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The narrow benches of the public gallery are filled. They have come from all over to offer their testimony, to support friends, to give and receive comfort. They come too, to listen.
This, in this small, quiet room, is Australia’s attempt to reckon with the violent modern manifestation of an ancient bigotry.
“The sharp spike in antisemitism that we’ve witnessed in Australia has been mirrored in other western countries and seems clearly linked to events in the Middle East,” the commissioner, Virginia Bell, said on the first morning.
“It’s important that people understand how quickly those events can prompt ugly displays of hostility towards Jewish Australians simply because they’re Jews: displays of hostility that are sometimes expressed in images and sentiments that can sometimes be traced back to the Middle Ages if not earlier.”
This royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion was established in the wake of December’s Bondi massacre, in which two antisemitic gunmen opened fire on Jews attending a beachside Hanukah celebration, killing 15 people and injuring 40 others.
Below is the testimony of witnesses, click on the quotes to expand:
The reality is, they came to kill us. We just weren’t there. And it’s living with that truth that makes it very hard to feel safe as a Jew in Australia
It’s impossible for children not to internalise that they are living through that reality. They hear antisemitism around them all the time … they see the stickers … they see the graffiti, they know about Bondi. It’s become part of their psyche.
The Australian Jewish community is living a very different reality to what I think the rest of the Australian community is living.
We arrived in Bondi [for dinner one evening] and my eight-year-old just started crying, which is strange, and I said to her, ‘What’s wrong?’ And she said, ‘Now when I come to Bondi, I think about dying.’
Now when you hear the word Bondi, it’s associated with a massacre, with a terrorist attack, with the death of Jews, and it’s extremely confronting and distressing for the Jewish community.
The reality is that they came to kill us. We just weren’t there. And it’s living with that truth that makes it very hard to feel safe as a Jew in Australia.
– Dina
They can’t bear the risk of receiving the kind of backlash I have received
I was hearing from family members sitting around the Shabbat dinner table that they were concerned as to whether this was still a safe place for Jews to live. And I wanted to be part of making sure that they felt safe and heard by the political system … and to me, [running for the NSW Legislative Council] felt the best way to do that.
[My campaign] ads … were deluged with antisemitic comments of a nature that was particularly vitriolic, in the sense of … ‘Fuck off you Zionist cunt’.
And there were a range of conspiracy theories about Israel paying people to firebomb places in Australia, that the October 7 massacre was a false flag, that we’ve got enough Jewish politicians already.
I’ve had a lot of conversations with people in the Jewish community who are incredibly bright and talented and would be perfect fits to be more involved in politics in this country. But their view is that they can’t bear the risk of receiving the kind of backlash I have received.
– Joshua Kirsh
If they say ‘the Netanyahu government’, then I see it as a perpetrator of violence. But if they say ‘Israel’, I see it as a country I love, that is my ancestral homeland
When I think about Israel, I think about the beauty of the country, I think about the old city. I think about civil society and all the good people – Israeli, Palestinians, others – working for a world of equality. I think about friends and family there and, yes, the regime, but that’s not all of it.
The word Israel is used as a demonised word … that made me feel offended and humiliated.
I have no problem with messaging that says ‘free Palestine’. That’s messaging I completely agree with. It was the way that Israel was spoken about … Israel is used very … casually and carelessly.
I do want to say that if I’m a Palestinian Australian and I see the word Israel, I am going to think about the regime, I’m going to think about the Nakba of 1948, I’m going to think about the settler violence in the West Bank, and I’m going to think about the Gaza war and I completely understand that a Palestinian Australia more think about Israel in that way. And I don’t have a problem with that.
I have a problem with people who are not from a directly affected community, not being able to, just be smart enough to recognise, to be compassionate to directly affected people and to be smart enough to recognise that when I see the word Israel, I see much more than the regime.
And if they describe it as the regime, if they say, the Netanyahu government, then I see it as a perpetrator of violence. But if they say Israel, I see it as a country I love, that is my ancestral homeland.
– Stephanie Cunio
In the first week of public hearings, witness after witness has plaintively told the commission that they saw the atrocity coming, that the fear they felt before Bondi was real, not imagined, that expressions of love and concern in the aftermath of a massacre pale next to belief before it.
“Dead Jewish people don’t need love,” one witness said, “alive Jewish people need people to listen to us when we tell people we feel like history is repeating itself.”
Bell spent a dozen years as a justice of the high court, familiar with its robes and protocol, its distant, imperious raised bench.
