Jewish patients requested their religion be removed from their hospital admission information following allegations that nurses made menacing comments about Israeli patients, the royal commission on antisemitism has heard.
Education and training in schools, workplaces and the healthcare and arts sectors will be the focus of this week’s hearings at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which has been sitting since May.
The inquiry will on Wednesday hear from South Western Sydney Local Health District CEO Sonya Marshall about the policies and training put in place for staff after two former nurses at Bankstown Hospital were accused in February 2025 of saying they would refuse to treat Israeli patients.
Both former nurses have pleaded not guilty to one charge of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend, while one of the nurses has also denied a further charge of threatening violence to a group.
Sydney Rabbi Mendel Kastel has worked as a chaplain with NSW Health for a number of years and said many Jewish Australians were apprehensive about attending hospitals after the allegations.
“St Vincent’s [Hospital Sydney], for instance, was taking calls from patients all through the hospital saying, ‘Please take my religion off my record’,” he told the inquiry on Tuesday.
Rabbi Mendel Kastel works as a chaplain with NSW Health. (ABC News: Timothy Ailwood)
Rabbi Kastel said he filmed a video with a Muslim colleague at Bankstown Hospital to reassure people that it was a safe space.
“After the story with the nurses there was real fear to the extent that even in my discussions with NSW Health, [it] was should we create a diversion or another way that people can get healthcare because they’re too afraid to go to hospital,” he said.
“My answer was absolutely not. We need to make sure that hospitals are safe and that people feel safe in hospitals.”
Wearable flag pins questioned
Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell AC SC asked Rabbi Kastel if “in the current climate” he would consider it appropriate for hospital staff to be prohibited from wearing Palestinian and Israeli flag pins in the workplace.
“Yes, I would support that,” Rabbi Kastel said in response.
Rabbi Eli Schlanger died in the Bondi Beach terror attack. (chabad.org)
Rabbi Kastel’s brother-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, died in the Bondi Beach terror attack on December 14, 2025.
Fifteen people died in the shooting, which occurred during a Hanukkah event at Bondi’s Archer Park.
Rabbi Kastel became emotional as he spoke of the One Mitzvah for Bondi campaign established to encourage people to do good deeds that would help their community.
He said that it was a fitting tribute to his brother-in-law.
“We’re taught in Jewish values that the way to move forward is by embracing good, creating more light,” he said.
Rabbi Kastel said interfaith collaboration would be key to fostering social cohesion post-Bondi terror attack.
“We’re not going to agree on everything. But one thing we can agree on is to be kind to each other, and to demand from the Australian society to be kind to everyone,”
he said.
“It’s a universal message of unity and if we do it together, we have a much better chance of getting it done.”
One of the gunmen was shot dead by police at the scene, while the other remains before the courts.
Holocaust museum forced to ‘manage safety risks’
Melbourne Holocaust Museum CEO Breann Fallon said more than 800,000 students had engaged with the centre’s education programs since 1984.
Dr Fallon, who is not Jewish, said she believed she had “the best job in the world” but it had contributed to the loss of some friendships.
“Generally when you say you work at a Holocaust museum there is a quite weighty pause,”
she said.
Dr Fallon says her role at Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum has cost her friendships. (Supplied: Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion)
“Some people will engage further, other people will want to end that discussion right there and then.
“There has been a conflation of the work we do at the Holocaust museum with the current geopolitical context and an assumption that the museum holds a particular political view, and that you as an individual hold a particular political view.
“It has been commonly stated to me that ‘I can no longer be your friend if you work at that institution’.”
Dr Fallon said she and museum staff and volunteers took care to manage safety risks due to their place of work.
“We can’t get out of the car at our workplace without having to look over our shoulder to make sure we are safe,” she said.
“There have been issues where people have stated to me, ‘Be careful, I know where you work’.”
Public sector response
The commission also heard evidence about policies and procedures to prevent antisemitism in the public sector.
It heard there were concerns in early 2024 when more than 2,000 public servants signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticising the federal government’s response to the war in Gaza.
“We call on the Australian Government to take swift and decisive action tend its support of the genocide, ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation of Palestine by immediately ceasing all military exports to Israel,” the open letter stated.
A Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory by the UN Human Rights Council found that genocide was occurring in Gaza, but Israel has denied the allegations against it.
According to the Australian Public Service (APS) statement of values, the organisation must be apolitical.
Joanne Talbot says the letter was concerning and bordered on being apolitical. (Supplied: Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.)
Australian Public Service Commission acting deputy commissioner Joanne Talbot was asked if the open letter was in breach of those values.
“To circulate an open letter identifying them as [public servants] speaking of the Australian government’s complicity in the Palestinian genocide, is there a question about whether that’s abandoning political neutrality?” Commissioner Bell put to Ms Talbot.
“It is highly concerning and it does border on being apolitical,” she said.
“I believe some people were sanctioned but I don’t know what happened to those employees.”
A number of the signatories to the letter identified as working in the NSW public service sector, with NSW Public Service Commissioner Kathrina Lo saying the conduct was inappropriate.
“That is clearly a case where public servants crossed the line,” she said.
“The actions there weren’t consistent with the legislated core values for the government sector and the requirements to remain impartial and apolitical.”
Ms Lo said she and the secretary of the NSW premier’s office sent a joint message to all public servants in the state reinforcing the need for compliance with their impartiality obligations.
She said a similar message was sent in the wake of the allegations made against the former Bankstown hospital nurses.
“[The message was] trying to get that message across that every single member of the community and New South Wales needs to feel safe accessing public services which we provide,” she said.
Natalie James says she has concerns about a lack of guidance in the pubilc sector to combat underlying attitudes. (Supplied: Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion)
Former federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations secretary Natalie James, who is Jewish, said she had not personally experienced antisemitism during her time in the public sector.
But she said she was concerned about a lack of guidance to combat underlying attitudes that could make Jewish people feel unsafe.
“I am concerned there is a hesitancy to lean beyond the overt antisemitism and into some of this very uncomfortable space where … framing around the Middle East conflict means we are in a very grave space,” she said.
The Department of Home Affairs’ head of immigration, Clare Sharp, gave evidence about the levers available to the department to prevent people who could disrupt or cause harm to the community from entering the country.
She cited high-profile cases such as conservative speaker Candace Owens being denied a temporary visa under the character test due to comments she made which downplayed the impact of the Holocaust.
Musician Kanye West, who goes by Ye, was also blocked from entering Australia over antisemitic song lyrics.
More on the royal commission