Antisemitism in Australia
Will the community find a means of eradicating antisemitism and thereby give Israel a greater sense of security, or will Israel defeat Hamas and thus give the Diaspora a greater sense of safety?
‘Who would have thought that in 2024 Hitler’s evil face would be featured in a leaflet being dropped in people’s letter boxes by white supremacists thereby promoting their genocidal worldview through this well-orchestrated blitz of hate?” asks Dr. Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, headquartered in Melbourne.
Abramovich is frequently interviewed by electronic and print media journalists and also writes frequent articles in both the Jewish and general press.
He takes his role very seriously and posts daily accounts of antisemitic incidents on social media.
There is nothing new about antisemitism in Australia, other than the fact that it has intensified.
Over the years there has been rabid antisemitism, and there have been times in which antisemitism was barely felt at all, though it never quite disappeared.
In the aftermath of October 7, it reared its ugly head with an unprecedented vengeance. This is partly due to the large number of Muslims currently living in Australia. According to the 2021 census, the number of Muslims totaled 813,392, whereas the number of people who identified as Jews was 99,956, though it is widely believed in the Jewish community that the number is closer to 120,000.
Because there are so many Jewish high achievers, many non-Jews think that Jews have more influence than is actually the case.
Australia is often referred to as “the Lucky Country,” and for many Jews, especially Holocaust survivors, it has been. They set up successful businesses, became wealthy, gave their children good educations, contributed to the arts and to medicine, and in short rebuilt their lives.
Jews first came to Australia in 1788 with the First Fleet as “pioneers” in a penal colony. Their crimes were as petty as stealing a loaf of bread.
In the ensuing 60 years, more than a thousand Jews were sent to Australia, and in the early 19th century, there were also Jewish “free settlers.”
In the 1850s, Jews came to the Australian gold fields, with Ballarat becoming one of the most densely populated of Jewish settlements. Many Ballarat Jews later moved to Melbourne.
Russian and Polish Jews fleeing oppression and persecution began arriving around 1916, with Jews from all over Europe and North Africa coming later.
AUSTRALIAN Jews are invariably included in the top-10 names in the rich lists published by financial news outlets, and the Jewish communities in the various states are generally perceived to be wealthy, though one in five Jews in Australia lives on welfare, some of which is provided by the government and is heavily subsidized by Jewish welfare organizations. Jews are top-ranking in many fields.
One of Australian Jewry’s great achievers in journalism and philanthropy is veteran, prizewinning journalist Sam Lipski, 86, who is a former Washington correspondent for The Jerusalem Post. He has built up an enviable reputation as an editor, reporter, and commentator in newspapers, magazines, and on radio and television. He grew up in Carlton, which during his youth was the Melbourne equivalent of New York’s Lower East Side, London’s Whitechapel and Stamford Hill, and the Pletzl in Paris.
Responding to an email, he writes: “Broadly speaking, as in much of the Western world, the post October 7 antisemitism in Australia is a perfect storm.
“It brings together left and woke ideology which tries to connect Aboriginals to the ‘struggle’ and the ‘resistance’ to ‘Zionism,’ ‘colonialist settlers,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘genocide,’ combining with a growing Palestinian/Islamist activism in the Islamic communities aided by significant funding and organizing in virtually all the critical opinion-making sectors, not so much at ‘elite’ levels as at the ‘grassroots’ and ‘operational’ levels.
“It’s been a process going back some 20-30 years, almost in plain sight. But we didn’t understand it, certainly not the extent of the ‘anti-Zionism.’”
Actually, it goes back further than 30 years. When president Chaim Herzog visited Australia in 1986, there was a large anti-Israel pro-Palestinian demonstration against him in Canberra, the national capital. It was, however, more civilized than those reported in recent months.
Writing with hindsight Lipski states that it had been thought that “Zionism is racism” was a notion that had been rescinded three decades ago.
“It has been reborn with a vengeance,” he continues. “Like October 7 itself, the penetration of key components in the Australian opinion-making sector, and the sheer hatred which burst to the surface, took Australian Jews and their supporters by surprise.
