A man has been charged after allegedly wearing a swastika shirt while Jewish Australians were sharing horrific stories of anti-Semitism at the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion.
The man, who gave his name as Ian Minus to reporters, was spotted wearing a shirt appearing to bear a swastika that said “Anti-Semitism. Proud to be accused. Speak up!” outside 83 Clarence St in Sydney’s CBD on Wednesday morning.
Inside, Jewish Australians are sharing their stories of anti-Semitic abuse to the hate inquiry.
“I wear this all the time,” the man told reporters, asking “Is this a swastika? Is this clearly a swastika?” when it was put to him that the hate symbol had been banned in NSW.
“When social media is censored in such a way, this is the only form of protest that I can do,” he said.
He asked reporters “is there a royal commission here, is there?”, claiming he was just enjoying his coffee.
“I’m sorry, I’m just enjoying a cup of coffee in the streets of Sydney. Why am I being assailed in such fashion?” he said, later pointing to his shirt and saying “I am proud of this statement”.
“I feel fear and alarm every time an Israeli flag is waved in the streets … I have been asked to move on on a public street, such is the state of protest in NSW,” Mr Minus said.
In an update on Wednesday night, NSW Police confirmed the man, 68, was given a move-on direction – which he complied with.
“About 2.45pm, the man was arrested at Manly Police Station and charged with behave in offensive manner in / near public place / school and cause prohibited Nazi symbol to be displayed in public place,” NSW Police said.
He briefly fronted Manly Local Court on Wednesday.
A commission spokesperson said they were “appalled” by the incident.
“The royal commission is appalled that such an item of clothing was worn in the vicinity of our hearing venue,” the spokesperson said in a statement issued shortly after the incident.
“Safety of witnesses is paramount to the royal commission. We want to reassure witnesses and those wishing to engage with the royal commission that safety protocols are in place.
“The royal commission is determined to investigate anti-Semitism in Australia without fear or intimidation.”
‘Failure of our leadership’
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the “failure of our leadership” perpetuated the anti-Semitism Jewish people were experiencing during a time when a large amount of the Jewish community were considering leaving Australia.
“I think it took until Bondi for there to be some kind of recognition that the rhetoric had gotten out of control,” he said.
Earlier in his evidence, he said measures put in place for university students to use “safe rooms” to do their lectures in and to be allowed to do their exams from home due to safety concerns meant well but didn’t do enough to make the Jewish community feel safe.
“[They were] well-intentioned but the message that was received by the students and the Jewish community was that ‘we can’t take those steps to keep you protected’,” he said.
Jewish aged care centre received bomb threat
Chief executive officer of Jewish Care Victoria Gayle Smith revealed they had to lock down their aged care facility after a “bomb threat”. Ms Smith said they received a call saying “someone was going to blow up a golf course”, with the facility sitting just 1km away from a golf course.
“We immediately went into a bomb threat emergency response and really had to shut down the building,” Ms Smith said.
“For our aged care residents … that’s a very frightening experience.
“It was equally distressing for our staff.”
She said the not-for-profit organisation spends $1.8m per year on operational security, telling the hearing they would be the only aged care facility in the country that has armed guards.
“It’s made even worse because obviously we have a number of direct holocaust survivors, and then second and third generation (survivors)…who are now walking past a guarded building for their aged loved one,” she said.
“(It’s a) really uncomfortable … if we did not take that action and something happened I personally would never be able to forgive myself.”
Political candidate’s ‘frightening’ experience
Lawyer Joshua Kirsh told the hearing he decided to run as an independent candidate for NSW Legislative Council after his family expressed concern about whether Australia is a safe place for Jews to live.
He told the hearing that campaign ads posted on his social media were “deluged with anti-Semitic comments”, including “f**k of you Zionist c**t” and conspiracy theories about Israel paying people to firebomb places in Australia.
He feared for his safety when a person left a comment on one of his posts online with a photo of his aunt, telling him he might feel more comfortable in Israel if he loved being part of a big Jewish community.
Upon clicking on the profile he discovered that the person was the son of someone he attended university with.“It frightened me,” Mr Kirsh said.
“I sort of said in a joking way … if I get murdered today, this is why.”
Mr Kirsh didn’t see the person again, as the incident unfolded after the last class of his degree.
“But just to know that someone out there held such vitriolic views about me and about what I represented and knew where I was at any given time, it was pretty frightening,” he said.
He finished his testimony by saying he would “rather die an Australian” if anti-Semitism continued to spiral.
“I feel very strongly that I am an Australian by birth … I’m sure my parents will get very upset at me for saying it, but I would rather die an Australian, if the climate got that bad, than be something else,” Mr Kirsh said.
“Because this is my country, and I shouldn’t have to not be here in order to be safe.”
13yo ‘thrown in bin’, ‘dragged across floor’, and called ‘dirty Jew’
The son of a holocaust survivor revealed the harrowing racism and bullying his child has suffered at an Australian school, which escalated into physical abuse as the year went on.
The man, known only as AAT, said his 13-year-old son had been called a “dirty jew” and suffered a series of other “Nazi style slurs” last year.“
Kids would make the Nazi salute and … he heard kids say ‘glass the juice’, which is a way of saying ‘gas the jews’, and that ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job’,” the man told the hearing.
The children responsible were suspended, but the bullying and racism picked up again within weeks, with AAT revealing that things escalated into physical abuse.
“Bullying and racism … the two blurred into each other,” AAT said.
“The physical bullying included being squeezed until he couldn’t breathe, which he told me was a kind of game that the boys played“Being dragged across the floor … being thrown into the garbage bin being dacked.”
