The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ), Australia’s peak elected national Jewish roof body, has released its annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia.  The report can be viewed and down­loaded here.

The following are the principle findings:

• During the twelve-month period to 30 September 2021, there were 447 antisemitic incidents logged by the ECAJ, volunteer Community Security Groups (CSGs), and official Jewish state roof bodies.
• This was an increase of 35% over the 331 incidents logged in the previous year.
• Overall, from 2020 to 2021, there were increases in the number of reported incidents in four cat­egor­ies:
  • abuse/harassment (up 14% from 128 in 2020 to 147 in 2021),
  • graffiti (up 152% from 42 to 106),
  • stickers/posters (up 157% from 28 to 72) and
  • vandalism (up by 10%, from 10 to 11).
• The number of reported physical assaults remained the same at 8. There were minimal decreases in incidents of postal and telephone threats, and a larger decrease in email threats.
• The average number of reported antisemitic incidents each year from 2013 to 2020 was 280. As such, the number of reported incidents in 2021 is above that average by 167 incidents.

Julie Nathan, ECAJ Research Director, and author of the Antisemitism Report, stated that, “The Israel-Hamas war in May 2021 con­trib­uted to the increase in antisemitic incidents. A total of 88 incidents was logged for the month of May alone, when the hos­til­it­ies between Israel and Hamas occurred, compared to between 22 and 46 incidents for each of the other 11 months of the year.”

Ms Nathan said: “Behind the stat­ist­ics lie some horrific personal stories of per­sist­ent antisemitic bullying of Jewish students at schools, the brutal physical assault of a man on his way to synagogue, the spray painting of “Free Palestine. Fuck Zionist. Free Palestine” on the signage at the front of a synagogue in Adelaide, the flying of a Nazi flag above a synagogue in Brisbane, and the draping of two Palestini­an flags and two shredded Israeli flags at the front entrance of a synagogue in Sydney.  What is perhaps worse is the dis­grace­ful discourse online and occa­sion­ally in the main­stream media of those who, for whatever reason, seek to ration­al­ise or minimise this egregious behaviour.”

“In addition to the delib­er­ate targeting of syn­agogues, Jewish schools, and  Jewish-owned busi­nesses, there was also the delib­er­ate targeting of private Jewish homes, in the form of anti-Israel graffiti on front fences of the homes of Jewish families.”

“Another prominent theme of the antisemitic discourse expressed during the year was a focus on blaming “the Jews” for the COVID-19 pandemic, notably by COVID-19 deni­al­ists as well as by many of those opposed to gov­ern­ment health measures, including vac­cin­a­tion mandates and lockdowns,” Nathan said.

In addition, Nathan warned of “extremist groups and indi­vidu­als, whether religious or ideo­lo­gic­al, who continued to espouse violence against Jews”. Nathan iden­ti­fied the main offenders as the extremist Islamist group, Hizb ut’Tahrir, and the neo-Nazi group, National Socialist Network.

Nathan called upon political leaders, the media, law enforce­ment, academics, faith leaders, and others in positions of power or influence, to act to counter antisemitism in all its forms.

“It was heart­en­ing that Australia recently gave official endorse­ment to the Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Alliance Working Defin­i­tion of Antisemitism”, she said.“The ECAJ has been using that defin­i­tion since 2016 as a standard for gauging antisemitic discourse.  To be effective, the defin­i­tion will now need to be adopted by the public and private sectors, the Uni­ver­sity sector, civil society, school education systems and sporting organ­isa­tions among others”.