The piece has been published in SBS News.

Australia’s peak national Jewish body is calling for action to tackle an “alarming” rise in antisemitic incidents.

Defaced campaign posters of former federal treasurer Josh Fry­den­berg and Labor MP Josh Burns were some of the examples of antisemitism included in the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry’s latest report. Source: Supplied / Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry

KEY POINTS:

• The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry has released its annual report on antisemitism in Australia.
• The ECAJ and asso­ci­ated organ­isa­tions logged 478 antisemitic incidents over a 12-month period.
• There was a 41.9 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents in Australia over the past two years.

A group of Orthodox Jewish men were verbally abused and phys­ic­ally assaulted in Melbourne in February last year, with their religious skullcaps forcibly removed.

A woman punched, kicked and bit a Jewish man in May after she saw his Star of David necklace.

In June, a Jewish man in Bondi in Sydney’s east was approached by a man and woman, who told him he “did not belong in the area” and was “des­troy­ing the heritage”, before taking his hat from his head and throwing it on the ground.

And these are not the only violent acts of antisemitism reported in Australia over the last year, with a new report indic­at­ing they are just the tip of the iceberg.

Antisemitism on the rise in Australia

There were 478 antisemitic incidents logged between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022, according to the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry’s (ECAJ) annual report on Antisemitism in Australia released on Friday.

The ECAJ says this is an increase of almost 42 per cent over the past two years.

The report uses the Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Alliance working defin­i­tion of antisemitism, which describes it as a “certain per­cep­tion of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhet­or­ic­al and physical mani­fest­a­tions of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish indi­vidu­als and/or their property, toward Jewish community insti­tu­tions and religious facil­it­ies.”

This Nazi flag was flown outside a building over­look­ing a synagogue in Brisbane. Source: Supplied / Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry

The incidents detailed in the report include physical assault, vandalism, verbal abuse, har­ass­ment and intim­id­a­tion, hate messages, graffiti, and pro­pa­ganda material such as banners, flags, leaflets, posters, and stickers.

Peter Wertheim, co-chair of the ECAJ, described the findings as con­cern­ing.

“The stat­ist­ics are quite alarming,” he told ABC News.

“It’s not the sort of thing we expect in a country like Australia, where we’re accus­tomed to think of as a peaceful and cohesive society.”

Holocaust knowledge ‘dimin­ish­ing’ in Australia

The report also detailed discourse and action within main­stream politics, media, society, education and COVID-19 antisemitism.

It said antisemitism had been either validated or not rejected in each of these sectors, including Nazi analogies by politi­cians, Facebook comments on news articles, display and promotion of Nazi mem­or­ab­il­ia, and bullying or ste­reo­typ­ing of Jewish students in schools.

Anti-Semitism continues to rise across the world, according to new report

Mr Wertheim said education has a pivotal role to play in combating antisemitism and keeping the lessons of the Holocaust alive, with a recent report showing a decline in levels of awareness of the event that saw the genocide of millions of European Jews during World War Two.

“The level of his­tor­ic­al knowledge and par­tic­u­larly knowledge of the Holocaust is dimin­ish­ing,” he said.

“It really does underline the import­ance of museums and school education and uni­ver­sity education and so on.”

Unsung hero: The man who saved more Jews than Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust

Mr Wertheim said a “whole of gov­ern­ment” approach was needed to address antisemitism.

“There has been work done in this area and it’s positive and a good start but it’s clearly not enough. It really isn’t attacking it in a sys­tem­at­ic way,” he said.

“We have different branches of gov­ern­ment doing different things, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole of gov­ern­ment approach to dealing with systemic racism and more import­antly with specific forms of racism like antisemitism.”

On Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Day, we keep alive the memory of those who died, and those who survived.

And we make sure that gen­er­a­tions to come know their stories.

They carry the important message: never again. pic.twitter.com/0SzLcvMnzL

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) January 26, 2023

The report was released to coincide with Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Day.

“Antisemitism is on the rise but it will not find a home here,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a video posted to Twitter.

“Australia will always denounce it and reject it utterly, just as we do all forms of racism and prejudice. We owe it to our country, we owe it to our Jewish community, and we owe it to our survivors.

“They deserve nothing less.”