Zionist. I’m Pro-Palestinian. Can you weep with me for what’s happening to community here?
howardgoldenberg 