Australia, Once Famous for Its Chill Vibe, Is a Sewer of Antisemitism

This past week, I was attacked three times. Not for anything I said, or anything I did—but simply for being Jewish.

I was on a lecture tour in Australia where I’ve been visiting for nearly forty years – even since the Lubavitcher Rebbe appointment and ten colleagues to establish Sydney’s first ever Rabbinical College – to address Israel’s 77th birthday which happened to coincidentally fall on the exact 80 anniversary of the suicide of Adolf Hitler on 20 April, 1945.

Almost immediately the antisemites – both Islamists and white supremacists – recognized me and targeted me.

On one occasion, I was walking through Coogee Beach, right by the Synagogue run by Rabbi Elazar Gestetner where I’ve spoke for decades, wearing my kippah. A young Islamist pretending to be Jewish asked for a selfie and shouted “Free Palestine” with disgusting curse words. I chased him. Like the coward he is, he covered his face. He shouted obscenities and told me that as a Zionist I should go back to my country. Married to an Australian myself, with nine children who are American-Australia, I was wondering, as he said all this, where his own parents, or he himself, had been born.

Another incident where someone yelled at me go “go back to Europe.” The third—and perhaps most chilling—was during a public event I was leading to mark Israel’s Independence Day. As I began to speak about peace, hope, and the Jewish people’s enduring connection to their homeland, demonstrators burst in with signs and chants, attempting to shout me down. Police intervened and arrested two individuals, but the damage had been done—not just to me personally, but to the entire Jewish community present that day. The story went viral throughout the global Jewish community.

These are not isolated events. They are symptoms of something far more serious and far more dangerous: a dramatic and deeply concerning rise in antisemitism across Australia.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has documented a staggering increase in antisemitic incidents in recent months. These include physical assaults, threats, graffiti, vandalism of Jewish schools and cemeteries, and an alarming uptick in hate speech online. Since the escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict in October 2023, antisemitism in Australia has surged to levels not seen in decades.

For many Australians, this might seem abstract—something unfortunate but far removed from daily life. But for Jewish Australians, it has become part of Australian-Jewish reality. Children are being told to remove their school badges on public transport. Synagogues are hiring additional security for every Shabbat service. In order to give me speech at Central Synagogue, Australia’s largest Shul, I, even as the speaker, had to pass through questioning by six different security guards. Families are afraid to display mezuzahs or wear Star of David necklaces. They are being forced to choose between visibility and safety. For the first time since marrying Debbie 37 years ago, I am hearing many Jewish Australians planning to leave the continent-nation.

This is not what Australia is meant to be.

Australia has long prided itself on being a multicultural society—a place where people of all faiths, backgrounds, and cultures are free to live in peace. The postwar period saw waves of Jewish immigrants—survivors of the Holocaust—arrive on these shores in search of refuge and renewal. To the credit of the Australian government, they allowed in 29,000 Holocaust survivors between 12946 and 1952, a number equal to the entire Jewish community already living there. For many decades, Sydney and especially Melbourne had the highest per capita rates of holocaust survivors of any cities in the world with the exception of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Australian Jews rebuilt their lives, established schools and synagogues, and contributed to every facet of Australian society, becomes some of the most prosperous businessmen and woman and philanthropists the country had ever seen. From medicine to law, business to academia, the Jewish community has thrived and pledged billions of dollars to essential charities —not because of special privileges, but because Australia allowed them to live with dignity.

But dignity is now being threatened.

To be clear, criticism of Israel, like criticism of any state, is not necessarily antisemitic. But when that criticism morphs into harassment of Jews simply for existing—when it becomes acceptable to disrupt a rabbi’s speech with threats, or to intimidate Jewish schoolchildren—then we are no longer talking about politics. We are talking about hate.

And hate, once tolerated, never stays confined.

What starts with antisemitism rarely ends there. It festers, spreads, and ultimately weakens the moral foundations of a society. That is why this must concern every Australian—not just Jews. Because a country that cannot protect its minorities is not truly free.

There are those who will say, “This is just a fringe issue.” But hatred does not need to be in the majority to do lasting damage. The Christchurch mosque shootings in nearby New Zealand, the attacks on Asian Australians during the COVID pandemic, and now the surge in antisemitism—all serve as sobering reminders of what happens when prejudice is left unchecked.

