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.