Antisemitism spike discussed
"I come to you and I talk to you with a very deep sense of the pain and the distress that your community is going through," said Mark Butler.
There has been a 591 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents compared to this time last year, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has revealed.
ECAJ research director Julie Nathan said in the 31 days between October 8 and November 7, there had been 242 reported incidents. During the same period in 2022 there were 35 incidents and in 2021 there were 38 incidents.
Over just six weeks between October 8 and November 19, there were 368 incidents, compared to 478 incidents in the entire 12-month period up to September 30, 2022.
The rise in antisemitism was discussed at the ECAJ’s AGM held in Sydney last Sunday, where federal Health Minister Mark Butler, representing the Prime Minister, was grilled on the government’s response to the rising scourge.
Several attendees conveyed the community’s genuine concerns and the need for the government to show more leadership in tackling the problem, with Butler making a firm commitment to take those concerns back to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“I come to you and I talk to you with a very deep sense of the pain and the distress that your community is going through,” Butler said earlier in prepared remarks.
“Across the government, we are committed to doing all that we can to keep your community safe and to stamp out this rising tide of antisemitism and hate speech.”
Acknowledging the role of the ECAJ, he said, “I’m very conscious that your work today has arguably not been more important or more complex for literally decades.”
In addition to Butler addressing the AGM, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations, William Daroff, gave an update via video link about American Jewry’s response to the October 7 Hamas attacks and the antisemitism problem in the United States.
“The world’s sympathy for the slaughter of Jews did not last long,” he lamented, describing the flood of online propaganda, physical attacks, hate speech and antisemitism on college campuses.
“We must continue to be resilient against those who condemn us.”
Addressing the march against antisemitism in Washington DC which his organisation coordinated, he said, “We stood together as one people, with one heart, because we are stronger when we stand as one.”
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