Anti-Jewish protests ‘an abomination’, says Josh Frydenberg

The Jewish former treasurer said he never imagined he’d feel as his grandparents did amid the rise of anti-Semitism that heralded the Holocaust.

Former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

Josh Frydenberg has condemned anti-Semitic protests on the Sydney Opera House steps as an “abomination”, warned of the deep fears of Australia’s Jewish community and praised the “piercing moral clarity” demonstrated by the US, UK and Germany in standing with Israel in its hour of need.

In his first comments since the Hamas terror attack on southern Israel, the former treasurer ­and prominent member of the Jewish community said he never believed he would feel as his grandparents did amid the rising tide of Jewish hatred that heralded the Holocaust, nor as his parents did amid the threat to Israel posed by the Yom Kippur War in 1973. “But now I do. I stand before you anguished and anxious about the future,” Mr Frydenberg said in a speech in support of victims of terrorism, an extract of which is published in The Weekend Australian.

“When fears over safety see Jewish students afraid to attend lectures on campus, Jewish parents feel the need to keep their children home from school, and Jewish schools advise students not to wear their uniforms that makes them identifiable outside school grounds we know we have a problem.

“And when hundreds of demonstrators in Sydney chant ‘f..k the Jews’ and ‘gas the Jews’ we know just how dangerous and ­serious that problem really is. What happened last week outside the Sydney Opera House was nothing short of an abomination. A national disgrace that has become an international embarrassment.”

But Mr Frydenberg also said he believed he could “see the light returning” with the world’s strong response and support following the October 7 attack that left 1400 Israelis dead with US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz leading the charge.

“When leaders across the Western world including US President Biden, UK Prime Minister Sunak and German Chancellor Scholz speak with piercing moral clarity in defence of Israel and rush to be by its side in their hour of need it gives me comfort Israel has support where it counts,” he said in Thursday night’s speech.

“We are all here for the same reason – because we support good over evil and because we know (Winston) Churchill was right when in the heat of battle he said ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going’.”

Mr Fyrydenberg – who last month revealed he had chosen to take up the position of Australian chair of investment bank Goldman Sachs, rather than try for a return to politics – warned that Israel and the Jewish people had survived more than 2000 years of attempts to destroy them.

“The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Nazis to name just a few (have tried). But history tells us that the enemies of the past are no more,” he said.

“The Jewish people survived and Israel prospered. Now despite the huge challenges ahead I see the light returning.”

But he had faith in the strength of humanity. “These are the darkest of times and every day innocent lives are being lost in both Israel and in Gaza,” he said. “We cannot lose our common humanity as Hamas makes victims of the people of Gaza too. It is my hope that despite all that has happened the light will eventually shine through.”