First hearings for Australia commission end after Jews share stories of antisemitism

The first block of hearings for the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion ended on Friday, after Jewish residents shared their experiences with antisemitism in the country.

The first block of hearings began on May 4, providing those impacted by rising antisemitism in the country an opportunity to share their insight and testimonies in the wake of the October 7 Massacre and the Bondi Beach Massacre.

Some of those that submitted testimonies were directly impacted by the December terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 15 celebrants at a Hanukkah beachside event. Beit Yosef Synagogue Rabbi Menachem Dadon, who co-sponsored the event in which his daughter was wounded, recalled at the May 11 hearing that once while leaving his synagogue a man confronted him from behind, calling him a "baby killer" and accusing him of killing Palestinians.

"Unfortunately, to be a religious Jew in Sydney is to accept the fact that from time to time, you'll walk on Shabbat and people will drive and just they will allow themselves to say certain things to you to curse," said Dadon.

Usually the rabbi ignored drive-by calls of "free Palestine" and "F**k Jews," but he found it difficult when accompanied by his children.

Combat Antisemitism Movement Australian public affairs officer Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuven Morrison was killed trying to fend off the two Bondi Massacre terrorists, told the commission on May 6 that her childhood memories of the neighborhood had become tainted by antisemitism and the massacre.

“On several occasions in both Sydney and Melbourne in the last two and a half years, I have witnessed cars driving past on main roads with passengers shouting ‘free Palestine’ followed immediately by ‘f**k the Jews.’ This is not political expression but explicit targeted hatred and designed to intimidate,” said Gutnick. “In December 2024, I was walking through Westfield Bondi Junction holding my 12-month-old baby. A man pointed at my Star of David necklace and called me an f***ing terrorist.”

She shared that she had received and seen hundreds of comments saying that she should have been killed in the attack that took her father.

The May 6 hearing also saw teachers, students, and parents detail escalating antisemitic sentiment and bullying in the Australian school system.

A Jewish Sydney public high school student related how the day after the Bondi attack, she walked into a mathematics class only to be greeted by a Nazi salute.

"They've [sic] thrown coins at me and asked if I was going to pick it up. They normally say 'I hate juice' which is commonly referred [sic] to Jews," said the student. "Sometimes they try to rile me up by pretending to sneeze. Instead of saying a chew, they say a Jew, and a couple of people have done the [Nazi leader Adolf] Hitler salute."

The son of a Holocaust survivor described how his son had been subjected to abuse at school in Darwin, with him being called "dirty Jew" and "stinky Jew."

"There were other Nazi style slurs against him. kids would make the Nazi salute," said the father. "He heard kids say 'glass the juice' which is a way of saying 'gas the Jews' and that "Hitler didn't finish the job.'"

A non Jewish Tasmanian teacher spoke about her observations of antisemitism in the school in which she taught, with a Jewish student and their sibling drive to leave the state in 2021 after nothing was done to address antisemitic bullying.

"Students graffitiing swastikas on their desks, in their exercise books, on lockers, on the walls of toilets. There would be a fascination with Hitler. So students would be shouting 'heil Hitler.' They'd be performing a Nazi salute to each other in classrooms, or hallways or in the schoolyard. You would see fingers under their noses to emulate the mustache, Hitler's mustache. Students would be muttering f**king Jews as kind of a casual 'curse.' They also parrot a lot of tropes such as Jews are rich or Jews control all the money, despite not having the faintest idea of the meaning of this trope or the fact that it's false. Refusing to engage in dialogue with me if I tried to discuss it with them. "

The antisemitic sentiment grew greater after the October 7 Massacre, the teacher recalled, sharing how students responded to the annual guest speaker who was a Holocaust survivor. The students were reportedly rude to him, brushing aside his talk about the Holocaust to query him about the October 7 War. According to the teacher, the students in effect blamed him for events in the Levant. Parents later called her to complain, reportedly demanding to know why a Jewish person had spoken to the students.

Even at Jewish private schools, the students were not immune from antisemitism, learning within fortified compounds. When venturing out in their school uniforms, they were subjected to abuse, as related by Blake Shaw. Shaw testified how he had accompanied his students on a field trip to a museum, where students from another school accosted them with shouts of "free Palestine."

