ECAJ President Daniel Aghion’s closing address to the Australian Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism in Gold Coast on 5 September 2025.

There have been a lot of speech­es – some might say too many! One thing I hope that this event pro­duces is the civ­il dia­logue we sore­ly need. I will return to that point lat­er.

Think about your deci­sion to attend a con­fer­ence to dis­cuss the prob­lem of Jew­ish hatred in Aus­tralia and how to com­bat it.

Did you expect:

• to be pres­sured not to attend, and harassed if you decid­ed to do so?
  to be told that there is some­thing improp­er with you learn­ing about anti­semitism?
• to say to your taxi dri­ver when asked, as one of you did, that you were not going to this con­fer­ence and you were instead vis­it­ing a friend stay­ing at the hotel?
• to be sub­ject to secu­ri­ty check­ing before you enter the venue?
• to face protests out­side your hotel?
• to be yelled at, that you are a crim­i­nal and killing babies?
• to see a sig­nif­i­cant police pres­ence, and to be grate­ful for the safe­ty it brings?

Try­ing to shut down a dis­cus­sion about how to com­bat Jew­ish hatred? That is anti­semitism. The irony is obvi­ous.

Part I

I want to take you back, almost two years. At this stage, I want to make a clear point – this is not a sto­ry about Israel. It is a sto­ry about Aus­tralia.

It was the morn­ing of Wednes­day 10 Octo­ber 2023. The pre­vi­ous week­end on 7 Octo­ber, Israel had been attacked like nev­er before. We knew that many civil­ians were dead and many tak­en hostage – we did not yet know how many. We knew that the attack was bru­tal, but we did not yet know the full extent of the deprav­i­ty. Some of the Hamas fight­ers were still holed up in kib­butzes, and Israel was slow­ly regain­ing its own ter­ri­to­ry. There had been no incur­sion into Gaza at that time. What­ev­er view one may take about the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion in Gaza – and I acknowl­edge that there are many valid views, both for and against and many in between – at that point in time Israel had not yet had a chance to respond. Its peo­ple were blame­less.

That Wednes­day morn­ing, I was on a train in Mel­bourne trav­el­ling into the CBD for work. The train was full. On the oth­er side of the train, two men were chat­ting about world events, loud enough for all to hear.

The first said: “Israel deserved every­thing it got”.

The sec­ond agreed.

The first said: “The Amer­i­cans will come in and help Israel like they always do, but that is because the Jews con­trol all the mon­ey.”

The sec­ond agreed.

There it was. One of the old­est anti­se­mit­ic tropes. Jews use mon­ey – our ten­ta­cles, as NSW Green MP Jen­ny Leong described us – to exert con­trol and influ­ence. And because we are Jews, that assert­ed influ­ence (what­ev­er that might mean) is always malign and nev­er ben­e­fi­cial. On that think­ing, Jews must be dele­git­imised. Nev­er mind that many have worked hard and con­tributed to the mod­ern suc­cess of this coun­try. Nev­er mind that the Jew­ish mind­set is to give back to com­mu­ni­ty. On that think­ing, to give just one recent exam­ple of many, Jew­ish phil­an­thropic fam­i­lies are fair game. A pro-Pales­tin­ian march in Mel­bourne becomes a block­ade of the Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria. Why? Because a major donor fam­i­ly are “Zion­ists”. As if chang­ing the label on the tin hides and some­how jus­ti­fies the con­tent of the mes­sage and the method by which it was deliv­ered. Fur­ther­more, any Aus­tralian who attend­ed the art gallery with their fam­i­ly that day, was accused of being com­plic­it in geno­cide.

That is the mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion, the oth­er­ing that we have seen in this coun­try. Eleven fire­bomb­ing attacks on Jew­ish tar­gets includ­ing streets where Jews live, our syn­a­gogues and our busi­ness­es. We now know that State spon­sored ter­ror­ism stands behind some of those evil attacks, and that Iran­ian ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty onshore is stok­ing the fires of hatred in this coun­try.

But even that is not enough for the anti­semites. This week, a Syd­ney car­di­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor iden­ti­fied him­self by name and pro­fes­sion and asked this ques­tion at a pub­lic forum: “I thought it was a no brain­er that the [fire­bomb­ings] were Mossad-engi­neered events. Am I being total­ly naive, or has the Zion­ist lob­by tak­en over ASIO as well?”

The cardiologist’s ques­tion was cheered and applaud­ed. He asked it of a pan­el, who then dis­cussed the so-called malign influ­ence behind this very con­fer­ence. One of the pan­el­lists, a crim­i­nal lawyer from Syd­ney, replied that “there are very good rea­sons to doubt the offi­cial nar­ra­tive from ASIO”. Anoth­er pan­el­list, an online jour­nal­ist who has cam­paigned against this very con­fer­ence, is report­ed to have made the sug­ges­tion that the [syn­a­gogue fire­bomb­ings were] a false flag, and that there was “sig­nif­i­cant prece­dent” to say that Israel tar­get­ed syn­a­gogues for ‘their own polit­i­cal pur­pos­es”.

As the pro­test­ers said on the steps of the Syd­ney Opera House, “f—- the Jews”, “gas the Jews”, or “where’s the Jews”. And while the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors debat­ed what was actu­al­ly said and whether it con­sti­tut­ed an offence, at least one part of that the mes­sage was crys­tal clear.

