JEWISH COMMUNAL ORGANISATIONS THANK WITNESSES AS ROYAL COMMISSION HEARINGS CONCLUDE AND THE COMMISSIONER TURNS TO THE WRITTEN RECORD

Aus­trali­a’s main­stream Jewish communal organ­isa­tions today thanked the thousands of people who made sub­mis­sions and the hundreds more who gave evidence to the Royal Com­mis­sion on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

Today is the last day of hearings. It is not the end of the Commission’s process. The Com­mis­sion­er will now weigh the written record alongside the evidence given in the hearing room, and we will continue to assist the Com­mis­sion as needed in the months ahead.

We are proud that as a community we have done everything possible to put our exper­i­ences on the record. Our hope is that it leads to lasting change in Australia that reduces and, over time, elim­in­ates the violence and hatred directed at Jewish Aus­trali­ans in recent years.

The community strongly supports the Royal Com­mis­sion, and we trust the Com­mis­sion­er to weigh the spoken and written evidence in final­ising her report.

This has been extremely con­front­ing for our community, and we acknow­ledge the strength of everyone who engaged so openly and bravely with this process.

Since the start of the Royal Com­mis­sion, Jewish and other Aus­trali­ans have made around 20,000 written sub­mis­sions, and more than two hundred people have given evidence.

Over nine hearing blocks, uni­ver­sity students, teachers, small business owners, health workers, security staff, parents and many others all gave evidence about their lived exper­i­ence of antisemitism.

Among the com­pel­ling and often shocking testimony, the Com­mis­sion heard from children who make cal­cu­la­tions every morning about whether to be visibly Jewish, from a parent who described a Jewish school that now looks more like a prison, from a victim of the Bondi terror attack who was deepfaked online while recov­er­ing in hospital after being shot, and from a parent whose family home was graf­fit­ied with swastikas.

Many witnesses became targets of online abuse after giving evidence. That abuse also forms part of the evidence the Com­mis­sion­er is con­sid­er­ing.

None of this should be happening in Australia, and it is why so many people were willing to give evidence, and why this Com­mis­sion matters. Antisemitism damages how connected we are as a community. Reducing it leaves every Aus­trali­an better off, not only Jewish Aus­trali­ans.

Aus­trali­a’s main­stream Jewish communal organ­isa­tions – the ECAJ, JBOD, JCCV, ZFA, NCJWA, The Dor Found­a­tion and AIJAC – have been rep­res­en­ted before the Com­mis­sion by Arnold Bloch Leibler, acting pro bono, working with a team of counsel.

Co-CEo of ECAJ Peter Wertheim said, “Our community has put its heart and soul into this Com­mis­sion, providing the most detailed account of Jewish life in Australia ever put before a public inquiry.

“Hundreds of people have told the truth about their everyday exper­i­ence of antisemitism, and thousands more have provided detailed accounts through written sub­mis­sions. We thank everyone who has made a con­tri­bu­tion. The Com­mis­sion­er has a great deal of evidence to weigh, and we trust her to do that carefully.”