The Litmus Test

A Warning from the Past, Present and Bondi Beach. There will be more Bondi Beaches.

I write this in the immediate aftermath of a massacre.

How a society treats Jews functions as a litmus test in the strict sense, not the rhetorical one. A substance placed against litmus paper must fall within a narrow range to remain stable and habitable. Outside that range—too acidic or too alkaline—it becomes corrosive, unfit for life.

Civilisation is no different.

When a society drifts too far in either moral direction—toward ideological frenzy on one side or moral indifference on the other—it begins to dissolve. And when it dissolves, Jews are among the first to be targeted. This is not because Jews are uniquely powerful or uniquely resented beneficiaries of social arrangements. Antisemitism does not require a grievance economy. Jews are not advantaged by affirmative action.

They are not protected by institutional indulgence. They are not insulated from power. Antisemitism flourishes precisely when moral restraint weakens—when judgment becomes conditional, when responsibility is de…