Steven Lowy: 15,000 antisemitic incidents per year

Prominent businessmen Steven Lowy provided evidence to the Royal Commission on the antisemitic abuse he and his family have experienced including death threats, having documented over 15,000 antisemitic incidents in the last year. Lowy said he received approximately 1500/2000 per month – and 30 to 40 are referred to police out of concern they could lead to violence.

He noted his father Frank Lowy, came to Australia as a Holocaust survivor, grateful for this nation.

Lowy said he first experienced antisemitism in December 1982 while at his father’s office in Westfield headquarters, when the Israeli consulate was bombed, which was in the same building. Later that day the Hakoah club in Bondi was bombed, and Lowy said he received a call threatening the lives of his family.

Lowy said that while he had experienced antisemitism prior to 7 October 2023, it grew significantly after. During his testimony, he called on social media platforms to act on antisemitism – “I firmly believe that they should be subject to the same regulation and rules that more traditional media has”.

In his written submission, Lowy noted that antizionism “regularly functions as a vehicle for antisemitism”.  As an example, he cited St Vincent’s Hospital and Victor Chang cardiologist Professor Peter Macdonald, who at a public forum in August 2025 stated that he considered it “a no-brainer” that Mossad was responsible for antisemitic arson attacks in Australia, and asked whether “the Zionist lobby” had “taken over ASIO”. This led Lowy to question his involvement with Victor Chang.

Lowy’s recommendations called for Australia adopt national service to build social cohesion, as well as dedicated police capability for the Jewish community.

“Each state and territory police service should establish, at command level, a dedicated capability for the protection of Jewish Australians and Jewish communal life — staffed by officers permanently assigned, not rotated through ‘liaison’ roles,” he wrote.

“Officers in each function must hold specialist training in Jewish community life” and “be better trained about the current laws which have not been enforced.”

He noted comparable models operate in New York, Rome, Copenhagen, Buenos Aires, Vienna, Paris and Berlin, and wrote, “Australia should adopt no less.”

Lowy stated it required “a line of accountability: identifiable officers, with rank and authority, whose duty it is to ensure that the Jewish community is protected and that antisemitic threats are pursued with the seriousness they warrant.”