Nova Peris at IEJ Academic Symposium 2025

Nova Peris OAM OLY was the special guest speaker at the IEJ Academic Symposium 2025. She gave a compelling talk bringing her perspective as an Indigenous Australian Woman, discussing the similarities in Indigenous experiences between her people and the Jewish people and telling of the enormous contributions of the Jewish people to her people and nation. Her heartwarming presentation was met with a standing ovation.

1

Truth Recognises Truth

Shalom, my brothers and sisters.

My name is Nova Peris, and I stand before you as a proud Yawuru, Lunga Kitja, and Bunitj Gagadju woman. Those are my tribes, my lineages and I speak to you today as an Aboriginal woman from Australia, a First Nations woman whose people have walked our continent for over 65,000 years.

When I say that, I don’t say it from arrogance I say it from truth,

for science. Because our sovereignty has never been ceded.

And that truth, that eternal connection to land and spirit, is the

same truth that lives in the heart of the Jewish people. The

Jewish people have never ceded theirs.

Two peoples.

Worlds apart.

Bound by ancient stories of survival, sovereignty, faith, and

endurance.

I want to begin by saying thank you to our hosts here in this

sacred Land of Israel. This is my third time walking this land, and every time I come back, I’m reminded why I came here in the first place.

I did NOT come for politics.

I did NOT come for religion.

I came for truth.

Because truth recognises truth.

When I stand on my Country back home in Arnhem Land, I

stand on rock art that is tens of thousands of years old. I see the

ochre handprints of my ancestors, painted on cave walls before

the pyramids were even built.

And when I stand here in Jerusalem, in Be’er Sheva, THE Sea

of Galilee and on top of Masada I feel the same heartbeat in the

mother earth.

This land, too, holds a peoples whose story of connection to land,

of exile and return, of survival against all odds, mirrors our own.3

The Jewish people’s truth is written in stone, in scripture, in

archaeology, in language just like mine is written in ochre, in

songline, in ceremony, in Country.

That is why I came here.

To honour that truth.

To walk shoulder to shoulder with a people who, like my own, have had to fight simply to exist.

Back home in Australia, we fought for truth through the courts.

In 1992, after 10 years of litigation in the High Court a significant

decision called the Mabo Decision overturned the great lie

of terra nullius — that our land was “empty, upon colonisation in

1788. It took ten long years and a great but humble indigenous man

named Eddie Mabo, supported by a Jewish barrister, Ron

Castan, to prove what we already knew: our connection to land

has never been broken. The High Court of Australia finally said, “The fiction by which the rights and interests of Indigenous inhabitants were treated as

non-existent has no place in the law of this country.”

That was a moment of truth.

And science supported it, archaeology, the DNA, and

continuous culture proving we have been there for over 60,000

years.

So, when I hear anyone — even one of our own — question that

truth, it cuts deep, and it came in recent times.

Because we can’t come to the Land of Israel, where every stone

cries out proof of an ancient people’s connection, and then deny

the same truth about our own. We cannot stand here to honour Jewish truth and erase Aboriginal truth.

We are here to bring justice — not propaganda.

To bring unity — not ego.

To walk together — not tear each other down.

We are here to honour truth — in all its forms.

The Aboriginal story and the Jewish story are not identical — but they rhyme.

For Aboriginal people, terra nullius tried to erase us — “land

belonging to no one.” It lasted 204 years.

For the Jewish people, the Romans did the same in 135 CE,

when they crushed a revolt and renamed Judea to Syria- Palestinia, trying to erase Jewish identity from their own homeland.

Both lies failed.

Because truth cannot be destroyed.

We are both Indigenous peoples whose very existence exposes

the lie.

Our connection of Australia and Jewish People runs deeper than

most people realise. On 31 October 1917, in WW1 – the Australian Light Horse regiments carried out the charge at Be’er Sheva — one of the

most extraordinary moments in military history. 800 Australian

soliders on their horses. The Australian Light Horseman.

Among those riders were Aboriginal men, they were not even

recognised as citizens in their own land. Yet they rode bravely

into battle in a foreign desert. They fought through gunfire, broke the Ottoman lines, NO rifles were raised, no bullets fired just bayonets gleamed into the sunset. They galloped for the water, for life for brothers they

knew through dust and fire and their courage secured the wells

that opened the road to Jerusalem. 31 souls paid the price for

Israels freedom their names now etched in sacrifice.

Three days later, the Balfour Declaration was issued — committing Britain to support a Jewish homeland. Aboriginal men had shed their blood in the same campaign that helped make Israel’s rebirth possible.

And it didn’t end there.

In September 1918, the 11th Light Horse Regiment, known as

the Queensland Black Watch because of its many Aboriginal

troopers, fought at Samakh near the Sea of Galilee.

Hand-to-hand combat.

Seventeen Australians killed, more than sixty wounded. Many of those Aboriginal soldiers’ names never appeared in the records but their courage is carved in Israeli memory.

In 2019, at Tzemach, a statue was unveiled — an Aboriginal

Light Horseman and his horse, inscribed with the words:

“No Greater Love Than This.”

When those men came home, they returned to a country that

denied them the vote, denied them land, denied them recognition.

But Israel — Israel remembered them with honour.

When I visited that statue with our delegation, I raised

the Aboriginal flag beside it. That moment… it was healing. It was history speaking truth again.

That bond between our peoples was reborn in 1938, through one

aboriginal man William Cooper, a Yorta Yorta elder.

