Almost 30 years ago now I wrote a book about Jewish migration to Australia – looking at its successes and its dark side, in particular the upsurge of anti-semitism in the face of Jewish migration after the Second World War.

The leaders of that seminal migration movement have long passed on. They have left behind ghosts who speak to us of their triumphs against the odds, and great accomplishments which would likely be beyond those left behind today in the face of the 24-hour news cycle and the heavy fear agenda being driven in the media.

Every time Oren went into the bathroom for his bath, there he was - the boy on the other side of the mirror.

Oren thought he knew the boy but he was not sure. The boy looked very familiar.

The boy was always having things done to him by people wanting to keep him clean and warm. His hair brushed. Eyes wiped. Ears cleaned. Clothes changed. He was always so clean and handsome.

London in January. An unforgiving place for a young fellow from
Melbourne on his own.

You can ignore, living in our paradise in the south, how hard and disinterested the world can be, especially with the sun setting on dark and dreary days in London at 4pm or thereabouts.

Of course, it’s the greatest place with a little spare change in the pocket, which I didn’t have.

It is Saturday morning in Russell Square, and Chelsea is playing Liverpool at Stamford Bridge.

Football, the beautiful game, on which I was reared by a migrant father who had thrown up the shutters on all the Australian games - which were either too violent or too boring, or too many rules or not enough.

My wife moved to Israel from Melbourne at age 18, and planned to spend the rest of her days there. It was a defiant gesture on her part about where Jews should live. A put down to the vicious Nazi assault on the Jewish people only a small number of years before.

I had not developed any particular capacity for defiant gestures. To the contrary, all my post-Holocaust teaching was disposed against defiant gestures. After all, it would only take one defiant gesture in wartime, and you would be killed on the spot or carted away to die. Defiance was for the quick or the dead.

A comedy of modem theatrical manners.

‘The Perfect Moment’ may be the world's worst play. It is certainly the worst-ever play to be mounted by the prestigious Melbourne Repertory Theatre. How could they have agreed to put it on?

Humble Roger Normandy has the dubious honourof being creator of ‘The Perfect Moment’. Briefly, he envisages fame. Rudely, he is trampled by the giant egos who stride Melbourne Rep's boards.

Salvation has never seemed further from hand.

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