Jewish Australians share antisemitism experiences

ABC launched its new current affairs panel program “National Forum” on Monday, moderated by David Speers, and its first episode focused on Jewish Australians’ experience of antisemitism.

The panel included Bondi survivor Jessica Rozen, Bialik College principal Jeremy Stowe-Lindner, OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn, writer Michael Gawenda, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin, New Israel Fund executive director Kate Rosenberg, and Macnamara MP Josh Burns. The format appeared to be less combative than ABC’s Q&A.

Many discussed antisemitism they experienced in Australia after the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, in the lead up to the Bondi massacre.

“No Jew could not feel antsemitism after the 8th of October, where chants were called, ‘kill the Jews’, ‘f*ck the Jews’… our lives changed… within a week or two of the 7th of October, calls… to boycott my organisation because it was led by a Jew”, Kahn shared.Gawenda said after October 7, “friends of mine… basically stopped being friends. People who I’d worked with for very many years stopped contacting me. I found that being a Jew, a Jewish writer, was increasingly difficult, difficult to get gigs, difficult to get published… and it changed my life.”

University student Dror Liraz said that since October 7 Jewish students, had “endured both direct and indirect threats to our safety, whether that is in the form of death threats or a range of other antisemitic attacks”.