Jewish schools spend $58 million on security

Australia’s Jewish day schools have spent more than $58 million on security over four years, money that would otherwise go to education, the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has heard, in a day of evidence laying bare the cost of keeping Jewish students safe.

NSW Supreme Court judge Justice Stephen Rothman, national co-chair of the Australian Council of Jewish Schools, gave evidence for the body’s 18 member schools, which educate about 8864 students, or 51 per cent of Jewish school-age children in Australia.

He said security was not discretionary but flowed from a non-delegable duty of care, and that every school’s parent security levy fell well short of actual costs, forcing schools to draw on donations and divert operating funds.

The government’s schooling resource standard includes no loading for security. Rothman cited Moriah College, which had needed a new building since 1998 but could only now proceed, at an additional $14 million because of security requirements, and rejected the perception that the community’s wealth should offset such costs.

The commission heard the same story from individual school leaders. Bialik College board chair Tyson Wodak said his hope was not for more security funding but for less need for security, telling the commission that no parent wanted armed guards around their children every day.

Bialik’s levy, currently $840 per student, had risen about 230 per cent since 2022.

Mount Scopus Memorial College principal Dan Sztrajt said his school spent more than $3000 per student on operational security in 2025, with government grants meeting only 14.9 per cent of that cost and parents carrying roughly 70 per cent of total security spending.

Its levy had more than doubled since 2022, to $1130.

Sztrajt said grant funding had historically been restricted to infrastructure rather than guards, and estimated that up to 15 per cent of his working day went to security rather than education.

In May 2024, the words “Jew die” were written across the front entrance of his school’s Burwood campus.

Emanuel School principal Linda Emms, who is not Jewish, said the security environment at Jewish schools would cause an uproar if imposed on any other independent school.

She described a daily police presence at the gates and the “normalisation of the abnormal”, with abuse yelled at students from car windows.

Emms said financial assistance to families had almost doubled in a year as levies rose.

Rothman said antisemitic abuse since 2023 had been normalised to the point that the community felt unwelcome and unprotected, and that the $58 million figure understated the true burden.