Please find below the ECA­J’s media release regard­ing our 2017 Report on Anti­semitism in Aus­tralia, com­piled by ECAJ Research Offi­cer Julie Nathan. The report itself can be viewed and down­loaded here.

MEDIA STATEMENT

26 November 2017

ECAJ annual Report on Antisemitism in Australia

The 12 month peri­od end­ing 30 Sep­tem­ber 2017 saw a 9.5% increase over the pre­vi­ous year in total 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 230 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 210 such inci­dents logged by the same sources over the pre­ced­ing 12 month peri­od.
Attacks (assault, abuse, van­dal­ism, and graf­fi­ti) account­ed for 63% of the total num­ber of inci­dents, with 145 inci­dents. Threats (email, let­ters, tele­phone, leaflets) account­ed for 37% of the total num­ber of inci­dents, with 85 inci­dents. There is also much anec­do­tal evi­dence of inci­dents which go unre­port­ed.
Over­all, the num­ber of ‘attacks’ remained rel­a­tive­ly unchanged, while ‘threats’ increased by 39%, between 2016 and 2017. There was a marked increase in anti­se­mit­ic graf­fi­ti and posters; and a decrease in assault, and van­dal­ism, and a slight decrease in harass­ment.
The report’s author, the ECAJ Research Offi­cer, Julie Nathan, said “The most promi­nent change over the last twelve months in Aus­tralia has been the rise in extreme right-wing activ­i­ty. This new devel­op­ment has pre­dom­i­nant­ly been through the activ­i­ties of a small neo- Nazi group, Antipodean Resis­tance, formed in Octo­ber 2016. It orig­i­nat­ed in Mel­bourne but now has chap­ters in most oth­er states. So far, their activ­i­ties have involved putting up thou­sands of Nazi stick­ers and thou­sands of anti-Jew­ish, anti-homo­sex­u­al and pro-Nazi posters, espe­cial­ly at uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er places vis­i­ble to the pub­lic. This has caused great con­cern espe­cial­ly with­in the Jew­ish and gay com­mu­ni­ties. Some of the Antipodean Resis­tance posters express sup­port for vio­lence and mur­der, call­ing to “Legalise the exe­cu­tion of Jews” and for the killing of homo­sex­u­als, by shoot­ing Jews and homo­sex­u­als in the head.
Anti­se­mit­ic posters and stick­ers put up by Antipodean Resis­tance account­ed for 22% of the total num­ber of inci­dents. At this stage, Antipodean Resis­tance is a seri­ous con­cern rather than a sol­id threat to the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of Jews, homo­sex­u­als, and non-white immi­grants. How­ev­er, it remains to be seen what direc­tion Antipodean Resis­tance will take in their future activ­i­ties.”
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, espe­cial­ly those which involve vio­lence or advo­ca­cy of vio­lence.
Con­tact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au | www.ecaj.org.au

To download this media release as a PDF, click here.

To download the 2017 ECAJ Report on Antisemitism in Australia, click here.