Horrific increase in anti-Semitism revealed
Jewish parents are telling their children to hide their true identities as an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitic hatred surges through Australia.
The Executive Council of Australia Jewry recorded 662 anti-Semitic incidents across October and November, which included everything from death and bomb threats directed at Jews to assaults.
The figure represents a horrifying 738 per cent increase on the number of incidents recorded in the previous year.
The ECAJ cited one instance in which a 72-year-old Jewish man was last month assaulted in Melbourne after his attacker spotted Jewish items in his car.
In Sydney earlier this month, food and a box decorated with swastikas was thrown at a group of 13-year-old girls wearing their school uniforms.
The ECAJ said Australian Jews have also been subjected to extreme and widespread verbal abuse over the past year, with many variations of “f*** the Jews” repeated across the country.
One of the most shocking incidents highlighted by the council involved a man on a tram in Melbourne, who told a Jewish man he would “gun down 10,000 of you tomorrow” if he had a machine gun.
“I’m going to blow a hole through your synagogue,” he is recorded as saying.
Holocaust survivor Ernie Friedlander addressed the shocking statistics on Friday and declared the surge in racial hatred was “unAustralian”.
“I just hope people will wake up, get up and stop and think and consider the consequences of their actions,” he said.
ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said Jewish families were now being forced to have “difficult conversations” about their place in Australia.
“Parents are speaking to their children about not disclosing their Jewishness in public, about hiding Jewish attire and symbols,” he said.
“The fact that in our society, in our time, these conversations are taking place, that one segment of our community feels that unsafe and that vulnerable from other Australians, it’s a shame for our country.”
The council cited instances of hateful graffiti, like the prominent graffiti on a Melbourne apartment block which read: “kill Jews, Jews live here.”
A few days later, the words “bring back Hitler, finish the job” were discovered in a bathroom in Sydney.
In October 2022 the ECAJ recorded 35 incidents of anti-Semitic abuse, but the number skyrocketed to 316 this year – a staggering 803 per cent increase.
South Australian Holocaust survivor Andrew Steiner said he had recently seen “concerning cracks” begin to appear in Australian society.
“We are extraordinarily successful multicultural, homogeneous society,” he said in Adelaide in November.
“However, there are unfortunate, concerning cracks which have appeared and need to be dealt with.”
The wave of racism comes after Palestinian terror group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing hundreds of Israeli civilians and taking 240 hostages.
Israel responded with force and continuously bombed the densely-populated slip of land.
The retaliation campaign, though directed at Hamas fighters, has resulted in thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths.
The intensification of Palestinian-Israeli war sparked fierce commentary in Australia, with pro-Palestinian rallies held in major cities across the country.
During one rally at the Sydney Opera House two days after the Hamas attack, a group of men chanted “f**k the Jews” and “gas the Jews”.
