Call to strip arts institutions of funding over antisemitism raises alarm bells

A proposal to strip arts organisations, museums, festivals and individual artists of public funding if they are found to be facilitating or supporting antisemitic themes or narratives has raised alarm bells across the sector with fears freedom of expression would be put at risk.

The special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, recently delivered the report making the recommendation as part of a suite of changes to address the problem.

Special envoy to combat antisemitism Jillian Segal.Credit: Dylan Coker

In a statement released last week, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) said, “the arts and freedom of expression are closely intertwined”.

“Art sheds critical light on our society and must challenge preconceptions, even if that makes some people uncomfortable,” the statement continued. “MEAA strongly cautions against the adoption of policies that would undermine the independence of the media and arts sectors.”

While the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) is still preparing a response to the report, its executive director Penelope Benton welcomed race discrimination commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman’s call for a nationally united response to racism in all its forms, including antisemitism.

“Artists and cultural organisations must be empowered to contribute meaningfully to anti‑racism education and dialogue,” Benton said.

“The arts are essential in challenging prejudice, fostering understanding, and supporting a society where freedom of expression is protected and valued.”

Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler.Credit: Penny Stephens

President of the Zionist Federation of Australia Jeremy Leibler says he gets calls weekly from Jewish artists whose work has been cancelled and who are too scared to speak out, adding “that’s why [the Centre of Jewish Artists] probably won’t speak on the record because this is their livelihoods”.

“These are artists who are getting cancelled mostly by small venues who say ‘we can’t afford to get cancelled by the pro-Palestinian mob on social media’… [venue owners] who are deeply apologetic, but this is a real problem.”

At the same time, several high-profile pro-Palestinian voices have been penalised: Jayson Gillham at the MSO, Antoinette Lattouf at the ABC, and Khaled Sabsabi, who was invited, uninvited and then re-invited to represent Australia at next year’s Venice Biennale.

Commissioned by the Albanese Government, Segal’s 16-page report says antisemitism has become “ingrained and normalised within academia and the cultural space” but does not include examples.

This is problematic, says Louise Chappell, Scientia Professor, Australian Human Rights Institute, Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales, who argues reports of this nature usually provide evidence to support such claims. She says Segal cites a 700 per cent increase in antisemitic hatred without documenting a source, or a baseline from which that figure was extrapolated.

It appears to have come from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and to reference complaints to Jewish-based organisations, Chappell says, not official complaints to the police or Australian Human Rights Commission.

Segal’s office confirmed the figures quoted are from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry report into antisemitism 2024 by Julie Nathan, which categorises, itemises and lists each incident in reverse chronological order to show the increase.

Louise Chappell, Scientia Professor, Law Faculty, Australian Human Rights Institute, University of NSW.Credit:

Chappell says it’s important to know who collated the data and detail about the incidents. “Is it that you saw a pro-Palestinian encampment at Syd Uni and you walked past and felt uncomfortable, or someone made a direct anti-Jewish slur, or set fire to a Jewish Synagogue and demonstrated direct hatred towards a Jewish person or the community,” she says. “They are very different things.”

Leibler disagrees with criticisms of the report, saying Segal has undertaken a very thorough body of work and most that of the recommendations clearly resonate with the experiences that the Jewish community has had since October 7, 2023, and before.

There’s no one silver bullet to addressing antisemitism, he says, and education is a large part of the solution. “It needs to be addressed at multiple levels – it can’t just be fixed by government, it can’t just be fixed by academia, it can’t just be dealt with by the arts. We need to get all parts of civil society aligned on wanting to stamp this out.”

The report argues that public funding for cultural institutions – arts festivals, galleries and organisations and artists – “is not to be used to support or implicitly endorse antisemitic themes or narratives” and says funding should be terminated in such instances.

But several sources take issue with Segal’s suggested definition of antisemitism, which comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

Greg Barns SC, spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, says “[the report’s] words invite conflation of the criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It has rightly been condemned by numerous human rights groups … it will have the effect of censorship.”

