Qld Jews under attack from rising tide of anti-Semitism

The Queensland Jewish community is living in fear after a disturbing spike in anti-Semitic attacks. SEE THE VIDEO

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The Queensland Jewish community is living in fear after a disturbing spike in anti-Semitic attacks, including people being punched, spat on, turned away from venues, and children physically and verbally abused by classmates.

A Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies survey has revealed more than 60 per cent of its community had experienced anti-Semitism since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and almost 90 per cent reported feeling less safe since the Israel-Hamas war began.

A Jewish mother, who asked not to be named to protect her children, said her 13-year-old son had been subjected to relentless bullying at school since October 7.

“The most serious one was last year when some kid held a chair against his throat and shouted “free Palestine” in his ear,” she said. “He’s been punched in the chest, he’s been spat at, random kids have given him the Nazi salute, he will get called a Kike.

“It’s almost every day, something.”

The mother said it was painful and difficult to watch as a parent.

“The sad thing about it for me is he just accepts that it’s okay, he thinks it’s normal to be bullied because you’re Jewish,” she said.

Another mother who also asked not to be named said her children had never experienced anti-Semitism until October 7.

Yonatan Mendels, Alyssa Peterson and Brandon Hulse at UQ in May in support of Israel

“Now we’ve got them coming home talking about being called a dirty Jew, which we’ve never had before,” she said.

“One of my boys has someone at school that keeps saying he should be gassed.

“In more recent times we had a kid at school with a swastika sewn into his hat and shows that to kids regularly.”

She said one teacher at her child’s school had been heard yelling the controversial phrase “from the river to the sea”.

In another instance, The Courier-Mail has seen text messages sent to a different child from a fellow student which read “gas chamber for you, I’ll take you to the station you Jew”.

Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies president Jason Steinberg said Jewish people feeling unsafe in Queensland should be “ringing alarm bells” for the wider community.

“The other phenomenon which we’ve seen and have never seen it like this is teacher’s expressing their political views about how bad Israel is and using factually incorrect information in front of the kids,” he said.

“Our teachers are the authorities that our kids will come up to, to learn. “And so if a teacher is spouting mistruths and lies to the kids, they’re going to think, well, Israel’s bad, Jews are bad.”

The Courier-Mail has viewed footage of a teacher at one Queensland state school making false and anti-Semitic comments during a lesson.

Dr Christopher Haddarty-Weir has allegedly been the subject of anti-Semitism. Picture: Josh Woning

Another mother, Eleanore, who grew up in the Gaza border region, says she was “deeply affected” by the October 7 attacks because she knew a lot of people who were murdered and taken hostage by Hamas.

She said she was now scared to speak Hebrew in public in case someone attacked her young daughters.

“It’s all the small incidents that accumulate to a very, very big issue, and people try to brush it off, and they don’t see the connection between all those incidents, and they don’t see the connection of spreading hate and what hate can do,” she said.

“I have three girls, two of them are speaking Hebrew, and when we’re going on the streets I tell them not to speak Hebrew because I’m afraid.”

On May 11, a 54-year-old man was charged with common assault after he allegedly spat on a Jewish man during a verbal incident at a pro-Palestinian rally in Surfers Paradise.

The man charged is due to reappear at Southport Magistrates Court on July 11.

The complainant, Joel, was in Queensland on holiday from Victoria when he came across a protest which he called vile and anti-Semitic.

After hearing their chants he replied “free the hostages” and was followed by two people. The incident was captured on video. Two men were seen approaching him before a spit sound could be heard.

Edgar Gold lost 65 family members in the Holocaust.

Joel said since the incident he hide signs of being Jewish and didn’t want to come to the Coast, where he owns a unit.

“It was disgusting,” he said. “They spat in my mouth. So, I have to go for genetic testing and disease testing to make sure I didn’t contract anything.”

Within the past three months, Dr Christopher Haggarty-Weir has had multiple instances of alleged anti-Semitism while he wore a shirt that said, “I stand with Israel”.

He said this was the first time he felt “unsafe and anxious” while living in Australia.

“I’ve been (allegedly) assaulted in broad daylight in Brisbane crossing the Victoria Bridge for wearing a pro-Israel shirt and kicked and had anti-Semitic slurs thrown towards me,” he said. “More recently I’ve been denied service and asked to leave a bar unless I cover up the T-shirt.”

Detectives charged a 24-year-old Sherwood man and a 25-year-old Highgate Hill man with one count each of assault occasioning bodily harm over the alleged Victoria Bridge incident.

Holocaust survivor Edgar Gold, 90, who grew up in Hamburg during WWII, said these were “worrying signs”.

“Even though I was young, it was an experience which I will never, ever forget … this was all due to anti-Semitism, which started just as innocently as it is doing here now,” he said.

Premier Steven Miles condemned the attacks.

“No person should ever be victim to vile, racial or religiously motivated attacks, especially not in our proud multicultural state,” Mr Miles said. “That’s why my government has introduced new laws to strengthen Queensland’s response to hate crime and serious vilification.”

Originally published as Qld Jews under attack from rising tide of anti-Semitism