Coordinated action against antisemitism
In the face of this evolving threat, our community remains active and activated.
My grandmother survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. In her Shoah testimony, she was asked to leave a message for her children and grandchildren. She said: “Teach them not to hate.”
Earlier this year, I travelled with my parents and siblings to both camps, attending the March of the Living, followed by the 80th anniversary of Bergen-Belsen’s liberation. Every survivor who spoke at the commemoration had the same message: Don’t hate.
My Nana passed away one year ago, the last remaining Holocaust survivor in our immediate family. Six weeks later, I stepped in as inaugural CEO of The Dor Foundation, a not-for-profit building a future free from antisemitism and hate where Australian values and freedoms are upheld.
Under the leadership of the Hon. Josh Frydenberg and an inspiring board of guardians, we focus on long-term prevention, not short-term response. Nana’s mantra sits at the core of everything we do – not just for sentimental reasons, but because the evidence says it works.
National studies tell us that Australians value fairness, respect and multiculturalism, but that social cohesion is under significant pressure. Most Australians don’t hate. Yet with extremists converging on both sides of the political horseshoe – a growing National Socialist Movement and a “Red–Green Alliance” – we face the risk of a shrinking middle unless we reach people effectively and quickly with messages that resonate.
For Australia’s Jewish community, coordinated action has never been more urgent.
Last week, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry released its annual report showing anti-Jewish incidents have continued at unprecedentedly high levels for the second consecutive year. They included some of the most serious on record: Iranian-backed terror and rising physical assaults.
In the face of this evolving threat, our community remains active and activated. The Dor Foundation mapped over 300 Jewish communal organisations. In the last two years, at least 20 more have sprung up or shifted their focus towards combating antisemitism. Yet 80 per cent of surveyed organisations reported that funding was a key challenge, and almost half said that duplication or lack of coordination posed obstacles. We cannot afford to dilute our impact.
The National Antisemitism Co-Lab, hosted on December 1-2 by The Dor Foundation and Australian Jewish Funders, sought to address these issues. It brought together over 180 people from 80 organisations – funders and doers, established and grassroots – to drive a culture of collaboration across our community and promote coordinated action.
Over two days, we workshopped constructive, collaborative and evidence-based approaches to address rising antisemitism, grounded in an appreciation of Australian values. Professor Jennifer Westacott’s powerful keynote address set the ground rules: “We will only succeed if we all act with moral clarity and moral consistency.”
Our discussions were supported by a national framework for action: a battle plan. Not for military victory but rather to achieve a shared objective – reduced antisemitism and a fairer Australia where the Jewish community and all minorities can thrive.
Inspired by national strategies to reduce other forms of social harm and complementary to the special envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, this framework contextualises individual efforts. It doesn’t tell people what to do or how to do it. It simply pulls the threads together to make a tapestry.
I’ve seen similar frameworks in action through my work in government and law enforcement, where agencies from across sectors and jurisdictions bring their unique capabilities together to achieve extraordinary results which couldn’t have otherwise been achieved. I’ve seen entire organised crime networks brought to their knees using this methodology.
During the Co-Lab, we began the critical work of moving away from articulating only organisational objectives and started describing collective impact. This is the only way to turn the dial, given the scale and rapid evolution of the threat we face. As Jeremy Dunkel said in his address: “The challenges we face are significant, but so is our collective capacity.”
Our two days at the Co-Lab may have ended, but the work doesn’t end there. We’re now forming and extending communities of practice in key areas, bringing organisations together to share information, workload, resources, funding, outcomes and credit.
This work takes time. There are no quick fixes to the world’s oldest hatred.
It involves strategic and multi-pronged efforts – from education to advocacy, cross-cultural dialogue to lawfare. It involves recognition that not everyone can do everything – but together we can maximise impact.
But more than anything, it involves an appreciation of the context in which we operate: a grounding of everything we do in core Australian values of fairness and respect for everyone.
My grandmother’s words echo through this work: teach them not to hate. Through education, evidence-based campaigns, strategic partnerships and a culture of collaboration, we’re building a future where that message reaches not just the Jewish community, but all Australians.
Nana knew, and so do we – we’re not just fighting for the survival of our community, but for the society we hold so dear.
Tahli Blicblau is the inaugural CEO of The Dor Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation combating antisemitism and hate in Australia.