The boy had to be pulled out of school as a result, with AAT claiming the school provided “worse than zero support”.
“The school did nothing adequate to address the issue,” he said.
He claimed the principal only reached out to him after he put in a complaint to the Department of Education after the second bout of racism and bullying. Now at a different school in an entirely new state, the boy is once again being targeted by anti-Semitic slurs.
“Nazi stuff like a boy putting some black tape on his moustache and walking around (the class)…and Hitler stuff, but now also a lot of money stuff,” AAT said. “I have only just found out about this yesterday.”
Bombing survivor seeing same ‘war on Jews’ here in Australia
A woman who survived a bombing decades ago in Israel says she is seeing the same “war to eliminate Israel and Jews off the planet” in Australia.
The woman, who can only be known as AAS, said she would get the same bus every day while living in Israel in the late 80s and early 90s, with bombings – particularly suicide bombers – a common occurrence at the time.
“One day I got off the bus and further down the road it blew up. Thank God I wasn’t on it,” AAS said.
“That’s what intifada is … it’s killing people for the sake of the cause.
“This is the holy war to eliminate Israel and Jews off the planet, and that for me is what I see here, it’s what I see in the UK, it’s what’s happening in America and across Europe.
“This is the globalisation of the intifada … the volume of testimonies you’ve received demonstrates what’s going on.”
The woman moved to Australia decades ago, the commission heard.
Kids heckled with ‘Heil Hitler’, salutes on school excursion
Teacher’s aide Blake Shaw said young students were heckled on a school excursion in Melbourne last year, with kids from another school who were “significantly older” than his students getting in their faces, laughing and saying “Free Palestine”.
Mr Shaw said the teacher from the other school “scoffed” at him when he said “you need to tell your students to stay away from my students”.
“He said my students are just kids as well. And I said they’re significantly older and should know much better, to which he said ‘well, that’s just their beliefs’,” Mr Shaw told the hearing.
Some of his students were again targeted on another excursion the following year, with boys going up to them and saying Heil Hitler while performing a salute while they were in the bathroom.
“(They) came out quite distressed,” Mr Shaw said.
10yo’s heartbreaking question
Dean Cherny choked up while telling the hearing of a heartbreaking question his 10-year-old daughter asked him.
“Dad, if Israel’s not safe, and we’re not safe in Australia, where are we gonna go?” his daughter asked him.
“And I didn’t have an answer, and I don’t have an answer, and it broke my heart that as I’m putting my daughter to bed, where she should be peaceful and restful …. this is something that’s plaguing my 10-year-old daughter’s mind, about where we will live and what we will do if the scourge of anti-Semitism continues to rise in this country.”
Kid did Hitler salute day after Bondi attack
A teenager, known only as AAG, said a kid “did the Hitler salute and stared me dead in the eyes and laughed” at their school the day after the Bondi attack.
AAG earlier spoke of being heckled at school for being Jewish, with some kids saying “A Jew” instead of “Achoo” when they sneeze.
The teen’s mother, known as AAE, said children had performed “Heil Hitlers” while a boy made “horrific anti-Semitic remarks” to her child.
Speaking to the school’s deputy principal was “like talking to a brick wall”, AAE said, telling the hearing he kept repeating “we have a zero tolerance to racism” but was “unwilling” to use the word anti-Semitism.
“That made me lose trust in the school’s leadership in terms of being able to address this … because you can’t fix what you won’t even name” she said.
The commission was told AAE’s eldest child, AAF, had been added to a social media chat called “Hitler support group” while they were in high school.
‘Help us’: 13yo’s desperate plea to inquiry
A 13-year-old girl says she still has nightmares and some of her friends “get scared when they hear a balloon pop” following the Bondi Beach terror attack while issuing a heartbreaking plea for help to an anti-Semitism inquiry.
The young girl was forced into lockdown at a bat mitzvah at Bondi Pavilion on December 14 as the alleged terror attack unfolded outside, she said in a video played to the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion on Wednesday.
She saw hundreds of people running away and screaming through the glass doors, telling the hearing “it was terrifying” and she had nightmares for months.
“Sometimes I still have a nightmare,” she said.
“My mum had to take time off work to look after me.”
The girl noted she did not see or hear any of the shooting, but feels bad for her friends who did hear the gunshots.
“Some of my friends even get scared when they hear a balloon pop,” she said.
“I am so sad about all of the people who died, especially Matilda, because she was just a kid and did nothing wrong.”
She also spoke of feeling anxious and thinking about Bondi when a waitress at a restaurant started bleeding after dropping a glass, and said she was sad for 10-year-old Matilda, who was killed in the attack.
She doesn’t like to see the bridge at Bondi Beach or hear sirens as it reminds her of the attack.
The young girl spoke of wanting to be “more independent” but said “sometimes I get very scared and worried about walking around by myself”, telling the inquiry some of her friends went to the Easter Show by themselves but she would have felt “very anxious and worried” in case an anti-Semitic incident were to occur.
She added her school had increased security and she tried to hide her Jewish jewellery when she was out in public, issuing a desperate plea to the commission.
“I don’t think Jewish kids should be scared to live normally like other kids do,” she said.
“It’s not fair. I hope the commission can help us.”
The heart-wrenching testimony was played at the beginning of the third day of the hearing.
The two-week hearing in Sydney will focus on defining anti-Semitism, its prevalence in Australia and how to assess its prevalence in society and institutions.
The royal commission was announced after the alleged terror attack at Bondi Beach on December 14, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese making the call on January 8 after weeks of pressure.