Aghion on the world stage
None of us would have expected that we have had in the last eight months, " says Daniel Aghion.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) president Daniel Aghion represented Australia at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s “Never is Now” summit in New York on March 3-4, which brought together Jewish leaders from around the world to discuss the challenges faced since October 7.
Aghion spoke on the panel “What we can learn from the fight against antisemitism around the world”, alongside leaders from South Africa, the UK and Canada.
Discussing the situation in Australia, Aghion said, “We’ve been battling antisemitism on multiple fronts: workplaces, university encampments, arts and creative spaces … We did not expect the violent nature of the antisemitism. None of us could have expected that two nurses at a hospital in Sydney would boast online about how many Israelis they had killed in their hospital … None of us would have expected that we have had in the last eight months 10 firebombing attacks on Jewish targets.”
Asked how antisemitism is playing out politically in Australia, Aghion commented, “We are about 100,000 Jews in a population of 25 million. And we can’t afford to have our issues used as a political football. Unfortunately, I think they will be.”
He added, “We still have a concern that the government is being reactive, rather than proactive …They are not getting ahead of it … and this is why it will be an election issue … Both sides are going to debate with each other as to who is doing more on antisemitism.”
Other panellists discussed antisemitism in their communities. Wendy Kahn from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies shared, “What was shocking for us and still struggling to come to terms with, was that one week after 7th October, the South African government had not condemned Hamas, and they had not expressed any type of sympathy … not to the Israeli embassy, not to the Israeli government, not to its own Jewish community, and not even to the South Africans who died on that day.”
Richard Marceau noted dangerous levels of antisemitism in Canada. “Canada is seeing … synagogues being firebombed, seeing Jewish schools being shot at, seeing Jewish owned businesses being picketed, Jewish hospitals picketed … We have seen in unions Jews being targeted, being ostracised. We’ve seen this on campus, and we’ve seen that in the K to 12 environments,” he said.
Phil Rosenberg from the Board of Deputies of British Jews expressed they are fighting antisemitism “on our streets, in the media, online, in the workplace, in university campuses, in culture and sport”.
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