A Jewish artist, trusted to immortalise the flowers left for victims of the Bondi Beach terror attack, has been doxxed, hounded out of the sector and may be forced to close her gallery permanently, the Royal Commission into Antisemitism has been told.
Earlier, the commission heard from a stand-up comedian appearing under a pseudonym, who drew laughs from the usually stern and sombre audience while describing his withdrawal from performing after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Nina Sanadze and a team of 160 volunteers collected three tonnes of flowers left at the Bondi Pavilion after the allegedly Islamic State-inspired terror attack.
The flowers, dried in a warehouse and transported to Melbourne, are being turned into an exhibition honouring the loss of 15 lives at the Bondi Hannukah celebrations on December 14 and the outpouring of support from the wider Australian society.
“The flowers mean – for me and for the Jewish community and for Australia – they symbolise cohesion and empathy and standing together,” she told the commission on Friday.
“More importantly, repairing Australia, which desperately needs to repair. And so through the flowers, I can do that.”
Sanadze was one of 600 Jewish creatives “doxxed” – had their personal details leaked to ideological and political opponents – in 2024.
The doxxing caused galleries to cut relationships, fearing targeted harassment against Sanadze.
She went on to found a gallery to exhibit her work, called Goldstone, in Melbourne in 2025.
But, rather than healing, Sanadze said Goldstone has also been forced to close since the Bondi massacre due to a lack of funds and fear within Jewish artists.
“It’s getting worse after Bondi. I’m not able to work. It’s so complex to simply exhibit artworks,” she said.
Sanadze previously said the closure was temporary, but she told the commission it may force a permanent relocation of her work.
‘It’s getting worse after Bondi. I’m not able to work. It’s so complex to simply exhibit artworks.’
Nina Sanadze
“We’re reviewing what can happen, and it will be more like a constant project, but not on that site,” she said.
Sanadze said poetry and music events require an armed security guard, and visitors fear being photographed or publicly associated with the gallery.
“They fear to be seen in the gallery,” she said.
“I’ve had a lot of conversations where the people [are] not allowed to be photographed, or people would ask for private viewings … so nobody would know they were there.”
“There is no funding, there is no security, it is very hard. The artists are scared to exhibit.”
“People who are part of the art community, so embedded as I was, received special kind of punishment for betraying the mainstream beliefs of the art world,” she said.
Months of harassment gave way to a “full silence” to remove artists like Sanadze from the Australian arts landscape, she told the commission.
Earlier, the commission heard from a comic, who goes by the initials CGM, said another comedian from a Muslim background contacted him to ask why he had stopped performing.
“And I said, ‘I just feel like staying in, you know, I feel so much fear and shame’,” CGM said.
“He said to me, ‘Brother, I’ve seen your act, you should have been feeling fear and shame the whole time’.”
His friend then told him, “Don’t be silly, come tell jokes”, and invited him to perform at his show.
The pair later staged a show together and bonded over a mutual feeling that their “blood was cheap” to other people.
“We didn’t hurt each other, we made each other laugh, made each other feel the same,” CGM said.
CGM said speaking out against antisemitism could sometimes be more likely to get someone ostracised than expressing hostility towards Jews.
He recalled walking down the street with several other comedians and their entourages, including one who was “just like me, but if I was six foot four and looked like the Hulk”.
“F— the Jews,” someone in the group said.
CGM said he tried to defuse the situation by saying “not all Jews”, but the person doubled down.
“Usually, at this point, I would say something. But I didn’t have private health insurance,” CGM said.
“I carry a sense of shame in me that I didn’t say anything … but I don’t think my peers felt any shame.”
CGM also said he was deeply saddened to see ASIO and police recommending heightened security around synagogues and Jewish places of worship, which he described as boring and difficult to understand.
“If any of these people looking to attack a synagogue ever sat through a service, then understand, we are already punishing ourselves, we don’t need your help,” he said, drawing laughter around the room.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