Ostracization continued into university, with witnesses detailing how post secondary education had become an unwelcome environment. Canberra university student Mia Kline testified how last May her former friends and house mates had expelled her from her residence because they were uncomfortable living with a Zionist.

Jewish children were also subject to abuse at extracurricular activities. Ajax Junior Football Club president Daniel Onas said at the May 7 hearing that members of the Jewish soccer club were met with an increasing amount of antisemitic incidents on and around the field after the October 7 Massacre. An opposing player once asked an Ajax player if he was Jewish, and when it was confirmed that he was, the opponent remarked, "Hitler should have finished you off." Even the parents of the athletes were targeted, with one player calling a parent a "Jewish dog."

Antisemitic abuse was also present in the workplace. At the same hearing as Onas, a woman shared that she had worked at an Australian company with an Israeli division, where a stakeholder expressed concern that her predecessor was of Israeli nationality, and requested not to work with anyone connected to Israel. The company's CEO met with her, and requested that in external meetings that she change her Jewish sounding name to something less Jewish because of the "complexity" of the situation.

Also at the May 7 hearing, a nurse for New South Wales Health, and relative of deceased October 7 Massacre hostage Ran Gvili, shared that she was told to remove hostage posters on her desk, a yellow ribbon pin, and a Hebrew necklace because they might offend someone. She noted that other causes had been supported at the workplace. When she requested from the medical center's social media team a holiday message for Hanukkah, it was rejected because of supposed sensitivities surrounding the war. The nurse was also reportedly subject to passing remarks by coworkers, who called her "Zionist scum."

"You must be really ashamed to belong to a group of child killers," the nurse recalled being told.

Jewish Care Victoria chief executive Gail Smith detailed how the service, which provided care for vulnerable community members of all ages and maintained three elderly care centers that housed many Holocaust survivors, had seen a spike of antisemitic incidents after the October 7 Massacre. They received several threatening and antisemitic communications, including a bomb threat. One man outside the building reportedly said "If you're going to kill people, I'm going to kill you."

The threats wore not only on the elderly residents and the staff, many of whom like Smith were not Jewish, but also on the organization by demanding an increased investment into security.

Smith testified about an instance in which Jewish Care Victoria sought to collaborate with a multicultural youth services organization on a mental health program, but the proposed partnership was rejected because of the organization's Jewish identity. The organization had originally agreed to work with Jewish Care, but the administrators said that the youth they were working with wouldn't approve of them collaborating with a Jewish organization, and in any case Jewish youth didn't need their services because they were not poor.

Solace was not found in the public sphere for many of the witnesses, including one Jewish woman who recalled sitting down on a park bench only to hear the people nearby discussing Kanye West's remarks about Jews being evil and controlling the media. One of the people reportedly said that since the October 7 Massacre and listening to the news, he realized that West wasn't crazy.

"The group went on to discuss how Jews control the media and that we control all the banks," said the witness. "They believed that Jewish and Israeli people deserved the October 7 attacks that happened in Israel, along with jokes praising Hamas, and wishing that more murders had taken place at the time."

A teacher and librarian in Sydney described to the May 8 hearing how when he converted to Judaism in 2022, he felt as if it was a "second coming out." Many close friends turned on him, calling him a genocide supporter. He related that in progressive spaces there was an expectation to distance oneself from Israel.

At the same hearing, a non Jewish lawyer shared how she had been harassed at a pub celebrating with friends. A man accused her of being Jewish, claiming "I can tell by your big nose and your curly hair. You look like a Jewish rat."

"You have a rat nose and you're sniffing shit out," the man allegedly said, and when she denied being Jewish he added that "It would be just like a sneaky Jew to deny being a Jew."

The May 14 hearing considered the definition of antisemitism, with Commissioner Virginia Bell ultimately adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Debate centered on the inclusion of some aspects of antisemitism relating to Israel, such as Holocaust comparisons and blaming all Jews for events in the Levant.

The next block of hearings is set to begin on May 24, with a focus on counter terrorism issues and the security environment leading up to the Bondi Massacre.