“Just to add to the hostility, and for good measure, the extremist right-wing antisemitism which had gathered some momentum during the COVID pandemic, which was framed as a Jewish conspiracy, is out there recruiting, too. But by far the greater danger comes from the left ‘intelligentsia,’ or today’s version of it.”
Comparing the present situation with that of his youth, Lipski states: “As someone who grew up in Australia in the ’40s and ’50s, I was aware of antisemitism by some politicians, in some publications, and in some workplaces and professions. And many Jewish immigrants in the postwar period – a large percentage were Holocaust survivors – undoubtedly experienced prejudice and discrimination in their early years here.
“An almost completely Anglo-Celtic Australia took time to adjust to the multicultural society it became.
“‘Bloody Jews’ and ‘bloody reffos’ – as the Jewish and other refugees were labeled – were unwelcome expressions for the newcomers. But by the 1970s, and certainly by the 1980s, Jews came to see Australia as a haven, and a country where they, especially the Holocaust survivors and their children, could build, and rebuild, a vibrant Jewish community, identify proudly with Israel, and increasingly participate in public life at every level – in business, the professions, politics, academic life, and the arts.
“So much for the history. But knowing about the history of antisemitism in Australia didn’t mean I directly experienced it. I didn’t – or hardly ever. I recall a very occasional ‘bloody Jew’ while in primary school.
“But at the public high school I attended, one in three students were Jewish. We were fully involved and fully accepted.
“During the time I did National Service in the late 1950s with young Australians, many from rural regions, hardly any of whom had ever met a Jew, I found only acceptance and comradeship. The Australian Army went out of its way to accommodate my requests for kosher food, and gave me time off on Shabbat, in return for doing guard duty on Sundays.
“I had much the same experience of acceptance and involvement at Melbourne University, where Jewish students were active in their clubs and societies on campus.
“During a long career spanning more than 45 years in
journalism, working at senior levels in Australian newspapers, radio, and television, where my Jewishness and pro-Israel views were not only known but welcomed as adding a dimension, I never encountered antisemitism from my colleagues.
“Nor did I come across it in the many involvements I had during some 20 years in the philanthropy, nonprofit, and community sectors.
“Some of my friends in business and the professions, however, did face antisemitism.
“But even there, such experiences were the exception, not the rule.
“As recently as a decade ago, most observers looking at Australian Jewry, representing the eighth largest Jewish community globally, would agree with most Australian Jews themselves that we were a success story.
“Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that, some 20 years ago, I could write that for Jews in the 21st century, Australia would take over the mantle of ‘the goldene medina’ – the golden kingdom – from America.
“No longer. Even before October 7, but certainly with a deeply saddening and gathering momentum since, open antisemitism and virulent hostility towards Israel have surged. From the ‘goldene medina’ to ‘Cry, the beloved lucky country.’
“The disturbing statistics, monitored by the Jewish community’s roof bodies, which tell of a 700% increase in anti-Jewish incidents, mainly in the two largest Jewish communities of Melbourne and Sydney, tell only part of the story.
“What has shocked and unsettled Australian Jews is the sheer depth of hostility towards them and their attachment to Israel from significant sections of the media, the political and cultural Left, some trade unions, teachers, the arts and humanities sector, students and academics, and some professions. All magnified by social media.
“Some media, mainly the Murdoch-owned News Ltd., with The Australian as the outstanding example of support for Israel and the Jewish community, have shown that they understand how antisemitism not only threatens Jews, but democratic societies.”
As recently as last Saturday, The Australian carried an editorial headlined “Provide no stage for antisemitism.”
Lipski lists a number of non-Jewish journalists, such as Paul Kelly, Greg Sheridan, and Troy Bramston, as writers of articles condemning antisemitism and warning of its dangers.
In a book on antisemitism coauthored by Kelly, the question is probed, When does criticism of Zionism and Israel become anti-Jewish racial hatred?
Writing in The Australian, Sheridan underscores that the
conflict between Israel and Hamas has exposed an old antisemitism. Bramston, also writing in The Australian and advocating support for Israel and the Jewish people, writes that “history shows where snowballing hatred can lead.”
