Page 79 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

confront the devastating aftermath of October 7 ... “It’s like being on Schindler’s List”, says one, referring to the recent hostage negotiations. “Who will live, and who will die?” ’
After reprising heartbreaking details about the delegation’s loved ones, her article concluded: ‘Sitting here amidst Sydney’s Jewish community, it is abundantly obvious why they don’t take to the streets with hate slogans ... Their resilience is manifest in the dignity of their united stance that positively affirms their identity, their relationships, their faith ... despite the grief, this courageous little delegation of Israeli Jews imparts no words of hatred.
‘They could, with complete justification, brand their enemies with the hate labels of genocide, rape, torture, mutilation and kidnapping. But they don’t. Incredibly, their words are focused on gratitude: gratitude for those who have come to hear them and for their worldwide Jewish family supporting them’.
Addressing the launch last March of an interfaith document of the Australian Catholic Bishops [Conference], titled Walking Together, Pirola again demonstrated her capacity for understanding. ‘A document like this is only as good as the difference it makes on the ground’, she said. ‘How is it that we Catholics can affirm the belonging First Nations Australians experience to land, yet ignore the Jewish sense of belonging to land which is every bit as spiritual and historical and millennia-long?
‘No devout Catholic can turn a blind eye to the searing history of Christian anti-Judaism, its links to the Holocaust and the mobilisation of tropes by present-day extremists. How do we call our people to face this darkness in our Christian story without crushing them with guilt? How do we approach the task sensitively without courting insensitivity towards
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