Witnesses tell of ‘guttural fear’, high anxiety and trying to ‘de-Jew’ amid racial slurs

A Jewish university student was kicked out of her Canberra share house because her flatmates did not like her position on Zionism, the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has heard, while another testimony revealed a gay Jew feared for his life at Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade.

Arts/law student Mia Kline, who has been actively involved in a range of Jewish organisations including teaching Hebrew at a Canberra community centre, told the commission that in May 2024 she was called to a meeting by her two housemates, whom she considered good friends.

Kline said they told her that “they felt like they’ve been walking on eggshells in the house around me, and that the house wasn’t a safe space for them to have tough political conversations about current events, and that they couldn’t reconcile my views with their values, and that we couldn’t live under one roof”.

Distraught and sobbing, she packed her belongings and immediately moved out. Kline told the royal commission that she went through a process of “de-Jewing” herself – which included not telling people she was attending Shabbat dinners and removing her Star of David necklace – to avoid antisemitism.

She was one of eight witnesses to give evidence to the commission about their lived experience of antisemitism on the fifth day of public hearings before former High Court judge Virginia Bell in Sydney.

Kline later wrote a letter to her housemates, telling them that she was a “harsh critic of Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and the actions of the IDF” and that she hoped they would come to understand the hurt they had caused her.

“It is apparent to me that my housemates’ conduct resulted from their perception of me as a Jew,” Kline, 22, told the commission. “My housemates never asked me about my connection to Israel. In their eyes, I was a Zionist who must be presumed to support genocide, ethnic cleansing and a litany of crimes against humanity, which is untrue.”

Another witness, known as Benjamin F, told the commission that he feared for his life when he marched with Jewish LGBTQIA+ group Dayenu in the Mardi Gras parade, ensuring he told his sister that he loved her in case anything happened to him during the parade.

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras removed the group Pride in Protest from marching in the parade over a series of inflammatory social media posts directed at Dayenu.

“It was a guttural fear that I genuinely thought we were going to be attacked,” Benjamin F said.

Benjamin F said the group displayed no Israeli flags or symbols during the march, but some wore a Star of David.

“Once we were walking up Oxford Street … it was probably one of the scariest moments of my life,” he said.

He said protesters called the group “genocide supporters” and chanted “Free Palestine”.

Benjamin F, a teacher librarian who lives in Sydney’s inner west, grew up Catholic but came out as gay at 18. More recently, he made the decision to convert to Judaism, a process that was finalised in 2022.

In contrast to his coming out, which was a very positive experience, reactions to his conversion were “quite horrific actually”.

Other witnesses on Friday included Maya Hockey, who described experiencing antisemitism from her own friends and “heard comments about gassing Jews at school”.

Sharonne Blum, a Victorian Jewish studies teacher, described anti-Zionism as a “hate movement” because it denied Jews a central part of their identity. A non-Jewish lawyer was accused of being a “sneaky Jew” and a “Jewish rat” in an inner-western Sydney pub.

A crisis counselling hotline volunteer also told of becoming anxious about picking up the phone due to the “instant” increase in antisemitic calls after the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel.

Public hearings will continue next week, when the focus will shift to the definition of antisemitism.

The Australian Jewish Council, a progressive group that does not support the definition of antisemitism adopted by the commission, has been granted limited leave to appear next week to cross-examine expert witnesses.

A second block of hearings, starting on May 25, has also been confirmed that will focus on the Bondi Beach terror attack on December 14, which killed 15 mostly Jewish people.

The commission will look at the terrorism threat level in the lead-up to the attack and the conduct of security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including what was known about the shooters.

There will also be a probe into security arrangements for the Bondi Beach event on December 14 as well as a focus on “how intelligence about individuals known to authorities is utilised and shared to inform decisions made by security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies”.

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