ECAJ Annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia

ECAJ Annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia

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MEDIA STATEMENT

27 Novem­ber 2016 ECAJ Annu­al Report on Anti­semitism in Aus­tralia

The 12 month peri­od end­ing 30 Sep­tem­ber 2016 saw a 10% increase over the pre­vi­ous year in anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents in Aus­tralia involv­ing threats or acts of vio­lence, accord­ing to the annu­al Report on Anti­semitism in Aus­tralia pub­lished by the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry (ECAJ).

The ECAJ, Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty roof bod­ies in each State, and oth­er Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty groups logged a total of 210 anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents dur­ing the peri­od, includ­ing phys­i­cal assaults, abuse and harass­ment, van­dal­ism, graf­fi­ti, hate and threats com­mu­ni­cat­ed direct­ly by email, let­ters, tele­phone calls, and leaflets. This com­pares to a total of 190 such inci­dents logged by the same sources over the pre­ced­ing 12 month peri­od.

Phys­i­cal assaults and abuse/harassment of Jews com­prised 45% of the inci­dents. These includ­ed inci­dents moti­vat­ed by racial hatred where Jews were punched and kicked.

“There was a marked increase in the form of assault known as ‘egging’ – tar­get­ing and assault­ing Jews by throw­ing eggs at them. Eggings occurred pre­dom­i­nant­ly as Jews walked to and from syn­a­gogue on Fri­day evenings and Sat­ur­days in Mel­bourne,” said the report’s author, ECAJ Research Offi­cer, Julie Nathan.

Attacks (assault, abuse, van­dal­ism, and graf­fi­ti) account­ed for 70% of the total num­ber of inci­dents, with 149 inci­dents. Threats (email, let­ters, tele­phone, leaflets) account­ed for 30% of the total num­ber of inci­dents, with 61 inci­dents. There is also much anec­do­tal evi­dence of inci­dents which go unre­port­ed.

The report also not­ed an increase in van­dal­ism, graf­fi­ti, hate emails, and anti­se­mit­ic leaflets. “There was a decrease in face-to-face ver­bal abuse/harassment of Jews, although the fre­quen­cy of this type of inci­dent tends to fluc­tu­ate from year to year” said Nathan.

For the first time, the report includes infor­ma­tion on the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the per­pe­tra­tors of some types of anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents. Of the 91 inci­dents of assault and abuse in Syd­ney and Mel­bourne, there were 43 inci­dents where the eth­nic­i­ty of the perpetrator/s was iden­ti­fied in the report­ing of the inci­dent. This infor­ma­tion was count­ed and not­ed. Many inci­dents had mul­ti­ple per­pe­tra­tors. Assault and abuse in oth­er states were exclud­ed.

The result is that of the 72 per­pe­tra­tors whose eth­nic­i­ty was logged, these were com­posed of 34 Cau­casian, 31 Mid­dle East­ern, 5 Maori/Polynesian, and 2 African. Per­cent­age-wise, it com­prised Cau­casian at 47%, Mid­dle East­ern at 43%, and ‘Oth­er’ at 10%.

How­ev­er, the break­down between Syd­ney and Mel­bourne tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. In Syd­ney, it com­prised Cau­casian (17 per­pe­tra­tors) at 39%, and Mid­dle East­ern (22 per­pe­tra­tors) at 51%. In Mel­bourne, it com­prised Cau­casian (17 per­pe­tra­tors) at 58%, and Mid­dle East­ern (9 per­pe­tra­tors) at 31%. In both Syd­ney and Mel­bourne, ‘Oth­er’ com­prised 10%.

It is to be not­ed that this data only applies to 43 out of the 91 inci­dents of assault and abuse in Syd­ney and Mel­bourne, ie 47% of these inci­dents, and there­fore only tells a par­tial sto­ry.

Although Aus­tralia remains a sta­ble, vibrant and tol­er­ant democ­ra­cy, where Jews face no offi­cial dis­crim­i­na­tion, and are free to observe their faith and tra­di­tions, anti­semitism per­sists. There are seg­ments of Aus­tralian soci­ety which are not only hos­tile towards Jews, but active­ly and pub­licly express that hatred with words and threat­ened or actu­al vio­lent acts. As a result, and by neces­si­ty, phys­i­cal secu­ri­ty remains a prime con­cern for the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

Nathan said “The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty is the only com­mu­ni­ty with­in Aus­tralia whose places of wor­ship, schools, com­mu­nal organ­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres need, for secu­ri­ty rea­sons, to oper­ate under the pro­tec­tion of high fences, armed guards, met­al detec­tors, CCTV cam­eras and the like. The neces­si­ty is recog­nised by Aus­trali­a’s law enforce­ment agen­cies and aris­es from the entrenched and pro­tean nature of anti­semitism in west­ern and Mus­lim cul­ture, result­ing in a high inci­dence of phys­i­cal attacks against Jews and Jew­ish com­mu­nal build­ings over the last three decades, and con­tin­u­ing threats.”

For a diverse soci­ety such as Aus­trali­a’s to be social­ly cohe­sive, it is imper­a­tive that those in posi­tions of influ­ence with­in Aus­tralia pub­licly con­demn anti­semitism and oth­er forms of racism, and sup­port legal and oth­er mea­sures to counter all forms of racism.

Peter Wertheim AM
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor

Down­load the full report here

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