Contrary to the university experiences of Lipski and other Jews of his generation, Jewish students on campuses throughout Australia today are fearful of both verbal and physical attacks.
Synagogues, Jewish schools, and other Jewish buildings are daubed with antisemitic graffiti. Jewish children in state schools or non-Jewish private schools are often hazed. For Holocaust survivors, the general situation is reminiscent of Germany and certain parts of Europe in the 1930s, minus the racist laws. But the antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric is becoming increasingly rampant.
My distant cousin Eliezer, a businessman, who is usually fearlessly outspoken, asked that his full name not be published, for fear of being attacked by violent antisemites.
That, in itself, says a lot about the situation. The son of Holocaust survivors, he grew up beyond the cluster of neighborhoods that to a large extent comprised “Little Jerusalem,” north of the Yarra River which divides the suburbs of greater Melbourne. Today, those neighborhoods are more in the nature of “Little Mecca.”
“Australia is not the country I grew up in,” he writes.
“My experience having spent my formative years in working-class Ormond East surrounded by generational Australians was a great time for me. We were the only migrant family in the street, and our neighbors gave my parents great respect, even though they probably only had a handful of words in English and the neighbors didn’t speak any of the other languages that my parents spoke.
“My brother and I had the respect of children in the street because we had sport as the common factor, playing, discussing, and of course we all had our team that we were passionate about.
“They couldn’t pronounce our surname, but we embraced the Australian way of life outside the house and that’s what mattered.”
When Eliezer was a primary school age boy, the Yarra River was the main dividing line in the Jewish community. The new Little Jerusalem comprising the neighborhoods of Elwood, St Kilda, and Caulfield attracted Jews who couldn’t afford the required “key money” needed to settle north of the Yarra River.
From his friends who grew up in those neighborhoods, he learned that they had similar experiences, whether they went to a Jewish school or government school. “We didn’t
suffer or feel antisemitism, because we behaved like Australians and didn’t try to change anyone, while at home, being Jewish, we spoke Polish, Yiddish, Hungarian, etc. At that time, we all spoke English outside the home, even if our parents spoke to us in their native languages.”
During the 1940s, throughout the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, he recalls, “there was large migration to Australia comprising European immigrants – some skilled, some not. They, like the Jewish community, integrated well by not trying to change the Australian way of life, while maintaining their cultural and religious lives at home. In the main, different cultures lived in harmony.
“Lebanese Christians started arriving because of the civil war in Lebanon. Like previous migrants, they integrated well and thankfully brought their food culture with them. Antisemitism wasn’t felt, and the Jewish community felt safe in Australia up to this time.
“ONCE EXTREME Muslims from Lebanon and other Middle Eastern dictatorships began migrating to Australia,” Eliezer continues, “problems began – not just for the Jewish community. It seems that many of the Lebanese Muslim community are underworld drug dealers. If caught, they run off to Lebanon or Turkey, from where it seems they can’t be extradited to Australia. The druggies are out of hand, and with them came the drug wars, in which criminals were shot dead regularly.
“Since October 7, the Muslim communities have led largescale violent demonstrations and are joined in their anti-Israel, antisemitic violent behavior by white supremacists, academics, students, and others who believe in Hamas, Muslim, Palestinian propaganda.
“There are some Jewish-owned businesses and residents in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, such as Northcote, Westgarth, Thornbury, etc., whose owners have had to close down, sell their homes, and move to areas closer to the Jewish community. There has been one example of a person living in social housing who has been moved to a social housing complex on the south side of the city.
“Several Victorian councils have decided to vote and condemn Israel in relation to the war in Gaza. All are calling for a ceasefire by Israel but disregard the hostages being held by Gazans. What this has to do with any council is beyond comprehension. It’s just another antisemitic attack tool.”
The federal government has three Jewish Labor parliamentarians. One is the attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus. According to Eliezer, “All have been a disappointment as far as the Jewish community is concerned, as have Jewish Liberal
Party politicians. The Jewish community in many cases have lost faith in Prime Minister [Anthony] Albanese or Foreign Minister [Penny] Wong’s ability to reduce antisemitic behavior in Australia.”
