Uncategorized
Antisemitism is on the Rise Down Under
By HENRY SREBRNIK As in other western countries, Australian Jews have been targeted by boycotts, harassment, and intimidation since the Gaza war began last October.
Throughout its history, Australia has been good to its Jewish community, which numbers more than 100,000 people today, with most living in Melbourne and Sydney.
From around 1947 to 1952, Australia took in more Holocaust survivors as a proportion of its population than any other country. Their children and grandchildren form more than half the community in Australia.
Being Jewish in Australia has never been seen as a bar to success. Yet since the Gaza war started, reports of antisemitism have spiked 700 per cent, including violent attacks.
Responding to pressure, on July 9 Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed Jillian Segal, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, to be “special envoy to combat antisemitism in Australia” for three years.
There is an urgent necessity to overhaul laws about doxing, the intentional online exposure of an individual’s identity, private information, or personal details, which has had a disproportionate impact on Jewish individuals. Pro-Palestinian activists distributed a nearly 900-page transcript that they leaked from a private WhatsApp formed last year by Jewish writers, artists, musicians and academics.
For example, Josh Moshe, a 33-year-old grandson of Holocaust survivors, moved to Melbourne in 2010. He and his wife operated a well-known gift shop in Thornbury. He had never experienced problems before.
However, all of this rapidly changed after the WhatsApp group was doxed. “We were sworn at, the shop was graffitied with ‘Glory to Hamas,’ and ‘we don’t want Zionists in Thornbury,’” he said. As a result of such stories, the government plans to make the practice illegal.
Many politicians espouse openly anti-Israeli views. A video of Jenny Leong, an Australia Green Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, discussing how “the Jewish lobby and the Zionist lobby” are using their “tentacles” to “influence power” went viral in early February.
Pro-Palestine encampments have come under increased scrutiny. A joint statement by protest organizers at 10 universities claims their movement has been peaceful and opposition to the state of Israel and Zionism as an ideology was not antisemitism.
“There needs to be more nuance around the conversation,” remarked David Slucki, associate professor at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization at Monash University in Melbourne. “Our governments at the local, state, and federal level come out regularly in support of Jews and against antisemitism, which is something we have rarely seen throughout history. And yet I routinely hear people talk how similar the current situation is to 1930s Germany.”
On the other hand, a Monash colleague of his, Philip Mendes, Director of the Social Inclusion and Social Policy Research Unit, disagrees. “Australia has experienced an unprecedented outbreak of anti-Semitism,” he maintains. (Full disclosure: he and I have collaborated on a number of scholarly articles and books.)
Jewish university students and academics have been subjected to various forms of defamation, threats and hate speech by university-based encampments and associated forums, flyers and graffiti, which are intended to exclude them from academic and public discourse, he maintains. Many Jewish students and staff assembled in early May at Melbourne University Square, well away from the encampment, where some told stories about feeling intimidated on campus.
On May 9 the federal opposition Liberal Party’s education spokesperson, Sarah Henderson, claimed campuses had become “hotbeds of antisemitic activism” in “flagrant breach” of university policies. Mendes sees this as a new form of McCarthyism, like that experienced by Communists and other leftists during the Cold War.
Michael Gawenda, a well-known Australian journalist, was editor of the centre-left Melbourne Age for seven years from 1997-2004, and a foreign correspondent in both London and Washington. In an article published in the British periodical Fathom in February, he describes his anxiety over current events.
“The Labor Government in Australia has been all over the place on Israel and the Palestinians and on the Hamas-Israel war,” he explained. “There are vital Labor-held seats in Sydney and Melbourne that have significant numbers of Muslim Australians, enough to swing election results.” It has meant that from Albanese on down, “there has been a failure to properly, unequivocally, call out what has clearly been an explosion of Jew hatred in Australia.”
Western Australian senator Fatima Payman, a devout Muslim born in Afghanistan, quit the Labor party recently in a major rupture with the Albanese government over Palestine. She used the politically charged phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which, she said, asserted “a desire for Palestinians to live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominating others nor being dominated.”
A close friend of mine, Michael Birkner, professor of history at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, has spent many sabbaticals in Melbourne over the past two decades. He agrees that the Labor Party in Australia is walking on eggshells about the war in Gaza.
“The intellectual community is pro-Palestinian, and there are thousands more voting Muslims in Australia’s cities than Jews.” A small community perhaps a fifth the size of the Muslim community, the Jewish community’s “political influence is scant, even as there are notable Jewish writers and elected officials.” Indeed, in so many ways, it resembles its sister community in Canada.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.
Uncategorized
At White House Hanukkah party, Trump says Congress ‘is becoming antisemitic’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump said Congress “is becoming antisemitic” and warned about what he said was the fading influence of the “Jewish lobby” and “Israeli lobby” in an address to his Jewish supporters at a White House celebration marking the third night of Hanukkah.
