Alex Ryvchin’s latest book – The Seven Deadly Myths
Alex Ryvchin’s new book, The Seven Deadly Myths, investigating the conspiracies behind antisemitism, was launched in Sydney yesterday.
Alex Ryvchin addresses the book launch Photo: Ilan Harris
At a packed theatre at the Bondi Pavilion, Ryvchin, c0-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, unpacked some of the pervasive myths mentioned in his book, explaining the reasoning why he felt this book was necessary to write.
He thanked community members and family for their assistance and for providing the ‘spark’ to start the project.
The book’s cover with an endorsement from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Ryvchin came to Australia at three years old, his family refugees and refuseniks. He has served on the ECAJ in varying capacities since 2013. The Seven Deadly Myths is his fourth book.
Over the past few years, he has averaged one book published every 18 months, said friend and colleague Robert Goot.
Ryvchin’s previous book is the international bestseller A New Day, written during Covid-19 to ‘help families overcome adversity’. Ryvchin is not unfamiliar with lived experiences of antisemitism. As a vocal representative of the Jewish community, he has been the target of antisemitism but also recalled during the address the impact of antisemitism on his childhood.
He said: “Coming from the Soviet Union, I saw how it affected my parents and my grandparents. It presented as a sort of rising dread, a tendency to only experience joy while waiting for the next disaster and a fear that seemed to lurk in the eyes. I faced some small dose of this as a boy of 12, living with my family in a middle-class neighbourhood. When directly above from us their lived a man, a migrant from Austria who upon learning we were Jewish would stand on his balcony night after night and bellow at us, alternating between this thunderous guttural roar and this sneering toneful menace, ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job, I will finish it for him.”
During his address at the book launch, Ryvchin summated the experience of antisemitism, that it was regularly ‘erased, downplayed and dismissed’ while Jews were viewed as being ‘too white, too rich and too privileged’ to be included in anti-racism initiatives and conversations. The cause of antisemitism, some would say jealousy of success in business, science, the arts and society. Ryvchin refutes this. People are not jealous, he states, of what they respect. It is not the perceived success in business that he believes causes antisemitism but, our ‘success of survival, for which we have never been forgiven’. The Jewish community’s ability to survive hardship holding on to its culture and religion makes it an easy scapegoat. With discriminatory laws on Jews over centuries the ‘mythical Jew’ as Ryvchin puts it was created, becoming a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, so that Jews were chastised for the insular nature and occupations that were forced upon them.
President of the ECAJ Jillian Segal spoke on the quality of writing. She stated: “Not only is Alex an accomplished author, particularly on the subject of antisemitism but he is a wonderful writer saying he took ‘an innovative approach to the issue… it really might be used by educators and policy makers to change the hate landscape but that doesn’t mean it is written like a textbook by any means, it is really written as an engaging read for everyone.’ Video messages of support were also provided by Allegra Spender MP, Julian Leeser MP, and Josh Burns MP.
Alex Ryvchin signing books Photo: Ilan Harris
Addressing The Seven Deadly Myths ability to inform that section of the Australian public shown by the Gandel Holocaust Report 2021 as having no firm view about antisemitic tropes but may hold, as the report suggests, ‘persistent latent antisemitism’, Ryvchin states how Holocaust education alone is not enough to reduce antisemitism. ‘…it’s not of itself sufficient, we need to teach about antisemitism in the mythology conspiracy theories… and that’s what this book does. But the fact that a lot of people aren’t maybe hard antisemites, but are persuadable one way or another, is a good thing. But it’s also a dangerous thing. Because with the amount of online propaganda, people can easily be seduced by these myths and conspiracy theories…the more that we can get out there, proactively engage with people and educate people, the more we can counter these myths.”
Ryvchin believes many in the Jewish community do not sufficiently understand the origins of the very conspiracies placed upon them. “They will be familiar with them, particularly the connection of Jews with money. It’s a very common stereotype that most Jews have been affected by at one time or another. But in terms of understanding where that actually came from, why they persist, and who created them for what sinister purpose, there’s almost absolute ignorance in the Jewish community about that. So, while this book is written for probably a non-Jewish audience, I think Jews will get a lot from it, in terms of them being able to advocate and defend themselves.’
Alex Ryvchin appears a realist about his work and does not see it as the cure-all for antisemitism but instead a stepping-stone for progress and a beneficial tool for parents, teachers and community groups, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. But there is more, he states, to be done outside of providing facts. “I think engagement is critical here because the Jew, over time, has attracted all these myths. And the concept that people have of the Jew, is one shrouded in mythology and the more that they see the real flesh and blood Jew, the proud Australian, the civic-minded Jew, Jewish Australian, the less these myths become potent, the more they crumble. The mythical Jew, the real Jew, can’t coexist. So, the more that the real Jew can enter in place of the mythical Jew, the quicker it will displace these conspiracy theories.”
