The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) is the official national representative body of the Australian Jewish community.
We work closely with the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), which is the federation of Jewish student societies at Australian and New Zealand universities and other higher education institutions and is an affiliate of the ECAJ.
The ECAJ is monitoring with grave concern the deteriorating situation on US campuses and events at Australian universities, particularly the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne.
The establishment of encampments on several American campuses has served to mobilise anti-Israel and antisemitic fervour, endangering Jewish students and academic staff and posing a direct threat to the basic right of students to assemble and learn in peace, free from intimidation, racially motivated hatred and support for terrorism.
United States President Joe Biden referred to events at several US universities as “blatant antisemitism [which] is reprehensible and dangerous – and has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”
In the past few days, we have seen similar attempts to form anti-Israel encampments at several Australian universities. We have also seen anti-Israel activists at Melbourne University entering lectures and photographing students who fail to agree with their positions on the Israel-Hamas war. At Sydney University, adults openly encouraged children to chant in support of Palestinian suicide bombings and to declare Israel as “a terrorist state.”
These disturbing events must be met with resolute leadership from university administrations and government. Universities must be centres of learning achieved through the free and respectful exchange of ideas. Seeking to intimidate, harass and exclude those who fail to conform to a rigid ideological position is the very antithesis of this. Foremost, universities must remain places where students and academics can engage with each other in safety. Support for proscribed terrorist organisations, instances of racial vilification, intimidation and harassment must be dealt with by universities and law enforcement.
AUJS and the ECAJ have been in regular contact with the Federal Education Minister, the Shadow Education Minister and Vice-Chancellors to convey the experiences and concerns of Jewish students and academics.
We call on the Federal Education Minister, state education ministers and Vice-Chancellors to take immediate action to ensure the safety of all students and staff. A failure to do so risks permanently degrading the reputation of our world class university sector and turning campuses into no-go areas for Jewish students and academics. The encampments must be dismantled.
Read the ECAJ’s comments in today’s The Australian, Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald.
