Universalism or tribalism? Michael Gawenda's memoir considers what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Australia
- Written by Dennis Altman, VC Fellow LaTrobe University, La Trobe University
At one point in this book, journalist Michael Gawenda claims “only progressive, secular reviewers are chosen to review books about Jews.” So I need begin my review of My Life as a Jew by acknowledging that I fit this description.
Like Gawenda, I am the son of Jewish refugees, although I grew up in a totally secular home. I think of myself as Jewish, although on the census forms I tick “no religion”. I have virtually no contact with the organised Jewish community. For much of his adult life, that might also have described Gawenda.
Positioning myself at the outset is important because Gawenda has written a very personal book, which in some ways is a direct challenge to Jews like me who are deeply critical of Israel. I am also friends with several of the people he criticises, particularly Louise Adler and Peter Beinart.
Gawenda came out of a specifically left Jewish tradition, that of the Bund, which was secular, socialist and, in its origins, opposed to Zionism. Like many others who grew up in Bundist households, Gawenda has constantly struggled with his growing identification with Israel, which is simultaneously a foreign country and one that grants citizenship to all Jews.
“Whether I liked it or not,” he writes, “I was connected to Israel, the Jewish state.”
Review: My Life as a Jew – Michael Gawenda (Scribe)
For most of his professional life, including a period as Editor in Chief of the Melbourne Age, Gawenda did not see his Jewishness as central to his being. My Life as a Jew traces a growing sense of Jewish identity, in large part due to his sense of growing antisemitism on the left, which makes him increasingly uneasy about his former political allies.