This is an ugly sec­tion of Aus­tralia we are present­ly fac­ing – where parts of the intel­li­gentsia, the polit­i­cal world, the street, the extreme left and extreme right – includ­ing neo-Nazi speak­ers being plat­formed, com­bine and coa­lesce around an inter­na­tion­al con­flict half a world away, and look for a soci­etal scape­goat. And the scape­goat is the old­est one there is – the Jews.

Part II

So how do we com­bat this stain? How do we turn some­thing so dark into hope and light. As com­mu­nal lead­ers, as upstanders one and all, how do we call for the Aus­tralia we know and love, an Aus­tralia that embraces, that cel­e­brates and uplifts? How do we fight for the Aus­tralia we want?

For this, I draw upon anoth­er per­son­al nar­ra­tive. In my work life as a bar­ris­ter in Mel­bourne, I of course speak with many of my col­leagues. Good peo­ple who say unprompt­ed “Well done. Do not stop. Keep going.” None are Jew­ish. None are Israeli. Each of the peo­ple I have men­tioned, well under­stand that what we are all try­ing to pro­tect is the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of our fel­low Aus­tralians.

We can­not change what hap­pens in a con­flict half a world away. But we can influ­ence what hap­pens here, to Aus­tralians, in our own back­yard.

And so I have three con­clud­ing mes­sages.

First, please use the tools and infor­ma­tion you have gained from this sum­mit. The work col­leagues I men­tioned before have offered me their qui­et sup­port, and I am grate­ful to them for doing so. But we also need agents for change. As mem­bers of local gov­ern­ment and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty-based organ­i­sa­tions, you are in the unique and spe­cial posi­tion of being able to effect that change where it mat­ters – on the ground. Use the knowl­edge you have gained from the speak­ers, and the infor­ma­tion in your pack. Reach out to your State-based Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions and the fed­er­al body the ECAJ, and use us to con­nect with the many com­mu­ni­ty resources that are avail­able. We are here to help you con­tin­ue the dia­logue that has start­ed at this con­fer­ence. To help you build a local com­mu­ni­ty that we all want to share and enjoy.

If we are to pro­tect the Aus­tralian way of life – the fabled mate­ship, the equal­i­ty of treat­ment and of oppor­tu­ni­ty, the fair go for all – then we must have that change.

Sec­ond, there are a num­ber of thanks that I will deliv­er on your behalf. Thank you to all of our speak­ers. There have been so many of you! With one excep­tion, I will not embar­rass any­one by men­tion­ing or omit­ting any, but there have been high­lights. Each of you will of course have your own high­lights. For me, it has been the qual­i­ty and depth across all of the pre­sen­ta­tions. Please thank our speak­ers.

I will men­tion one speak­er: Nova Peris OAM. Nova, your research, your hard work, your clar­i­ty of thought. We are in awe. I remem­ber read­ing your first pub­lic state­ment on this top­ic, after 7 Octo­ber. As you men­tioned, it was in ear­ly Decem­ber 2023 and deliv­ered after care­ful thought at a time when your own com­mu­ni­ty, your mob, was dev­as­tat­ed and griev­ing from a pub­lic set­back. At that time, when we were in dark­ness, your voice was one of the ear­ly and very few bright lights. You did not need to step up for the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, but you did so then and have con­tin­ued to so time and time again. You are an upstander, and a men­sch – a Yid­dish word mean­ing a per­son of integri­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty. Nova, let me show you my own hum­ble act of upstand­ing. I am wear­ing a kip­pah with an orig­i­nal indige­nous design. I do so often, and always when I meet with politi­cians both here and over­seas. This small piece of head­wear pub­licly iden­ti­fies me as a proud Aus­tralian Jew.

While I am engag­ing in a lit­tle bit of upstand­ing, let me acknowl­edge the pres­ence of our friends from many faith and eth­nic groups here, and the organ­i­sa­tions that com­mit to build­ing rela­tion­ships across faiths and cul­tures. With­out leav­ing any­one out, because of what was said in Can­ber­ra less than 24 hours ago, I par­tic­u­lar­ly want to men­tion the atten­dance of the Hin­du Coun­cil of Aus­tralia. I – we – say to you that the irre­spon­si­ble and prej­u­di­cial com­ments that one Fed­er­al Par­lia­men­tar­i­an made yes­ter­day are wrong. The Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty con­demns those com­ments. Every cit­i­zen of this coun­try, no mat­ter where they were born, has an absolute and uncon­di­tion­al right to be here, and to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in all aspects of demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety. That includes the unfet­tered right to vote how­ev­er they choose.

Thank you to our host, Gold Coast May­or Tom Tate. Unlike Will Nemesh from Waver­ley Coun­cil in Syd­ney, as a Mel­bourn­ian I read­i­ly con­cede that your beach­es win.

Thank you to CAM, its spon­sors and its part­ners. When Sacha Royt­man first pro­posed this event to the ECAJ, we thought this would be a mas­sive under­tak­ing. And so it has turned out to be.

To the organ­is­ers Jus­tine, Jenn, Arthur and Alex, please accept our col­lec­tive grat­i­tude and pass it on to your entire team includ­ing our AUJS youth helpers. Thank you to the team at the Impe­r­i­al Hotel. The facil­i­ties and the sup­port have been bril­liant.

Thank you to Queens­land Police and secu­ri­ty for keep­ing us safe.

Third and final­ly, thank you – each and every one of you. For your courage in gath­er­ing here with us, to name the sick­ness of anti­semitism in Aus­tralian soci­ety and to dis­cuss how to com­bat it. I look around this room, and I do not feel oth­ered, exclud­ed or alone as I did that day on a train in my coun­try of birth and the city where I live and work. Today, this Aus­tralian Jew feels loved and embraced.