The mindset that shapes our community

As the Royal Commission turns its focus to universities, we could editorialise here about the many harrowing stories of hate on campus.

A Jewish professor besieged in his office by up to 20 masked figures chanting that he was “guilty of genocide”. A woman in a library forced to listen to a man praise Hitler and claim rabbis “eat non-Jewish babies”. Jewish students called “baby killers” and “genocide supporters” as they walked to class.

And behind almost every account, the same institutional shrug – complaints that dragged on for months, investigations that found nothing, and universities that acted only once the media came knocking.

We could comment on the problem of antisemitism in Australian healthcare grabbing global headlines to the point that Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs felt it needed to weigh in.

There’s also the slap on the wrist for the driver of a car whose passenger pointed a fake gun at a Sydney shule. And in Adelaide, a Jewish family targeted with hateful graffiti.