Former PM John Howard says he’s ashamed of treatment of Jewish community in Australia

Former PM John Howard has told a Sydney synagogue he is ‘ashamed’ of the way the Jewish community has been treated in recent weeks and ‘all decent Australians’ feel the same.

Former Prime Minister John Howard has told a Sydney synagogue he is “ashamed” of the way the Jewish community has been treated in recent weeks and that “all decent Australians” feel the same.

In a powerful address to the congregation of Central Synagogue in Bondi, the Liberal elder statesman said he had been angered at the behaviour he had witnessed in Australia since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

“I am as an Australian, I am ashamed at what your community has been subjected to over the past few weeks, and could I tell you that all decent Australians that is the great majority of Australians are equally ashamed of what has happened,” he said.

“When I read stories of discrimination against Jewish people, where I hear stories of schools telling their students not to wear their uniforms outside the school grounds, I think to myself this cannot be the Australia that I grew up in, it cannot be the Australia that was so magnificently led on the battlefields of World War One by arguably Australia’s greatest Jewish son, General John Monash.”

Ashamed.... former Australian Prime Minister John Howard addressing the congregation of the central synagogue in Sydney on Friday.

Palestine supporters ride motorcyles from Lidcombe Bunnings to Coogee Beach. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Dylan Robinson

The former PM then quoted Psalm 133 which says behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

“What we want now more than anything else is for all of us to dwell together in unity,” he said.

Mr Howard was at pains to stress that he respected the current concerns of the Jewish community at the attacks they have endured in recent weeks saying they were “properly based” but said they reflected a minority.

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard addressing the congregation of the central synagogue in Sydney on Friday.

The Jewish community should be assured he said that “the great majority of your fellow Australians … are as appalled as you are at these manifestations of bigotry and they believe in the unity of this country and they believe in the contribution that the Jewish people have made, not only to Australia but to mankind through all the ages.”

Jewish MP and Liberal backbencher Julian Leeser said the convoys were creating fear in suburbs with big Jewish communities. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Dylan Robinson/ Dylan Robinson

He said Australians not only despised bigotry against the Jewish community, but “they understand that the latest outburst of concern and insecurity was triggered by a despicable act of evil on the 7th of October and that is the fountainhead of the current concern and no amount prevarication and mucking around with moral equivalence can alter that fact.”