Australian Jews grappling with dissolving unity and the rise in antisemitism a year on from 7 October

‘The experiences of ordinary Australian Jews have been harrowing this past year’: shoes, representing Israeli hostages, at a rally in Sydney last October. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images

Ten days after the Hamas attacks that triggered the start of the Israel-Gaza war, Ayelet Nussbaum’s niece and nephew fled from Haifa in northern Israel.

“We’re very relieved – we were very nervous,” the Australian-Israeli florist from Glebe in New South Wales told Guardian Australia when she met her relatives at Sydney airport. Within about a month of that first repatriation flight, Haifa was deemed safe enough for them to return home. To the south, the bombardment of Gaza picked up pace.