So what can be done?

First, political leaders must speak with clarity and conviction. Australian Jews were largely disappointed at the reelection of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been an unsteady ally of Israel, to say the least, and especially his foreign minister Penny Wong, who lied about Israel and falsely accused the Jewish state of Wong reportedly accused Israel of not providing enough humanitarian assistance for Palestinians. What garbage. No nation in history has every provided its enemy, with whom it was fighting an existential war, more essential aid than Israel has provided Gazans. We can only hope that Albanese will fire her in his second term.

Condemnation of antisemitism should not be buried in generic appeals to peace or used selectively. It must be consistent, unequivocal, and bipartisan. The message must be clear: hatred toward Jews is never acceptable—no matter the political context.

Second, our law enforcement agencies need the tools and training to respond effectively. That includes properly recording antisemitic hate crimes, prosecuting offenders where appropriate, and protecting vulnerable institutions such as synagogues and Jewish schools. Victims must be believed and supported, not left to feel that their suffering is invisible.

I was very impressed that some 10 Australian police came immediately to detain the antisemitism disrupters of my speech on Yom Haatzmaut who were calling all of us in the room – both Jews and Christians – murderers. Contrast that with the Miami Beach Police Department, who didn’t even arrest or question Islamist Faiz Akbar who threatened me with murder on the night of 1 December. Mayor Steven Meiner actually wears a kappa and Chief Wayne Jones oversees a community that is one-third Jewish. But that didn’t inspire either of them to arrest a man who screamed death threats and obscenities at a Rabbi in a video watched by tens of millions of people and both Mayor Meiner and Chief Jones should do the honorable thing and resign.

In addition, at least in Australia, when my life was threatened, I wasn’t sued for calling out the Jew-hatred as I have been by Fontainebleau owner Jeffrey Soffer. Our case is now going to trial and I promise to legally destroy him and his hotel for daring to silence lethal antisemitism in order to protect his business. The fact that Soffer is Jewish just makes the story all the more grotesque.

Third, we must turn to education. Ignorance is the breeding ground of hatred. Australia’s school curriculum must include comprehensive teaching about the Holocaust, antisemitism, and the rich contributions of Jewish Australians. Our universities, too, must foster environments where Jewish students can express themselves without fear of exclusion or abuse.

And finally, we need moral leadership—from faith communities, from media outlets, from civil society. We need Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and secular leaders to say loudly that antisemitism has no place here. Because silence in the face of hate is not neutrality—it is complicity. And we need Australia’s Rabbis – many of whom actually publicly criticized me as a fear-monger (sound like 1930’s Germany?) To finally show the moral courage of leadership against an existential threat to their community.

This is not about special pleading. The Jewish community is not asking for special protection. We are asking for the same basic security and freedom that every Australian deserves.

We want to be able to pray in peace. We want to be able to celebrate our heritage openly. We want to be able to speak—without being shouted down or physically threatened—about a country, Israel, which represents both spiritual homeland and historic refuge for our people.

It’s worth remembering that antisemitism is often called the “oldest hatred.” It mutates, adapts, and finds new justifications in every era. But it is always rooted in the same thing: a refusal to see Jews as full, equal human beings. Whether it comes from the far right, the far left, or radical Islamist circles, the outcome is the same—fear, isolation, and violence.

But hatred does not have to have the final word.

There is another path—one of solidarity, of courage, of shared responsibility. There is a path where Australians of all faiths and none stand together against hate. Where we say, with one voice, that we will not be divided. That our differences are not threats—they are strengths. And that we will protect one another, not only because it is right, but because it is what makes us Australian.

I still believe in that vision.

But belief must be matched by action. Antisemitism will not disappear on its own. It must be named, challenged, and uprooted—again and again.

This week, I was attacked. Next week, it could be someone else.

Let us not wait until hatred grows too strong to contain. Let us meet it now—with truth, with courage, and with unity.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi” whom the Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” was a founding member of the Rabbinical College of Sydney, Australia and is married to his Australian wife Debbie. His father-in-law, Dr. Samuel Friedman, built Sydney’s second largest congregation, The Southhead Synagogue.