ECAJ News & Views 27-November-2018

A spike in abuse of Jewish people in the past year has been partly fuelled by a neo-Nazi group that attempted to infiltrate the National Party, a report claims.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s annual Antisemitism in Australia report found there had been a 59 per cent increase in antisemitic threats and violence in the year to September 30, with 156 attacks and 210 threats.

ECAJ chief executive Peter Wertheim recorded a total 136 more acts of anti-Jewish hatred compared to last year’s survey, with the far-right Antipodean Resistance responsible for almost a third of the incidents.

“There has been an increase in the activities of groups which are not only hostile towards Jews but who actively and publicly express that hatred,” he told The Australian.

“As far-right groups publicly denigrate, demonise and incite violence against Jews, among others, it is incumbent upon political and other leaders to demonstrate that antisemitism, and all other forms of racism, are totally unacceptable in Australia.”

The Antipodean Resistance has spent the last year putting up highly offensive posters and stickers around Australian capital cities with messages such as “Reject Jewish Poison”.

The ECAJ report also says the Antipodean Resistance’s website has targeted members of its organisation and other Jewish Australian leaders, including antisemitic accusations that they participate in blood rituals. The group was not connected to the rise in antisemitic violence.

Members of the neo-Nazi group were found to have infiltrated the NSW Nationals last month and were expelled by the party’s state executive. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce both condemned the young far-right infiltrators.

Violent incidents in the report include eggs being thrown at Jewish people leaving a Melbourne synagogue in September, and a woman and her baby allegedly being spat on by a man as they left prayers in Sydney in October last year.

Chana Milecki, from Bondi, has suffered antisemitic abuse while walking with her family on the streets of Sydney over the past year and a half.
She told The Australian that last year she was walking home with her young children one day when her boys were approached by a car full of young men with a horrifying message.

“We were walking home from synagogue. My children were just ahead of me, and this car full of Anglo-Saxon boys drove past and shouted at my boys ‘Hitler should’ve finished you off’,” she told The Australian. Ms Milecki said she was shaken by the abuse but believed education would help tackle antisemitism.