Bondi survivor addresses Human Rights Council

Bondi survivor Arsen Ostrovsky has told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that antisemitism, “when ignored, excused or mainstreamed, inevitably leads to violence”.

His address is believed to be the first by a survivor of the December 14 terror attack to the world body.

Speaking during the Universal Periodic Review of Australia’s human rights record early on Thursday morning (AEST), Ostrovsky, who is head of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council’s Sydney office, appeared on behalf of AIJAC and UN Watch — and, he said, “as a survivor of antisemitic terror”.

He flew to Geneva directly after giving evidence to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Sydney on Monday.

He told the UNHRC that Australia had submitted its review last November, only for the country to suffer the worst terror attack in its history weeks later, when 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl, were murdered at a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach. Ostrovsky was at the festival with his family and was shot in the head when he ran towards them.

“I speak before you today though not seeking sympathy, but sounding a warning,” he said.

Ostrovsky said the attack “did not occur in a vacuum” but “was built chant-by-chant and march-by-march”, with repeated warnings from the Jewish community going largely unheeded over two years. He pointed to synagogues being firebombed, Jewish children harassed, people afraid to wear the Star of David, and teachers reluctant to teach about the Holocaust for fear of causing offence.

Citing the late British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, he said antisemitism was “the early warning sign of a wider societal breakdown” that eroded the foundations of a free society — “tolerance, social cohesion, the rule of law and moral clarity”.

Ostrovsky said Australia had taken important steps, including establishing the Royal Commission, but that “much more must still be done”. He urged the international community to encourage Australia to confront antisemitism in all its forms, “including when it masquerades as antizionism, so that every citizen can live openly and safely”.

“History teaches while Jews may be the first target when antisemitism flourishes, we are seldom the last,” he said.