This place is far more intimate. Bell, not wearing robes, sits at a modest desk on the same level as those giving evidence to her.
You have to be made of stone not to care about what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza. However, why are you holding me responsible?
After October 7, the impact of the upsurge of antisemitism in this country caused the Jewish community to be reeling … we were devastated.
I and other leaders of the Jewish community were part of an interfaith dialogue group and we have been meeting regularly for two years. And so it was an absolute expectation/hope – naive, it turned out to be – that this group of all people, our interlocutors on the other side of the table, would be amongst the first to speak out to condemn what is happening in this country, the antisemitism that had become so rife and prevalent in this country. And sadly, there was a silence.
Eventually, I did have a one-on-one meeting with one of the most senior members of this particular faith group, and where I again conveyed how disillusioned I found it that there was silence coming from this individual’s particular faith group in regard to what was happening. And the response was very telling. The person on the other side of the table said to me, quote, ‘But look what’s happening to the Palestinians in Gaza.’ My response was, ‘You have to be made of stone not to care about what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza. However, why are you holding me responsible?’
And this goes to one of the issues which is informing a lot of the antisemitism which has been rocking this country … for the last two and a half years: holding Jewish Australians accountable for what is taking place on the other side of the world. Jewish Australians have no agency in what the Israel Defense Force does, indeed what the Israeli government does. And yet … so much of the manifestation of antisemitic incidents and attacks is interlaced with and references what is taking place in the other side of the world. We are not accountable and we are not responsible.
– Vic Alhadeff
Bondi holds many complicated and conflicting feelings for me
I always grew up hearing stories on both my mother’s and father’s side where my grandparents had to keep their Judaism a secret under the cruel establishment of the USSR. Being Jewish was dangerous … and they always practised their Jewish customs in secret. And then my father, Reuben Morrison, fled to Australia from the Ukraine at 14 years old. He was deeply proud to have moved to Australia and been an Australian citizen and grateful for a nation that welcomed Jews when so many others turned them away at that time.
Bondi holds many complicated and conflicting feelings for me currently. It was somewhere where my parents had started their history together. Somewhere I had spent many days of my childhood. I have beautiful memories there with my family. I had actually spent a lot of time there with my children … during the school holidays. And now Bondi holds a really, really heavy weight in our community’s heart.
– Sheina Gutnick
This man threatened to kill me … I was encouraged to drop it
I decided to walk from the train station to the bus station on Oxford Street and, as I started walking, a white man wearing military-style clothing and a military backpack approached me and started shouting and getting in my face very aggressively.
He appeared very coherent at the time and deliberate in his actions. And started calling me all sorts of racial slurs, among them ‘dirty Jew’. [He] started doing the Nazi salute and started doing a gun finger at my forehead.
I actually took my phone out to record him and said, ‘This is a hate crime, and I’m going to be reporting it.’ This enraged him and he started getting physical. No one intervened, unfortunately, except for an American tourist who jumped in. That tourist ended up getting bashed pretty badly.
I broke down and started shaking uncontrollably and crying again. No one came to my aid. No one came to help. No one came to do anything.
I followed up a few times with the police, and I was told that at the time a Nazi salute was not illegal. So I said, ‘OK, this man threatened to kill me’ and I was told that the CCTV did not have audio.
Even though I sent in video and pictures of this person, I was eventually told by the police that there’s not much that they could do and that the case would ultimately get thrown out, and it would be a lot of wasted effort for nothing and [I was] encouraged to drop it.
– Nir Golan
Gently asking questions of children speaking about the antisemitism they’ve endured at their school, Bell leans forward in close attention, close enough almost to reach out in sympathy.
“You’ve done a bit of educating today,” she tells one schoolgirl, distressed by the lack of historical education at her school.
Beyond the sanctity and safety of the commission, the reality of antisemitism, its manifestations and its dangers, is all too apparent.
Outside the commission’s building sits a phalanx of police cars and attendant armed officers.
Witnesses and observers are security screened each time they enter the building, and are accompanied to a secure floor for the hearings.
Dead Jewish people don’t need love, alive Jewish people need people to listen to us when we tell people we feel like history is repeating itself
We have had many generations of discrimination, and there is a bit of a sixth sense when things are going to be potentially uncomfortable or even dangerous for us.
Many Jewish people who are descendants of Holocaust survivors are keenly aware that antisemitism can start quite innocuously and very quickly become quite escalated and dangerous. There’s certainly that history. We were always taught to be aware of our surroundings from when I was a little child, to listen carefully to the things that were said around us and just know that, even though we lived in a wonderful country, things could turn quickly and we had to be aware of what was happening around us.