When news reached Australia about Kristallnacht — the Night of

Broken Glass — Cooper led a small group of Aboriginal people

to the German Consulate in Melbourne. He carried a petition

condemning Nazi persecution of Jews. He had no citizenship. No vote. His own people were dispossessed. But he stood up for Jewish lives on the other side of the world. That petition was ignored then, but today his courage is

honoured at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

William Cooper understood something timeless:

When one oppressed people suffer, all oppressed peoples

suffer.

When one truth is denied, all truths are at risk.

The first time I came to Israel was in March 2024, just five

months after October 7. I visited Kibbutz Be’eri, only two kilometres from Gaza — where over 100 innocent civilians were murdered.

The smell of death still lingered.

I met Jeffrey, an Australian Jew whose sister Galit was killed

that day. I stood on the grounds of the Nova Music Festival, where

hundreds of young, joyful people were massacred — and I wept.

I forced myself to watch the 47-minute footage Hamas filmed of

their atrocities. Children burned alive. Women raped. Families executed.

It was not politics.

It was not resistance.

It was evil.

And what broke my heart was seeing it celebrated — in Gaza, on city streets, even in parts of Australia.

A poll later found that 72% of Palestinians supported the October 7 attacks. Seventy-two percent.

And Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, said: “October 7 was just a rehearsal. We will repeat it again and again.”

When someone tells you who they are — believe them.

Let us speak honestly.

Since 2005, there have been no Israelis in Gaza.

Israel withdrew — dismantled settlements, even exhumed graves.

The Palestinians had the chance to build something beautiful — hospitals, universities, farms, businesses.

Instead, they elected Hamas. And Hamas built not schools, but tunnels. Not peace, but terror.

Over 500 kilometres of tunnels, filled with weapons, beneath homes and hospitals. They had a nation — and they turned it into a fortress of hate.

So when people call for “recognition of a Palestinian state,” I ask

— what did they do with the one they already had?

Israel fights not for conquest, but for survival.

And it fights with more restraint than any army in history — warning civilians, dropping leaflets, making calls before strikes.

Yet Israel is condemned, while Hamas — hiding behind civilians — is excused.

The headlines twist the truth.

“Israel attacks Lebanon” — not “Israel defends against Hezbollah rockets.”

“Israel strikes Qatar” — not “Israel targets Hamas leaders hiding in Doha.”

Words matter. Because every lie feed antisemitism — the world’s oldest hatred. Antisemitism changes its costume, but it never dies. It once said Jews killed Christ. Then it said they caused the plague.

Now it says Jews are colonisers.

But history, archaeology, and scripture all tell the truth:

The Jewish people are Indigenous to Israel.

Their language — Hebrew — is over 4,000 years old.

Their capital has always been Jerusalem.

Their God has always been the God of Israel.

They are not colonisers.

They are home.

And as an Aboriginal woman, I see that truth clearly.

Because our languages, too, tie us to land and spirit.

Without our language, we lose who we are.

Without Hebrew, the Jewish people would lose their heartbeat.

It’s the same for us – Yawuru , Yolŋu, Gaagudju.

Our languages are sacred. They are songlines of identity.

That’s why when I see Jews praying in Hebrew, I feel kinship.

It’s the same as us singing in language on Country — an act of

survival, of belonging.

Look at what Israel has given the world.

In medicine — breakthrough cancer treatments, prosthetics, vaccines.

In agriculture — drip irrigation and water recycling that keep nations alive.

In technology — Waze, Mobileye, cybersecurity protecting millions.

In humanitarian aid — Israeli field hospitals among the first to arrive after earthquakes and disasters.

Ten million people, surrounded by enemies, yet still they give light to the nations.

And back home, while Israel defends its survival, we in Australia still fight for recognition. We still wait for truth to be told — while our government

considers recognising a terrorist state. How can we reward terror abroad while justice at home remains undone?

There’s a place in Israel that always takes my breath away

— Masada.

After Jerusalem fell in 70 CE, nearly a thousand Jews held out there for two years. When the Romans breached the walls, they found silence. The Jews had chosen death over slavery.

Masada fell once — but it rose as a symbol. To this day, Israeli soldiers take their oath there, receiving two things:

A weapon — to protect life.

And a Hebrew Bible — to cherish it.

The vow echoes through generations:

“Masada shall not fall again.”

That’s the spirit I see in Israel today — standing tall through fire,

through lies, through hate. And that’s the spirit we, as Aboriginal people, must carry too. I stand here with gratitude — to the Jewish Australians who stood with us:

Ron Castan, who helped win Mabo.

Jeff Sher, who fought for reconciliation.

Jim Spigelman, who carried justice into the High Court.

They stood for us — and now, I stand for them.

Because Aboriginal people know dispossession.

Jewish people know it too.

But both peoples know survival. Both know resilience. Both know truth.

So tonight, let us be brave like the Light Horsemen.

Steadfast like William Cooper.

Faithful like the Jewish people themselves.

Let’s be the generation that heals, not harms.

That lifts, not divides.

That stands shoulder to shoulder — Indigenous and Jewish —

in the eternal light of truth.

When Indigenous people stand with the Jewish people, we stand for something far greater than politics.

We stand for truth itself — the oldest, deepest truth on Earth:

That we are born from the land,

and to the land, we always return.

Am Yisrael Chai — the people of Israel live.

Thank you. Shalom.