Since 7 October, we have seen challenges that we simply could never have imagined. The Jewish people are facing tough times. We feel it in Israel and all over the world, including here in Sydney, Australia.

But even in the darkest times, it is important that we look for the light.

In just over two weeks’ time we will celebrate the festival of Chanukah. We remember a time when the Jewish people were persecuted for our faith, forced to assimilate and to let go of our traditions.

We saw then that the spirit of the Jewish people cannot be extinguished. After winning an impossible battle, the Jewish people regained sovereignty of the land of Israel, strengthening our unbreakable connection with the land of Israel. We saw then what we still see today – that for Judaism to flourish, we need to join together in unity and we need our Homeland.

Since the start of the current conflict, every Monday and Thursday, our High School students have come together for tefillah. This came out of a sense that in these difficult times we need more togetherness. We need to stand together, recite our tefillot together and to sing together. We end the tefillah by singing “Acheinu”, we sing that we are brothers and sisters, all of our community, united with our brothers and sisters in Israel.

It is beautiful and powerful to see our students singing this song with all their heart and soul, often putting their arms around one another as they do so.

This is the light in the darkness.

From our lowest moments, we unite, we become stronger and we succeed. Just as the flames of a candle always point up, so do we. We realise that we have no option but to rise and we do so by uniting together.

As a Jewish people, we have never been more unified.

We also see a surge of Jewish pride. Instead of hiding their Jewishness in the face of increased antisemitism, I see more students than ever wearing Magen David necklaces, attending Jewish communal events, and wanting to proudly represent the Jewish people.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l wrote, The world respects Jews who respect Judaism, and they are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism. Our students gain the respect of others through the way they continue to show their pride and respect for themselves and for others around them.

In letters that our Year 7 students recently wrote to Israeli children, many of them instinctively began by saying, To my Israeli family… Although they have never met, we do feel that we are family. We are one family, all of Am Yisrael, wherever we are in the world.

As long as we have our unity and our pride in who we are, then we can overcome any challenge. We can get through these darker times and we can continue to spread the light.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Talya Wiseman is the Head of Jewish Life, High School, at Moriah College in Queens Park, NSW.