During his remarks, the president also honored the victims of the recent Hanukkah terrorist attack in Australia and joked with his largest Jewish benefactor about her bankrolling a third presidential run prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
“My father would tell me, the most powerful lobby that there is in this country is the Jewish lobby. It is the Israeli lobby,” Trump mused. “It is not that way anymore. You have a lot of people in your way. They don’t want to help Israel.”
Trump celebrated his own Israel policies, including a recent ceasefire agreement brokered with Hamas that returned Israeli hostages from Gaza but has not ended violence in the region. He has vowed to move the ceasefire into its second phase, accounting for Gaza’s postwar governance, in early 2026.
He also warned the room, “You have a Congress in particular which is becoming antisemitic.” He singled out “AOC plus three” — a reference to the progressive House “Squad” led by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom Trump says “hates Jewish people.”
Trump also blamed universities for inculcating anti-Israel sentiment, and predicted that Harvard, with which his administration has been embroiled in lengthy settlement talks over antisemitism-related fines, “will pay a lot of money.”
Trump’s audience included Jewish Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Chabad-Lubavitch leader Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Holocaust survivors, and conservative pro-Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson. He brought Adelson to the podium with him, calling her his “number one” financial supporter.
Adelson, in turn, implied that she and pro-Israel legal scholar Alan Dershowitz believed there would be a way to keep Trump in power beyond his two-term limit.
“I met Alan Dershovitz, and he said, ‘The legal thing, about four more years,’ and I said, ‘Alan, I agree with you.’ So, we can do it. Think about it,” Adelson told a smiling Trump as attendees chanted, “Four more years!”
“She said, ‘Think about it, I’ll give you another $250 million,’” Trump quipped.
Early in his remarks, Trump turned to the Bondi Beach massacre at a Chabad-hosted menorah lighting. “Let me take a moment to send the love and prayers to the entire nation, to the people, of Australia and especially all those affected by the horrific and antisemitic terrorist attack — and that is exactly what it is, antisemitic — that took place on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney,” he said. “What a terrible thing. We don’t learn.”
He also reflected on the meaning of the holiday.
“Against overwhelming odds, a small band of Jewish fighters rose up to defend the Jewish people’s right to worship freely,” Trump said. “The miracle of Hanukkah has reminded us of God’s love for the Jewish people, as well as their enduring resilience and faith in the face of centuries of persecution, centuries. And it continues.”
Absent from the Hanukkah party was the White House’s own, first menorah, added to its collection in 2022 under President Biden.
The post At White House Hanukkah party, Trump says Congress ‘is becoming antisemitic’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Australia’s Yiddish community is thriving, not reviving
As a professional translator of Yiddish literature, I was surprised by the characterization of the Australian Jewish community’s connection to the Yiddish language in the recent Forward piece “Australia’s Jewish community is defined by Holocaust survivors, Yiddishkeit and immigrants.”
Australia’s Jewish community has indeed been shaped by the Yiddish language. This is why, when I was a Yiddish Book Center translation fellow, I used the small travel stipend that came with the fellowship to visit Melbourne, the center of Australian Yiddishkayt.
What I was surprised by in the Forward‘s article, (which cites a Vice article from 2019 as its source) was the characterization of Yiddishkayt in Australia as a “revival,” with “young people who view it as a ‘language of protest’ leading the charge.”
What is remarkable about the Melbourne Jewish community’s connection to the Yiddish language is not that it has been revived, but rather that it has been sustained, for over a hundred years, thanks in large part to the role the Jewish Labor Bund has played in shaping the Jewish community of Melbourne. The Kadimah Jewish Cultural Center and Yiddish Library has a name that literally means “forward” in Yiddish and Hebrew. They have been leading the charge for 110 years. The particular young people mentioned in the Forward‘s article are new arrivals.
One might think, reading this piece, that teaching Yiddish as a subject at Sholem Aleichem College was a recent development, rather than the central reason for the founding of the school over 40 years ago, with earlier Bundist-modeled Yiddish-language Sunday schools preceding it.
In addition to Sholem Aleichem college, there is also the SKIF youth group, which Melbournian Bundist families have been sending their children to since 1950. When I visited Melbourne in 2019, I attended SKIF’s annual Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Commemoration, which featured children and teenagers reciting poetry and texts from the Warsaw Ghetto in the original Yiddish, a sharp contrast to the recent Yiddish learners profiled in the Vice article the Forward piece linked to, one of whom had only recently learned that bagel was a Yiddish word.
