What Happens If Australia’s Jews Leave?
'The question now is no longer if this is still home. It is whether we should stay at all'
On Sunday, between 90,000 and 300,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Some waved foreign flags. Others chanted for the end of the Jewish state. The protest was supported by elements of the legal system, academia, and media. And this happened in the rain, imagine if it was a sunny day.
But more chilling than the numbers or slogans is the date.
Sunday was Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av, a day already soaked in Jewish tragedy. It marks the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, the start of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from England, and countless other catastrophes in Jewish history.
And on this day in 1941, the Nazi regime formalised the Final Solution. On the 9th of Av, Heinrich Himmler approved the plan for the systematic extermination of Europe’s Jews. It was the moment that Hitler’s war on the Jewish people became a state-sanctioned genocide.
The symbolism is impossible to ignore.
A mass protest calling for Jewish erasure, in the heart of Sydney, backed by legal and social elites, falling on the most tragic day in Jewish history. Is this the writing on the wall?
It may not be 1938 Germany, but the signs are familiar. “Never Again” has failed to resonate in too many corners of this country. The question now is no longer if this is still home. It is whether we should stay at all.
Jews make up just 0.4 percent of Australia’s population, about 110,000 people. But if even a fraction of that community were to leave for Israel, the absence would be felt across the nation.
The Jewish community is embedded in Australian society through education, medicine, law, philanthropy, innovation, and civic life. For generations, it has contributed quietly and significantly. It has built and maintained its own schools, welfare systems, youth programs, and religious life without demanding anything but safety and respect.
If even a core group were to leave, that structure would begin to unravel. Jewish life in Australia would weaken. And Australia itself would lose one of its oldest and most values-driven communities.
This is not a warning. It is a sober assessment.
When antisemitic marches are excused as political speech, when courts and media protect noise but not safety, and when a day like Tisha B’Av is marked not by mourning but by open hostility, many begin to ask:
Is this where we still belong?
Israel will absorb those who choose to leave. They will not be refugees, but pioneers. They will not be running, but building. The real question is not what Israel gains, but what Australia loses.
And the world will take notice. Because when even 0.4 per cent walks out the door, it says something not just about that community, but about the country they are leaving behind.
If this is what today looks like, what will tomorrow bring? And is now the time to go?
Rabbi Danny Yaffe is the CEO of CBD Chabad Sydney.
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