What hurts more, the silence of erstwhile friends, or the open hostility of strangers?
The media turned. Social media turned. Several prominent 'influencers' – many of whom call themselves 'feminists' – posted aggressive anti-Zionist rants online. These were the progressive left, people I had admired and supported in the past. It was profoundly shocking. I felt violated. I can tolerate differences of opinion – I mean, I trade in opinion pieces – but this was blatant misinformation. Many of these influencers called Israeli Jews 'colonisers', erasing our ancient ties to the land of Israel.
One by one, several of my non-Jewish friends in the media joined the chorus, making their own antisemitism blatantly clear. They 'liked' offensive posts or wrote inflammatory posts of their own. Some thinly disguised their antisemitism as anti-Zionism. Others didn't bother to hide their contempt for us. Stop using the Holocaust as an excuse. Go back to Poland. Good on Hamas. It was resistance! There were no rapes. This wasn't empathy for Palestinians. This was hatred of Jews. It shattered me, because these people knew me, the Jew. We used to share coffees, meals, our life stories, secrets. How could I not have known what they thought of me and my people?
I have been writing opinion pieces for over twenty years. I am told I am good at it. Sometimes I can change people's minds with my words. So I tried to use my platform for good. There are two peoples who are indigenous to the land of Israel, I posted on social media. This is the source of the conflict. I was measured. I was calm. I knew that I would be able to help people see that Jews could care deeply about the hostages and their dead, and also feel devastated at the loss of Palestinian life.
I was wrong. The comments were fast to arrive, the likes of ZIONISTS LOVE GENOCIDE.
I've had vile comments in the past, sure, but I've usually been able to disarm the commenter with humour. More than once, I've turned a troll into a fan.
Not this time.
Initially, I responded as gently and reasonably as I could. I sent links to articles, explaining the history of the Jews in Israel. ZIONIST PROPAGANDA, they wrote back. STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR COLONISERS.
No argument worked. Nothing could make the commenters reflect on their own prejudices. Why did they care so passionately about this one conflict, but not about ones in Yemen or Sudan? Why did they care about the suffering of other minorities, but dismissed – even mocked – the suffering of Jews? Why did they 'believe all woman' except Jewish women?
No argument worked. I realised, because antisemitism is not logical. You can't use reason to dismantle hate.
With that dawning realisation, something happened to my brain. A sense of hopelessness and impotence overwhelmed me and, in the vacuum it created, the horrors of the Holocaust finally caught up with me, flooding my consciousness, running on a continuous loop in the background. My body was in Sydney, but my mind now was in the shetls. I saw the trucks rolling in, saw the trains, the piles of bodies, saw my father shot, heard my kids screaming for help. The intergenerational trauma I believed I'd been free of had been there all along, lying dormant inside me.
It was the closest I have ever come to a mental breakdown. I cried and I shook, and at night I lay sleepless. I could not talk myself down. For several weeks, I felt constantly frightened and constantly on alert.
In desperation, I went to my GP and got a script for antidepressants; the first time I had taken them in many years. I cut down on my news intake, limited my social media and disengaged from conversations about the Middle East. I rewatched movies from the 1980s, a time when I felt completely safe. It took three or four weeks for the fear to recede and the Holocaust visions to fade.
Eventually, I felt ready to write about my experience. I also wanted to write about the doxxing of 600 Jewish creatives and academics, which happened at the time of my crisis and made the news. I pitched the idea to the editor of my column several times. I even offered to waive the fee. I literally begged for the opportunity. I was firmly told 'no', they weren't interested in my take. They'd heard enough on the topic. No one reads those pieces anyway. They did, however, eventually run an article by another Jewish columnist, calling for the end of Israel as a Jewish state and blaming antisemitism in the diaspora on Israel. She, an anti-Zionist, was allowed to write her opinion on matters related to our community. I was not.
I continued to receive hate just for being Jewish. After a column I wrote in support of child-free women, I was accused online of 'wanting to stop other women from having children so you can populate the world with your genocidal Jewish babies'.
I quit social media entirely.
I'm a fairly resilient person, but my experience of antisemitism, and of being silenced when I wanted to speak against it, changed me. My passion for writing was crushed. My sense of security was shattered. I learned that antisemitism is just bubbling away under the surface. Friends can turn against me. The community I live in can turn toxic. People will hate me just because I'm Jewish. I have learned, too, that the trauma of persecution is in our DNA, even in those of us who have lived a relatively sheltered life. We cannot escape our trauma, because it continues to play out. We exist in a state of threat, as we have for thousands of years. Our history will be denied. Our pain will be mocked. Our words will be twisted and weaponised against us.
More than a year after October 7, my mental health has improved, but my life will never be the same. I cannot unlearn this new knowledge. I will never forget what has happened, and what is still happening. I am still struggling to write anything, including this essay. And as I do, I brace myself for the worst, for these words may be weaponised too.
– Kerri Sackville (2025) 'What Hurts More?' in Lee Kofman & Tamar Paluch (eds.) Ruptured: Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 7, pp. 70-73. (Bolding mine).