This is not to shame newer learners of Yiddish. We all have to start somewhere. I welcome everyone, Jewish and not, who decides to learn, but Yiddish is not only a language of protest. It is first and foremost a language of life, one that I hope will continue to be sustained in Australia following this horrific attack.
The post Australia’s Yiddish community is thriving, not reviving appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Israel Must Increase Its Advocacy — and Jews Must Continue Speaking Up
Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri
When will Israel answer the decades-long smear campaign against it? How can a nation known for breakthroughs in medicine, science, and agriculture — and home to the most ethical military and the Middle East’s only democracy — struggle with self-advocacy?
As a Soviet Jew raised in Moscow, I saw Israel as the guardian of my identity. After millennia of persecution and the Holocaust, Israel became a beacon of freedom and safety for the Jewish people. I excused Israel’s public-relations failures as the cost of survival. Surrounded by hostility and judged by the harshest standards, Israel focused on defending land, people, and principles — not narratives. Key conflicts shaped this posture — from 1948, 1967, and 1973, to the Intifadas, wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.
The deepest wound is internal: too many Jews refuse to stand together against evil. Unity and principled advocacy are imperative. After three decades in New York, I’m devastated by Zohran Mamdani’s victory; he is a Social Democrat, an anti-Zionist, and an antisemite. Yet 33% of New York’s Jewish community voted for him. I cannot comprehend voting for a mayor who is an antisemite.
Since October 7, Israel has failed to communicate why it had to wage war on Hamas and prevent Hamas’ plan to destroy Israel. The opposing side advanced a narrative, amplified by the media and anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda — casting Palestinians as victims of “Israeli colonialism” and branding Israel’s war as a genocide.
Hamas massacred 1,200 people and took 251 hostages — and vowed to repeat the massacre again and again. Israel’s goals: return the hostages and eradicate Hamas to prevent future attacks. Yet the IDF and Netanyahu are cast as murderers, and a campaign to eliminate a terrorist organization is labeled as genocide.
Israel’s story is factual and moral. Israel’s war is not genocide; it targets Hamas terrorists, not Gazans. This is legitimate self-defense under international law. The IDF’s morality is rooted in courage, justice, and protection of the weak; Hamas attacks civilians and uses civilians as human shields, while the IDF takes extensive precautions to protect civilians. Hamas embeds its terrorists among civilians, seeking their deaths to feed a media campaign. The casualty story is distorted: the IDF estimates that two civilians are killed per Hamas terrorist — among the lowest ratios in recent warfare. Civilian deaths, tragic in any war, do not constitute genocide. If Israel sought genocide, the toll would be vastly higher.
The world must know that Hamas obstructs aid — attacking workers, firing on distribution sites, and blocking aid — while the IDF strains to deliver it. These tactics sow chaos and spawn false reports blaming the IDF for deaths and famine, even as Hamas hoards fuel and medical supplies.
Israel cites extensive aid deliveries, daily pauses, secure corridors, and controlled entry to challenge famine assessments. This data gets scant media coverage. Israel hasn’t failed deliberately; it neglected to adjust to the change in political choreography.
Israel must remind its people of their history, and clarify that it fights to defends all Jews, not only Israelis. It should use the media to change the narrative about the Middle East, ground claims in data, and pair them with images of Israeli victims from October 7.
An antisemitic mob gathered outside a Manhattan synagogue, chanting “Death to the IDF,” “Death to Israel,” and “We need to make them scared,” during a Nefesh B’Nefesh event. Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani issued a perfunctory note “discouraging the language,” then effectively blamed the synagogue, claiming that houses of worship must be free from intimidation and should not promote activities that “violate international law.”
First of all, promoting the rights of Jews to live in Israel does not violate international law (unless you believe Israel shouldn’t exist, which Mamdani does). Second, what about the rights and freedom of the congregants? Mamdani’s posture is as hollow as Putin’s desire for peace. Emboldened by elected antisemitic leadership, the mobs blur protest, hate, and violence.
Yet fault also lies with us Jews: freedom is our faith’s core, and with that, comes responsibility. Instead of urging Israel to communicate the facts, too many Jews stayed passive — or boosted Zohran Mamdani, who believes Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the massacres.
“Am Yisrael Chai!” is a Jewish cry of an uncompromising will to live — “The People of Israel live.” Rabbi Stephen S. Wise proclaimed it in 1933 in defiance of Hitler; survivors heard it after Bergen-Belsen’s liberation; Shlomo Carlebach made it the anthem of the Soviet Jewry movement. Across the years, the cry affirms Jewish resilience and frames a narrative: “The People of Israel live.” Our story starts and ends with this cry. In between, lie the facts — and without facts, history turns to fiction and democracies become dictatorships.
Anya Gillinson is an immigration lawyer and author of the new memoir, Dreaming in Russian. She lives in New York City. More at www.anyagillinson.com.