It’s easy to become despondent about the ‘worst humanitarian crisis of our time’. You become numb to the brutality, to the various daily atrocities, to the enormous figures dead, internally displaced or made into refugees. And that’s just in Syria. In Yemen, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan, the trauma of millions continues, unrelenting, day in and day out. It often feels like some kind of Kafkaesque dream: our own government seemingly gleeful in constructing and reinforcing a twisted narrative of ‘death cults’ and ‘unlawful entry, championing the use of hard power as a way to bring peace and stability to countries in turmoil.

Netanyahu's recent address to Congress on the topic proposed an emotional, existential argument that attempted to create fear in order to drive and influence US policy and the current round of nuclear talks. Netanyahu attempted to portray Iran as an irrational actor who, should it obtain a nuclear weapon, would have no hesitation in launching it at Israel.

Currently, we do not know how many victims there are of institutionalised Jewish child sexual abuse. It is naïve to believe that Manny Waks and his two brothers are the extent of it. Regardless of who else comes forward, abiding by the religious tradition of miserah has done untold damage to the lives of the Waks family and, ironically, to the Jewish community itself.

Just recently, the Spanish government announced it was passing legislation to grant citizenship to Sephardic Jews expelled from the country during the Spanish Inquisition. Before that time, religious minorities had been generally tolerated and allowed to follow their own laws and customs in private. In 1492, royal decrees were issued by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella that institutionalised discrimination and persecution against other religions. Essentially, members of any other religious group were considered inferior to Catholics.

There is a block of flats on Nicholson Street in Fitzroy called Cairo. Each cold grey day in Melbourne I pass the flats and wonder why they are named after an ancient, predominantly sunny city in the Middle East. The apartment block, since heritage listed, was completed in 1936 by architect Best Overend as a functional and utilitarian abode for city workers. It’s now the setting for Chris Womersley’s new novel of the same name.