Executive Council of Australian Jewry says anti-Semitism reports have soared

Jewish Australians say a new ‘norm’ of anti-Semitism is rising across the nation, with abuse and assaults skyrocketing since the October 7 Hamas attack last year.

Jewish-Australian schoolchildren are being greeted with Nazi salutes, told they deserve to die and bullied into getting off the bus in a wave of anti-Semitism sweeping the country, with a shock new report revealing anti-Semitic attacks have jumped 316 per cent since October 7 last year.

The nation’s peak Jewish body said students at Jewish schools were too scared to wear their uniforms outside school grounds for fear of being verbally or physically assaulted.

“Students from Jewish schools on school excursions are being vilified and abused by students from other schools,” Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) research director Julie Nathan said.

“Jewish children playing team sport are subjected to anti-Jewish slurs and worse.”

Ms Nathan said the abuse was also occurring in public and private schools and on the street:

“It is absolutely appalling that Jewish children are being targeted with verbal abuse and, in some cases, physical assault, simply because they are Jewish.”

Rabbi Yossi Friedman and wife Chana Friedman say they have been subjected to anti-Semitism. Picture: Thomas Lisson

There have been 2062 anti-Semitic incidents targeting Australia’s 100,000 Jews in the 12 months to September, up from 495 last year.

A report published by the ECAJ on Sunday – which sources confidential complaints made to Jewish community organisations, internal security and to the council itself – reveals a 491 per cent spike in physical assaults since the October 7 attacks in Israel last year.

The circulation of anti-Semitic posters has risen 679 per cent, verbal abuse 230 per cent and graffiti 214 per cent.

There have been 795 anti-Semitic incidents in NSW in the past year, second only to Victoria on 905.

Ms Nathan said the figures were just the tip of the iceberg.

“There has never been anything like an annual increase of this magnitude,” she said.

“For anti-Israel activists in Australia and elsewhere, the slaughter (October 7) acted as a signal that it was now open season against local Jewish communities too, who overwhelmingly support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.

“There have been many new forms and expressions of anti-Jewish racism that would once have been considered alien to Australia, but which have become commonplace.”

Michel Feinstein escaped Brazil’s rampant crime rate to move to Sydney, but says he feels more unsafe in Australia. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Nurse Ezra says he has been rejected by patients and spat at while at work, and now covers up his surname. Picture: Rohan Kelly

The report also includes disturbing accounts of anti-Semitism, including Jewish students riding the bus being told by their peers “Jews deserve to die”, “be gassed” and “You (Jews) need to be separated from normal people like us ... All the Jews get off the bus”.

A Jewish student, 16, at a Sydney high school was sitting through a history lesson learning what had happened to his ancestors during the Holocaust when a classmate performed a Nazi salute before chanting “Heil Hitler” and “Go back to the gas chambers” and shoving him.

Ms Nathan said the “gravity and unprecedented nature” of the anti-Jewish incidents had necessitated the special report.

She also hoped by airing the incidents it would encourage others to come forward, with studies showing many incidents go unreported.

Registered nurse Ezra, 28, from Bondi, was forced to tape over the surname on his badge after a critically ill-patient at a Sydney hospital refused to be treated by him.

“I was in an acute setting where the patient needed fluids to be administered intravenously and they saw my name, and I was wearing a Kippah at work, when the patient protested, ‘I won’t be treated by you, you’re Jewish – get me someone else’,” he said

“Patients have said ‘you don’t belong here,’ plenty of Jewish doctors get this at work and are scared for their safety.

“I now cover up my last name on my work badge but I keep my Kippah,” he said.

Itinerant rabbi Yossi Friedman, who preaches mostly around Maroubra in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, said there was “a new norm of acceptance of anti-Semitism, of viewing Jews negatively, from the highest levels down”.

His wife Chana was ordered to leave a yoga studio in Maroubra after arriving with her own mat with a poster of an Israeli hostage stuck to it after leaving a vigil of solidarity.

“They told her they didn’t want anything political in the studio, she left in tears,” he said.

“Not enough is being done by police and the government to clamp down on anti-Semitism.

“Every Australian has a duty to say no to anti-Semitism now.”

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