Recent Uptick in Australia Jew-Hatred Incidents Monitored by CAM Antisemitism Research Center

The CAM Antisemitism Research Center detected and monitored an uptick in antisemitic incidents across Australia over the last several months.

Since August, there were at least five reported incidents of swastika vandalism, including on an office door in Melbourne, a gas station in Victoria, political campaign signs in Balaclava and Bellarine, and a preschool in Rose Bay.

Also, “Stop the Jews” was spray-painted on a sign in front of a Chabad synagogue in Balaclava in late September, and a Jewish pedestrian in Camberwell was verbally harassed by a passerby shouting “Sieg Heil” and other antisemitic invective.

Just days later, in the same city, home to Australia’s largest Jewish community, neo-Nazis displayed an antisemitic banner in a family park.

At the University of Adelaide, the words “Death to Israel” were published in an article that appeared in the On Dit student magazine.

Also in Adelaide, neo-Nazis performed a “Heil Hitler” salute outside the city’s Holocaust museum, which opened in 2020.

Museum Director Kathy Baykitch called the incident “unthinkable.”

In early September, an online portal launched by the New South Wales (NSW) Jewish Board of Deputies for students and their families to report incidents of antisemitic bullying was almost immediately “inundated,” The Australian Jewish News reported.

Meanwhile, a Sydney United 58 fan received a lifetime ban for a Nazi salute he performed at the Australian Cup soccer final on Oct. 1.

In Bondi, neo-Nazi flyers were distributed in mailboxes in a heavily-Jewish neighborhood in mid-October.

In Brisbane, the Yababa restaurant was targeted in an online antisemitic post, which claimed its offerings were “stolen and soaked in blood” and that there “is no such thing as Israeli food.”

Also in October, the Australian National Tertiary Education Union adopted a motion endorsing the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and opposing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism.

According to an Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) study, there was a 35 percent increase in reported antisemitic incidents in Australia in 2021 from 2020.

Earlier this year, Victoria became the first Australian state or territory to ban the public display of Nazi swastikas.