Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism: Is anyone listening?

I know I speak for thousands of Australians when I say we desperately hope that the Royal Commission on Antisemitism – currently under way in Sydney – will be a key factor in bringing about the change that our country urgently needs.

Because a crucial question is – is anyone out there listening? Does anyone outside the pristine walls of the commission, and beyond the good people carrying out their sacred duties within those walls, actually give a damn?

Last Saturday, despite the volume of vilification being live-streamed from the commission for the world to hear, a mother on the sidelines of a children’s netball match, which involved a Maccabi team, is alleged to have made offensive comments and has been charged. To its credit, her club swiftly condemned all forms of bigotry and specifically antisemitism and apologised.

Incredibly, this allegedly occurred just a day after the commission concluded its first week of hearings. Hearings in which Jewish Australians narrated, some in tears, harrowing experiences. And after a miscreant turned up outside the hearings wearing a T-shirt declaring he was proud to be accused of antisemitism.

I’ve been immersed in human rights work for decades. Serving as chief sub-editor of the anti-apartheid Cape Times in South Africa. And in Australia, going to the barricades for gay rights. Defending MP Ed Husic’s right to take the oath of office on a Koran as Australia’s first Muslim federal frontbencher. Calling a radio station to support a teenager who was abused because she wore a hijab on the netball court. Fighting antisemitism in every conceivable forum, from the legislature to the football field, from the workplace to the classroom. And responding to a speech urging violence against Jews by spearheading a coalition of 34 communities and leaders that campaigned for legislation to outlaw incitement to violence. Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act was duly enshrined on the statute books, the community-wide endeavor transcending cultural differences.

All the above informed by a personal story which saw 151 members of my family, including my paternal grandparents, deported from the Greek island of Rhodes and murdered in the Holocaust.

Despite all that, despite confronting countless manifestations of antisemitism during 17 years at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, I have never seen our country as polarised as it is today. Of course, this relates to the shadow of Bondi, December 14, 2025. A day which changed everything for the nation and specifically for thousands of Jewish Australians, prompting us to question our place in society and our future in this country. And most unnerving of all, to experience grotesque vitriol and violence.

Yet the tragedy of Bondi is compounded – after the fact – by the unprecedented litany of vilification which witness after witness has brought to the Royal Commission. The calumnies that have been spewed at Jewish Australians of all ages, professions and political leanings, across almost every conceivable walk of life, are a profound indictment of the depths we have plumbed as a nation.

Former newspaper editor Michael Gawenda summed it up during his testimony when he asked where the media were when the above was happening. Where were the investigations, he queried, when the number of antisemitic incidents soared to 2,062 in one year, 2024? How did it happen that our country regressed so markedly from being the quintessential multicultural success story?

I concluded my testimony by saying thousands of Jewish Australians and millions of Australians across the board hope desperately that the Royal Commission will be a catalyst that seizes this moment as an inflection point in the nation’s history, one with the wherewithal to repair our fractured social cohesion and restore it to being the greatest of nations that it was.

Which turns the spotlight onto Australian society itself. It’s a given that the bigots on the sidelines are deaf to what is happening at the Royal Commission. Will persist with their abuse. Will continue to hold Jews accountable for a conflict thousands of miles away in which we have zero agency. The question that cries out to be answered applies to everyone else – the law-abiding, well-meaning, silent, vast majority. Will we speak out? Will we summon the courage to approach the bigots on the sidelines and make it clear we do not do that in this country? We just don’t.

And there is the heart of the issue. The Royal Commission’s findings will be critical and will say what they must. It’s the openness of the bulk of the population, the caring, decent majority, to listen to what Jewish Australians are saying, and to hear them, and to respond in kind, that will be equally critical in healing our country.