In Eliezer’s opinion, “In the main, Muslims haven’t contributed much to Australia. Their leaders have let them down by not condemning their violent protests and harassment of Jews. Muslims are huge recipients of social welfare and ongoing support of every kind. There can be no argument as to how much Jews have contributed to every aspect of life in Australia, be it the military, politics, every professional field, and generally building the country.
“In short, many in the Jewish community don’t feel safe, and many in the Australian community are fed up with Muslims trying to change them and the suburbs they live in. The question put to me by Anglo Australians is: ‘If the Muslims don’t like Australia as it is, why do they come here?’ The answer, of course, is social security and the lack of recriminations for criminal behavior.”
Of course, anything to do with antisemitism depends on the personal experiences of one’s interlocutor.
A member of one of Australia’s more affluent Jewish families, during a recent visit to Israel, when asked about antisemitism, replied that it’s not as bad as it seems from media reports, but admitted that she would not walk alone in the street at night.
She was also disappointed in the Jewish leadership, which she said has not done enough to quell antisemitism.
During the first 11 years of my life, I lived in the heart of the first Little Jerusalem, where the overwhelming majority of residents on my street were Jewish. We got on well with our non-Jewish neighbors except for one boy who was a terrible bully, with a physique to go with his personality.
One of the Jewish children was not afraid of him, and retaliated with such force that he fell to the ground. After that, he left the Jewish children alone.
For all that, there was a sense of antisemitism in the air, particularly when non-Jewish people got drunk, and began to curse the Jews.
Fast-forward to the present time.
Jeremy Leibler, the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, makes the point that while the Australian Jewish community of his parents’ generation grew up under the shadow of the Holocaust, “most of my generation never experienced serious antisemitism. In fact, there was almost a clear generational divide between the survivors of the Holocaust and their children, who felt antisemitism was always bubbling under the surface, and their children, who felt far more comfortable and accepted within Australian society.
“While the rise of antisemitism in progressive spaces has been going on for some time,” he continues, “it was still somewhat hidden until October 7, when it erupted like a volcano. It is clear that to the extent any associated guilt from the Holocaust made explicit antisemitism politically incorrect, the events of October 7 and Israel taking action to defend itself have changed the environment in Australia.
“Almost immediately following October 7, we saw attempts to physically intimidate the Jewish community, with the rallies at the Sydney Opera House and in the Jewish heart of Melbourne.
“In recent weeks it has morphed into online and economic intimidation, with the doxing of hundreds of people and the orchestrated campaign of hatred and boycott unleashed against them. Families have gone into hiding. Others have lost their income. It is absolutely appalling.”
In the spirit of “every cloud has a silver lining,” Leibler sees that “this hate is starting to backfire in two ways.
“First, rather than being intimidated into isolation, this antisemitism has actually strengthened the Australian Jewish community’s identity and connection to Israel. Members of the Jewish community have raised unprecedented sums of money to support the rebuilding effort in the South and families impacted by terrorism.
Second, he has been inundated by messages from non-Jewish Australians who tell him they’d never really seen antisemitism before, but now they understand what the Jewish community is facing.
“Clearly, we do have many allies within Australia, including both mainstream political parties, who have called out this very concerning rise in antisemitism,” he remarks.
Realizing that there are people who do not share the belief that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, Leibler opines that “ultimately, the Australian Jewish community understand that a strong Israel is the main necessary ingredient for Diaspora Jewry to have a genuine sense of security and safety. This is why, notwithstanding the impact on Australian Jews, the overwhelming majority remain focused on supporting Israel, defeating Hamas, and returning security to Israel’s citizens and, by extension, all the Jewish people.”
For all that, it remains a case of what comes first – the chicken or the egg? Will the Jewish community find a means of eradicating antisemitism and thereby give Israel a greater sense of security, or will Israel succeed in defeating Hamas and thus give the Diaspora a greater sense of safety and security?