JEWS in Australia faced 517 incidents of harassment or intimidation in the year to September 30, 2011, a 31 per cent rise from the year before, according to the Jewish community's annual report on anti-Semitism. Jones’s full report.
"Put bluntly, in Australia this year, 10 times a week, every week, Jewish Australians were attacked or threatened," report author Jeremy Jones said.
It is the 22nd year that Mr. Jones, community affairs director for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, has produced the report, which showed a 38 per cent increase over the average of the previous 21 years but an 80 per cent drop on the record tally (2009).
Between October 1, 2010, and September 30, 2011, there were 17 physical assaults or property damage, 128 incidents of direct harassment and intimidation, five threatening phone calls, 301 emails, 48 incidents of anti-Jewish graffiti, and 18 other incidents.
Mr. Jones said the total did not include anti-Israel incidents or those where motivation was in doubt. While anti-Jewish violence had little public support, anti-Semitic comments "find comfortable hosts on the online sites of mainstream media outlets, including government-owned", he said.
He said Australians needed to treat hate crimes seriously. The property damage or injury might be slight, but the impact on the victim and the community might be significant.
The media should not allow comments online that they would not print or broadcast. "It is time mainstream media and others grew up. The online world can no longer be regarded as some sort of alternative reality," Mr. Jones said.
An overview of the situation of Jews in Australia was described by Jeremy Jones in two articles for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The Australian Jewish community numbers between 100,000 and 120,000. The majority of Australian Jews were born in other countries, with the United Kingdom, Poland, the Former Soviet Union, and South Africa being the most significant of many and diverse sources of immigration.
In the first fleet of British ships that established the Penal Colony of New South Wales in January 1788, the human cargo of prisoners sentenced to servitude included some eight to fourteen Jews.
The number of Jews in Australia has always been small in number but with a disproportionately high profile. Never having reached even 1 percent of the population, the Jewish community has supplied two governors-general, several senior military figures, and contributors in the arts, sciences, professions, academia, entertainment, and business.
In the majority Christian society, the broad principle of access and equity in government relations with minority groups has led to the development of state support for Jewish day schools, as well as for other culturally specific social services. An initially informal, and subsequently formal, policy promoting multiculturalism has militated against anti-Semitism and in favor of Australian Jews, including observant, Orthodox Jews, living openly without harassment or discrimination.
Australia's stances on international matters of direct interest to the Jewish community are evidence of the community's political role in Australia and its success in advocacy. Issues of importance to the Jewish community have been understood to be relevant to the whole of Australia.
However, certain areas of advocacy may not have succeeded, and serious social problems afflict parts of the Jewish community. The internal challenges for the community include preserving Jewish identity in a society that offers numerous choices for an individual's self-identification.
Anti-Semitism has often been spoken of as an illness of the Old World and the Third World, with Australian opinion leaders suggesting that the Australian national ethos of giving everyone a "fair go" effectively renders their country immune from anti-Semitism. In recent years, however, there has been a growing acknowledgment both of the presence of anti-Semitism in Australia, and that it is the responsibility of political and moral leadership to confront it.
Although anti-Semitic elements were present in Australian society from the earliest days of European settlement, there has also been a strain of philo-Semitism, which was often more significant than the anti-Semitism.
At times of stress there have been peaks in documented anti-Semitism, testifying to the presence in Australia of an anti-Semitic subculture. This anti-Semitism is manifested in a variety of ways and through a number of distinct vehicles.
Organized Extremist Groups
On the far Right is the Australian League of Rights, which claims to consist of Christians who believe that Judaism is responsible for all the sins for which right-wing Christian churches have blamed the Jews historically, as well as the neo-Nazi, anti-immigrant Australian Nationalist Movement, which sees Jewish influence behind anything it regards as a social evil.
The far Right also includes small organizations claiming, among other things, that the Holocaust was an invention of Jews to extort money and guilt from Western societies. Historically, the most important of these has been the Australian Civil Liberties Union, which has links to the Institute for Historical Review in California. The highest profile Holocaust-denial group is the Adelaide Institute, a collection of extreme right-wing propagandists whose activities have been found to be in breach of Australia's racial hatred laws.
Some extreme left-wing organizations in Australia also publish material that is extremely defamatory of Jews, generally but not exclusively in the context of their attacks on Israel's existence. Although the small groups on the Australian far Left often denounce racism in all its forms, demonization of Israel is a common thread and so is "Jewish internationalism." Thus, the far Left's themes are almost indistinguishable from those of the far Right.
Recent years have seen an increase in anti-Semitism from organizations and individuals representing a New Age or other fringe, alternative ideology. These groups' rhetoric is heavily laden with conspiracy theories, as they seek to portray their views as rational alternatives to lifestyles imposed by forces acting to suppress or control "natural" behavior. There is a large overlap between far-Right organizations and those more directly concerned with promoting stories of visitations from other planets, nonconventional medical alternatives, and opting out of the organized economy.
Arab and Muslim Groups
Some of the most overt anti-Jewish rhetoric in recent years has come from the Muslim and Arab communities.
Several Arabic-language newspapers have published vehemently anti-Jewish articles. The discussions on Islamic and Arab Internet forums testify to a vigorous anti-Jewish subculture. This has brought about the emergence of an Australian-educated Islamic generation that includes unambiguously anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish elements.
Churches
The Catholic Church in Australia was among the first national Catholic bodies to publicly disavow anti-Semitism and declare it a sin. Within the Protestant churches, however, there is a range of attitudes toward Jews and Judaism.
Australia's Anglican Church has varying attitudes from diocese to diocese regarding Israel, and the legitimacy of Judaism as a religion. The Uniting Church in Australia has a vocal anti-Israeli element, more influenced by the politics of the Middle East Council of Churches than by anti-Semitism, as well as a highly philo-Semitic group. There are also Christian figures who publicly express hateful views toward Judaism and Jews.
Media
The mainstream media's coverage is generally responsible and does not unduly play on the "Jewishness" of individuals or of the issues, though there is less sympathy when it comes to Israel and the Middle East. Sometimes, when discussing matters involving the Jewish community, Israel, or individual Jews, simplifications and inappropriate analogies are used in a way that arouses concern.
Physical Manifestations of Anti-Semitism
Based on the content of anti-Semitic abuse and threats and on the impressions of the victims of attacks, in recent years it has been possible to hypothesize as to the perpetrators of approximately 50 percent of the attacks. Around 65-70 percent of the attacks appear to come from extreme right-wing or neo-Nazi groups, several of which exist in various parts of Australia. The next largest group of perpetrators appears to come from the political extreme Left, accounting for about 18 percent of all the acts that could be identified, with the remaining 12-15 percent attributable to Arab or Muslim perpetrators or people purporting to act in the interest of Arabs or Muslims.
Further Reading:
Israeli Dance Club banned from Australian Multicultural Folk Dance Festival
David Southwick fights hatred in Australia
Neo-Nazis Organize Music Festival in Australia
Veteran Holocaust denier sentenced to jail in Australia
