‘The sky is not falling’
He also said that right-wing neo-Nazis are the greater concern, not due to an increase in their numbers but rather their brazenness.
Is antisemitism on the rise in Victoria? That was the question at this month’s Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) plenum.
The community forum on antisemitism trends in Victoria featured three panellists: Community Security Group (CSG) CEO Justin Kagan, Dan Goodhardt, who works for Victoria Police and is also a researcher into racism at Deakin University, and JCCV president Daniel Aghion.
Kagan told those gathered that antisemitism “is on the rise in Victoria”, however noted, “We’re not at the same level as a lot of countries around the world. If I look at Europe, and I look at the United States, I don’t feel that what’s happening on the ground in Victoria is anything like what’s going on there.”
He also said that right-wing neo-Nazis are the greater concern, not due to an increase in their numbers but rather their brazenness.
Goodhardt said, “The number of incidents that are going to be reported to any communal organisation, or to the police, or to really anyone else, is only going to be a tiny fraction of the number of incidents that occur, because most people tend not to report incidents at all.”
The number presents a trend line, “something that you can compare year to year, but it doesn’t really mean very much”, he said.
Kagan urged community members to report any and all incidents to CSG using the JEAP app, to better help them understand the trends occurring in Victoria.
When discussing the lack of prosecutions made against those committing antisemitic acts, Aghion said it is important to distinguish between “ignorant antisemitism and deliberate antisemitism”.
He described ignorant antisemitism as “comments made, for example, either in a schoolyard, or a comment made in passing at work”, and explained that the answer to this issue is in education.
Aghion noted that deliberate antisemitism is perpetrated by “the kinds of people that are going to be antisemites because they want to”, adding that the “law can assist us to criminalise hate based conduct”.
Concluding the discussion, Kagan noted that “the sky is not falling”, when it comes to the severity of antisemitism in Victoria, adding that the percentage of incidents is still “quite low compared with other parts of the world”.
“But the rise in antisemitism in Victoria is concerning and we are keeping a close eye on it.”
To report incidents of antisemitism contact CSG on 1300 000 274 or download the JEAP app.
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