“I’m pausing, I’m mourning, I’m standing with”

Last night, I had words ready to be shared.

And then the world shifted.

In Sydney, a Jewish community gathered to light the first candle of Chanukah, a festival born from the refusal to let darkness have the final word. And instead of safety, they were met with devastation.

I have paused my scheduled posts, because some things ask us to stop speaking on schedule

and start speaking from the heart.

I am shaken.

And I am holding close the Jewish community here, and everywhere who continue to carry both memory and hope, faith and fear, light and history, all at once.

My own family line carries Jewish roots through my mother’s father’s family. I know, not only intellectually but through story and inheritance, that antisemitism is not an abstract idea. It lives in bodies. It passes through generations. It teaches vigilance where there should have been ease.

And so today, I do not want to offer analysis.

I want to offer presence.

There are moments when the world tempts us toward hate sharp, reactive, dividing hate. But every faith tradition I know, every sacred story I trust, points us back to the same fragile and courageous act:

To hold each other in love, even when fear is loud.

Especially then.

Chanukah is a story of light kindled deliberately, night after night, when darkness had reason to feel victorious. It is a reminder that holiness is often quiet, repetitive, and chosen again and again.

Last night, today and forever I choose to stand against hatred by standing with:

With those grieving.

With those afraid.

With those whose very existence has been politicised or threatened.

If you are reading this and feeling shaken too, know this:

You are not weak for feeling it.

You are human.

And your tenderness is not a liability, it is a form of resistance.

May we be people who refuse to harden.

May we be people who protect one another’s dignity.

May we learn, again that love is not passive, but brave.

Today, I light a candle in my own way.

And I hold it up for peace.