Page 78 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

initiative in support of the hostages. When institutional church support waned, she persisted in a private capacity, joining forces with broadcaster Julie McCrossin in making a video which drew a link between Kristallnacht and October 7.
‘Why am I prepared to speak up? It gets inside me’, she explains matter-of-factly. ‘It’s partly inexplicable, but I identify three defining factors. Living in the US in my youth, we had great Jewish neighbours, I played with Jewish kids and my father’s mentor in medical research was a Belgian scientist who fled the Holocaust. Back in Australia, my siblings and I were shocked to hear “Jew” used in the playground as a derogatory term. We would discuss it at the dinner table. It was my first taste of antisemitism.
‘Then a lightbulb moment occurred when I was 18. I heard a Jesuit priest say we cannot understand who we are as a Catholic people without turning to the Jews. I knew he was right. I understood it to mean our faith is not just about principles and beliefs, but about community and relationships which are anchored in Christianity’s Jewish roots’.
‘The third formative factor happened when I undertook a master’s course in Jerusalem on Torah. It changed my life. It shaped the direction of my studies when I returned home and became involved in interfaith work. I returned to Israel seven times and took Catholic groups there. A friend said I’d never be Catholic the same way again. He was right, evidenced by the fact that I regularly attend Shabbat services!’
Pirola was one of six people invited to pin symbolic yellow ribbons to a Magen David at a Sydney vigil for the hostages. She wrote a poignant article on hearing family members of the hostages speak at North Shore Synagogue. ‘Each speaker represents an individual family’, she wrote. ‘Yet they belong to one great family—the Jewish people—united ... as they
78