The Prime Minister’s Rosh Hashanah message
Anthony Albanese writes:
Anthony Albanese
“I wish the Jewish community the very best as you mark the beginning of a new year, and what we all hope will be a better year.
In the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah is a time of reflection on the year that has passed, and prayerful anticipation for the year that will be. This time, tragically, the High Holy
Days carry the solemn weight of all that began last year on 7 October.
As the first anniversary approaches, the Jewish people still so keenly feel the shadow of that most terrible of days. This has been a year of pain, of loss, of absence and grief. For many, it has also meant the agony of not knowing, of waiting to learn about the fate of a loved one. This is a pain the Jewish people should never have had to endure again.
Nor should the Jewish people have to be exposed again to those hatreds that had their most pitiless culmination in the Holocaust. We reject antisemitism in all its unconscionable forms. This land offered Jewish people refuge in those dark years of the last century, and it embraces you now.
Jewish Australians – like all Australians – have the right to feel safe here in our great multicultural society. Jewish Australians have long been a valued and important part of the modern Australian story. Australia is your home, and you have made it a better home.
While the road ahead will not be easy, may you be able to draw strength from your traditions and faith and find within their rich depths the hope of better years ahead.
Shanah tovah u’metuka.