Chappell agrees that although it’s not spelt out directly in the report, there is a conflation between being antisemitic and being anti-Israel. “It’s very clear through the use of the IHRA definition whose examples include criticism of Israel or anti-Zionism as antisemitic speech,” she says. “It’s not only a huge problem for universities, but freedom of speech expressed through the arts is also at risk – we’ve seen with the Creative Australia debacle just how damaging it can be.”

Leibler rejects these claims. “I have been genuinely shocked by the response from certain quarters who have misrepresented what the recommendations involve, particularly this suggestion that the IHRA definition of antisemitism is somehow a highly controversial definition. It’s nationally recognised as a definition … by leading experts,” he says.

While the government doesn’t have a codified definition of anti-semitism, in 2021 the IHRA definition was endorsed by the then-Morrison Coalition government and Labor, under then-opposition leader Anthony Albanese.

Barns cautions the government against adopting the report. “The Segal review recommendations concerning tying funding for arts and cultural organisations to efforts to prevent antisemitism is dangerous and will lead to self censoring,” he says. “Many cultural and arts organisations rely heavily on government funding so the temptation to refuse to allow works because they are highly critical of Zionism and Israel will be ever present.”

According to Barns, current legislation provides protection and there is no need for any further law reform in the hate speech area.

“Ms Segal seems unaware of major hate speech criminal offences reform passed by the Federal Parliament in February. These laws expand when hate speech is said to occur,” he says. “There is a balance between ensuring that hate speech does not occur and allowing for strident language and representations in the context of protest against human rights abuses.”

Chappell says the current climate is already fraught and that several high-profile examples illustrate that. “It is becoming very toxic in the arts just as it is within universities, the same thing is happening in both. There’s a silencing, and it’s having a chilling effect on all sides, all people are feeling they can’t express themselves. It’s very hard to find a place where you can have difficult, straightforward discussion about these issues,” she says.

“It’s dividing faculties, and it’s dividing arts funders, it’s dividing boards as demonstrated by people resigning. High-profile cases such as the Jayson Gillham/MSO case and the ABC with Antoinette Lattouf. It is touching on every key part of our cultural life and wherever freedom of speech and expression is meant to flourish.”

Chappell also asks why the report was not released at the same time as its equivalent into Islamophobia, which is due out next month. Context is important, she says, arguing it would have been far better to release both simultaneously, to assure the relevant communities that the government is equally concerned for their well-being.

Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, commends Segal’s work. “Jillian has done a phenomenal job. She took her her time and consulted widely both in Australia and abroad with stakeholders within the community and far beyond,” he says.

Recent antisemitism didn’t come from nowhere, he says, so placing education at the heart of the plan is critical. He argues antisemitism has become normalised and even glamorised in some sectors, including in social media and in the arts.

“Our arts and our cultural festivals, they don’t merely reflect Australian culture, they help shape it. I don’t think that’s a question. They play a vital role in our society in presenting the best of Australia, asking hard questions and showcasing our talents. But ultimately when you have viewpoints that are extreme in any direction, on any particular issue, and they’re run through the arts, there’s a problem with that and particularly with the treatment of Israel and to some extent with antisemitism, I think that has been an issue.

“There’s a clear distinction to be drawn between government policies and politicians in the conduct of the war, no one seeks to stifle that,” Ryvchin says. “But when that calls for the destruction of Israel and a demonisation of its people that presents something quite different.”

“I think it reveals a different motivation,” he says.

Sarah Schwartz, executive officer at the Jewish Council of Australia, doesn’t believe the report would stand up to any form of academic scrutiny. “It’s very unclear what research has been relied on. There’s a headline that says ‘Drivers of antisemitism’ but there’s no real engagement with the drivers of antisemitism except for these vague references to extremist ideologies and antisemitic narratives and the sort of language that verges on conspiratorial,” she says.

“That’s one of the really disappointing things about this report. Antisemitism is a serious problem, clearly, and yet this report isn’t really targeted at tackling [it] in any way that is based in evidence or research.”

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