I lost a close, close friend of mine after October 7th … we parted ways. One of the things I tried to articulate to her during that time was that the protests seemed innocuous and, of course, all people want peace for the world, but they end up with Jewish people being hurt. Even years ago I was clearly articulating to her that it seems fine but, one day, someone is going to get hurt and someone might get killed. It took three years but, sadly, after the events of the 14th of December, my words did become devastatingly true.
So, after the massacre in Bondi, this same friend who I hadn’t heard from in years texted me to tell me that she loved me and to check in. At the time, I responded and I told her that dead Jewish people don’t need love; alive Jewish people need people to listen to us when we tell them we feel like history is repeating itself.
– Anonymous
I completely understand those who are thinking about exit strategies and plan Bs
The Jewish people have always carried with them an awareness that a golden age ends, and normally it doesn’t end calmly – it’s shattered. There’s a sense that no matter how good we have it in a place at a point in time, we may always have to take flight and leave.
And I’ve had families calling me and saying – completely calmly – saying, ‘Will you tell me when the time to go is?’ And I told them I would. I told them that I will counsel them and advise them.
I’m not going anywhere. I’m going down with the ship if that is what is required. I love this country and I will continue to fight for the future of this country and the future of my community in this country but I completely understand those who are thinking about exit strategies and plan Bs. That is what is necessary. History has shown how quickly things can change, what can come from the mob.
– Alex Ryvchin
[My daughter] sees Swastikas etched all around the school; children saying ‘Heil Hitler’ and putting up their arm in a salute
She is one of two Jewish children at that school and she sees things that no 15-year-old should see. That shouldn’t be happening.
She’s a very proud Jewish young lady but she’s scared. She finds it very daunting.
The chants and the protests and the words and the online rhetoric – it feels so surreal. I can’t believe that this, in 2026, in this beautiful country, that antisemitism has become so normalised and people are unashamedly being antisemitic and saying the most vile things about Jewish people, Jewish children.
I’ve been called a ‘kike’, a ‘dirty Jew’, a ‘dirty Jewish pig’, a ‘baby killer’, a ‘baby eater’ and ‘genocidal’.
– Natalie Levy
Both my older kids came home telling me that they didn’t want to be Jewish
[Antisemitism] is in their face because of the apps that they use like TikTok and Instagram. So they might see a video and then they think to themselves, ‘Well, this doesn’t add up, this isn’t right’ and then they will look at all the comments underneath and be absolutely shocked, as am I, by the type of comments they read.
These are some of the things that the kids have shown me: ‘We owe Hitler an apology. The Nazis should have finished them off’; ‘Jews are controlling the government’ … ‘Israel has no history, only a criminal record.’
On the Holocaust Memorial Day that we had recently, underneath sad videos there was a comment that said: ‘I’m so happy. This makes me so happy.’ And then comments under another Jewish video ‘Why are we normalising racism? Racism only applies to humans.’
There are comments thrown around by ordinary kids. They are not nasty kids, they come from good families, and it’s constantly like, ‘You dirty Jew.’ They won’t call another Jew that; they’ll call each other that, it’s kind of a joke-insult: ‘You dirty Jew’, ‘We hate Jews.’ There’s a chant, ‘Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew’ – things about Jews and money, just all the time, it’s prolific.
My kids know right from wrong and so for them to hear this, especially to hear it from mates or contacts at school … they can’t understand it. They can’t understand why people don’t like Jews.
– Anonymous
On Wednesday, a man was arrested after sitting in a cafe outside the commission wearing an antisemitic T-shirt that merged the flag of Israel with a swastika. It bore the slogan: “Antisemitism, proud to be accused.” He claimed he didn’t know the commission was going on.
On the same day, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi was charged with hate speech crimes after a protest by the National Socialist Network at the New South Wales parliament: the protest featured a banner declaring “Abolish the Jewish Lobby”.
This is Australia’s reality.
The evidence before the commission is passionate but not monolithic.
The international context is acknowledged: attacks on Jews in the UK and the US; illegal settler violence in the West Bank. The unremitting suffering in Gaza is ever-present.
Witnesses tell the commission that Netanyahu’s government is a “perpetrator of violence” but that Australia’s coarsening debate appears to lack the mental acuity to separate Jewish schoolchildren in Sydney from the policies of the state of Israel, from the actions of the IDF.
The gallery is full. Still the witnesses come, in sadness and in fear, in defiance and in anger. They come to bear witness.
