It’s Time to Talk About Australia’s Anti-Semitism Problem

My father flinches if you call him “Jew.”

He was traumatized by his family’s experience as Russian Jews in Stamford Hill, a neighborhood in inner London that has the largest Chasidic population in Europe. My upbringing was without mention of my family’s Sephardic life in ghettos. It was without understanding how anti-Semitism destroyed my family’s Judaism.

I was raised on a Shabbat dinner of Holocaust denial.

My family migrated from the United Kingdom in 2012 to South Australia, a state with a Holocaust denial institute — the Adelaide Institute in the state’s capital  — and synagogues being converted into night clubs. I attended a high school that featured swastikas and other anti-Semitic paraphernalia littering buildings, supervised by an administration that took no measures to police it. Naively, I assumed that universities, which are believed to be a utopia of acceptance, would be free of such anti-Semitic qualities.

But there, I was introduced to left-wing “anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism.”

University anti-Semitism has become an epidemic. Socialist Alternative at La Trobe University in Melbourne garnered news coverage for plastering posters of Jewish students on campus, inciting violence and causing the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) to stop staging events out of fear. Recently, Honi Soit, a student-run newspaper at the University of Sydney, made a call of retribution against Jews for “killing Jesus.”

However, anti-Semitism is not limited to university campuses. Anti-Semitism is increasing Australia-wide. During 2019, Australia saw a 30% increase in anti-Semitic incidents, according to the annual report by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). That 30% hike doesn’t include anti-Semitic incidents that go unreported, and with a distressing rate of failed convictions, the number of unreported incidents could be extortionate.

Although the rise of the extremist right-wing group Antipodean Resistance poses a threat to Jews because it calls for the legalization of Jewish execution; the normalization of anti-Semitism through political parties such as the Greens presents lasting damage to the Australian Jewish community.

The normalization of anti-Semitic rhetoric is caused by the redefinition of modern discourse enabling anti-Semitic views to be considered normal. This is how anti-Zionism has entered mainstream politics.

This anti-Semitic radicalization that the modern left has adopted has its origins in the former Soviet Union’s anti-Zionism.

The Greens Party is notable for its anti-Semitism that ranges from staffers promoting the idea that Israel is committing genocide, to Greens candidates marginalizing the Holocaust, and citing Nazi Leaders. The New South Wales Greens Party has a documented history of organizational anti-Semitism against the Jewish community. Greens Party members decline to attend events arranged by the Jewish community to promote acceptance and tolerance. Although nonpolitical, Greens Party members for years have declined to attend Shabbat dinners held by the Jewish community. These dinners are designed to promote intercommunity relations that have featured guests that include Labor and Liberal politicians at the state and federal levels, councilors, leaders from the local Anglican church and leaders of the Sikh community.

The New South Wales (NSW) Young Greens members also decline to attend conferences held at NSW Parliament house by the AUJS, which Labor and Liberal students attend. This statewide boycott of Jewish events, political and nonpolitical, is textbook anti-Semitism. By declining to contribute to the dialogue, they are distancing themselves further from the Jewish community. Similar to British and American Jews, progressive Australian Jews are becoming politically homeless as their parties abandon them.

Left-wing anti-Semitism is not confined to the Greens. In 2019, former Member of Parliament Melissa Parke from Fremantle compared Israel’s settlements to China’s island-building activity in the South China Sea, denounced Israel’s influence in Australian politics, and made unverified allegations about Israel. While at a Friends of Palestine rally in Perth, Western Australia, she stated: “It is not wrong to say the Israel lobby has excessive influence in the Australian political system.” While giving her speech, a protester yelled: “But why did you cave into the Zionist lobby? We have to f—— wipe them out!” Parke withdrew her candidacy after her anti-Semitic comments were made public. Parke, an advocate of Palestinian rights, has compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South Africa’s former system of apartheid. 

The platform that political parties are given to spread anti-Semitic rhetoric has led to the radicalization of Australians. What is concerning is that there are fewer Australians joining organizations, with more adopting hateful ideology. Adopting ideology is more complex to identify or track because there are no networks or details of members available. This anti-Semitic radicalization that the modern left has adopted has its origins in the former Soviet Union’s anti-Zionism.

Australia was deeply involved in the Soviet Jewry movement, fighting for the rights of Soviet Jews to emigrate during a time of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, so much so that 1 in 4 Australian Jews are from the Soviet bloc.

I challenge Australian anti-Zionists: find a Jew from the former Soviet Union.

Ask that person what anti-Zionism is.

Eliyahu Lann lives in Australia.