Watch the royal commission live
Witnesses expected to appear today include Rabbi Benjamin Elton from The Great Synagogue, and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, whose former Dover Heights home was firebombed during Sydney’s so-called summer of hate.
You can watch the live stream of the commission here.
Daughter of Bondi victim speaks of ‘massive shift’ in antisemitism
Sheina Gutnick has provided a statement to the royal commission that has not yet been released.
She told the commission she had “received and seen hundreds of comments … that both I and the organisation Combat Antisemitism Movement, that I should have been killed in the Bondi attack, calls to kill Israelis [and] comments celebrating violence against Jews”.
She said she had also seen claims that attacks against the Jewish community “are false flags staged by Jews themselves for attention and sympathy”.
Gutnick said there had been a “massive shift” after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1200 people were killed and a further 250 were taken hostage.
“From that point onwards I felt as though antisemitism was being allowed to come into the open.
“That was completely unprecedented. All of a sudden it was socially, morally acceptable for antisemitic comments to be made in public.”
Bondi ‘a heavy weight in our community’s hearts’: Gutnick
Sheina Gutnick has told the commission that her parents met on Bondi Beach as “young refugees from the USSR”.
“Bondi [now] holds many complicated and conflicting feelings for me,” Gutnick said. “It was somewhere where my parents had started their history together, somewhere I had spent many days in my childhood and had beautiful memories there with my family.
“And now Bondi holds a really, really heavy weight in our community’s heart.”
Gutnick said since the October 7 attacks she had “witnessed cars driving past on main roads with passengers shouting ‘free Palestine’ followed immediately by ‘f— the Jews’.”
“This is not political expression but explicit, targeted hatred and designed to intimidate.”
Watch the royal commission live
Witnesses expected to appear today include Rabbi Benjamin Elton from The Great Synagogue, and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, whose former Dover Heights home was firebombed during Sydney’s so-called summer of hate.
You can watch the live stream of the commission here.
Commission to hear of public hatred against school children
Harrowing examples of hatred against Jews will be shared in the first public hearings of the royal commission into antisemitism, with counsel assisting Zelie Heger SC using her opening address to detail some of the worst examples, including one involving children on a school bus.
“Overt abuse is not just by adults towards adults. The perpetrators of abuse have been both adults and children and in one terrible incident, one small student told a Jewish student that Hitler should have gassed them all,” Heger told the commission.
Heger told the commission that the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 marked a “significant turning point for antisemitism in Australia”.
Also assisting the commission is Richard Lancaster SC, who outlined plans for future hearing blocks, including an investigation of the circumstances that led to the Bondi Beach terror attack, as well as “a particular focus on antisemitism on social media” and the role it may play in radicalisation.
Universities and other public institutions will also feature in future public hearings.
Welcome to our live coverage of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion
Welcome to our live coverage of the first day of public hearings at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
Former High Court judge Virginia Bell will preside over the first block of public hearings in Sydney with the focus to be on the definition of antisemitism, and the lived experiences by Jewish Australians.
Sheina Gutnick, the daughter of Bondi Beach terror attack victim Reuven Morrison, will be the first witness before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion when public hearings begin on Monday.
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