Australia has seen a 300 per cent surge in antisemitic comments and threats in the past year, according to Jewish leaders who say their community feels under siege.
“These are numbers without precedent in this country and an increase without parallel anywhere in the world,” said Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a peak body.
“It is incumbent on all Australians to fight this hatred, it cannot be that it is the Jewish community alone who stands up to this.”
Co-CEO Alex Ryvchin and Head of Legal Simone Abel of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry held a press conference this morning.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Lawyer Simone Abel said reports gathered by the group included Jewish students at universities being spat on, told to “go home to Europe” and threatened.
“Today being a Jewish student, academic or employee at an Australian university is a toxic experience,” she said at a press conference in Double Bay.
“It’s being fuelled by extremist outside interference and also by carefully concealed foreign funding which we need to expose and get to the bottom of.”
She declined to give specific information about outside influence fuelling antisemitism, saying more research was being done on the topic.
“Unfortunately until the universities can even recognise and agree on what anti-semitism is, we have a serious problem.”
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Ryvchin claimed many people attending pro-Palestine demonstrations were antisemitic and questioned whether they were really concerned about civilian casualties in Gaza.
At least 40,000 people are thought to have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October last year and 101,000 injured, according to data endorsed by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations.
“The 40,000 is a Hamas figure,” Ryvchin claimed.
“Before citing 40,000 you need to understand that we’re dealing with 18-20,000 Hamas fighters.”
“If they [protesters] were concerned for civilian loss of life they could do it on any other day,” he said.
The war should continue until Hamas was destroyed, Ryvchin said.
“I think the line of all civilisation and humanity was crossed on October 7,” he said.
“The fact that a single civilian has died is a tragedy but it’s the fault entirely of Hamas.”