Juliet Moses reflects on her almost-typical Kiwi childhood – and her concerns for her children as antisemitism stirs from its long slumber downunder.

Growing up in Auckland, I knew I was a bit different.

Christmas wasn’t a big deal for me. My family didn’t have a Christmas tree and a wreath on our door, and 25 December was the most boring day of the year. Often, we would travel to a holiday destination on that day. Once, we excitedly discovered the movies were on, and had pretty much the entire theatre to ourselves.

Around Easter, my customary school lunchbox sandwiches got replaced with thin, dry tasteless crackers that my friends would ask to try, but only once.

On Sunday mornings, I begrudgingly went to a special school – listening to Bad Jelly the Witch on the radio as we carpooled there – where I learned a script we read from right to left. Sometimes I would use words I thought were part of every family’s lexicon, but when I was greeted with blank stares I realised they were Yiddish. When the subject of World War II came up, or what was happening in the world, I often sensed a raw and bitter pain in my grandmother.

Yes, I knew I was a bit different, but I was proud to be Jewish. My family, although not religious, was observant. I had a bat mitzvah (a coming-of-age ceremony) when I turned 13. Some of the highlights of the year for me were the Jewish festivals, when we took a day off school to attend synagogue and gather together with close family friends for a ceremonial dinner that included much rowdiness and hilarity.

The joke (Jews often use humour as a coping mechanism) is that most Jewish festivals can be summed up as, “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.” Actually, it does exemplify much of what it is to be Jewish: the almost overpowering weight of history and persecution that is embedded in our shared consciousness; our miraculous survival as an ancient people through to the modern era; our determination to look forward and celebrate life; and our fondness for family and food.

Indeed, my favourite festival was and still is Passover (Pesach). This is when we sit around the table and recall the Israelites’ emancipation from slavery in Egypt, leaving in such a hurry they didn’t have time to finish cooking their bread (which is why we eat the thin crackers, matza), and the start of their wandering towards redemption in the Promised Land. 

The genesis of the Jews as a people is in the Levant, where Israel is today, in the second millennium BCE. In the land of Israel, around the first millennium BCE, they founded a sovereign state and built a magnificent temple in Jerusalem. Under successive occupations – Babylonians, Romans, Arabs and so on – they were forced into exile throughout the diaspora, but continued their practices, and preserved their heritage and coalescence as a people, yearning for the return to their ancestral homeland, “Zion”.

St Cuthbert’s, the Presbyterian school my sister and I attended in Auckland, was very respectful of our Judaism. We talked about our customs in assembly. We were likewise respectful. We went to Bible studies and learned about Jesus; we went to the carol services; we learned some te reo and about Māori myths and legends. It was just how things were as Kiwis. We never questioned it. It wasn’t conflicting or burdensome. We knew who we were, and that learning about and respecting the history, practices and predominant religion of the country we were lucky to be born into, did not change that.