Antisemitism royal commission LIVE: Witnesses begin evidence on day three

The Royal Commission is streaming its hearings live. Watch at the link below:

The Royal Commission is currently hearing from witnesses who have lived experiences of antisemitism.

Today, the Commission has a list of 14 people set to give evidence. Of those, nine are anonymous witnesses.

Among the public witnesses today are Blake Shaw; Dean Cherny; Joshua Kirsh, chief operating officer of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students; Gayle Smith, chief executive of charity Jewish Care; and Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia.

Good morning. It is day three of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, and the commission’s hearings are due to begin at 10am.

This block of hearings, stretching from this week to the end of next week, is focused on, according to the Royal Commission:

• Defining antisemitism.
• The nature of antisemitism, in its historical and contemporary manifestations.
• Lived experiences of antisemitism, and its impacts on Jewish Australians in various domains.
• Metrics for assessing the prevalence of antisemitism in institutions and society, including through incident reporting and survey data.

As we’ve seen over the past few days, the majority of evidence given has been from members of the Jewish community sharing their lived experiences of antisemitism. That is expected to continue today.

The doors have just opened at the Royal Commission’s building near Wynyard, in the Sydney CBD. Proceedings will get under way in half an hour.