RUTHFULLY YOURS

‘I made a workplace complaint to the police about students [who performed Nazi salutes], and then suddenly, my contract wasn’t renewed.’ — Jewish academic in Senate committee submission

At the weekend I began reading the submissions to the Senate committee on a Bill for a judicial inquiry into anti-Semitism at universities. I had no idea how intense the Jew-hatred is, how it’s tolerated, and even fostered by administrators.My mother when a young Perth journalist, honeymooned to Holland and Germany in 1938. She wrote,

“At Aachen we had our first contact with Nazis, swastikas crawling like black spiders on the uniforms of the border guards. In Berlin we tried to read Dr Goebbel’s noticeboards with their hideous anti-Jewish cartoons. ‘Juden verboten’ signs on the public toilets were clear enough. English-speaking Germans would sometimes make a cautious approach, begging us to tell the outside world how their relatives had disappeared in concentration camps…”[1]

The same elements — swastikas, Nazi-style cartoons, “Jews unwanted!” signs — can be found at Australian universities today. In place of concentration camps and gas chambers, there are omnipresent chants of “from the river to sea” for exterminating Israel and its citizens.

Jewish students and staff are “disappearing” from our universities because of hostility and anti-Semitism in tutorials, classes and social life. Jewish Liberal MHR Julian Leeser says,

“Jewish tradition values education as one of the highest virtues. Jews are taught to have arguments for the sake of heaven – to arrive at truth through debate and discussion. This is the essence of a university. There is a particular tragedy about campus antisemitism which seeks to exclude Jews from the intellectual life of the nation. What happens on campus today sets the tone for the Australia of tomorrow…

It’s tempting to think of antisemitism as the domain of the uneducated. But history tells us that antisemitism also lives in the minds of society’s best educated. More than half of the people who attended the Wannsee Conference that developed the ‘final solution’ were either doctors or had PhDs.

From last August 5 to September 6, the federal government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism,  Jillian Segal, organised interviews of 65 Jewish students and academics nationally. To protect subjects from reprisals, she was unable to publicise the most harrowing and confronting testimonies. What she does spell out is so traumatic I have to wonder what she had to omit. One para really hit home:

Several students and staff who were interviewed reported seeking medical assistance and being prescribed anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication to manage their response to the rise in antisemitism in their university environment. Approximately half of those interviewed were visibly teary during their interview…A culture that excludes one group, intimidates, traumatises and makes them feel unsafe is contrary to the mission of universities and contrary to the best interests of the nation.” 

Among the protestations of administrators is that they are not getting many Jewish complaints. The real reason: those who first complained got the runaround, deliberately or because the processes are byzantine and useless. There’s also fear of exam and career penalisation.

A further issue is that only a handful of 39 universities have endorsed the international definition of antisemitism, enabling the rest to play semantics between antisemitism and anti-Israelism.

It’s not as though campus anti-semitism soared only after Hamas’ October 7 massacres. The pre-October baseline was already extraordinary. The Zionist Federation (ZFA) and Jewish students a year ago published their survey of 429 current students (563 total) comprising  7 per cent of the Jewish student body. They found that 64 per cent had experienced campus antisemitism. The range was from 48 per cent (Deakin) to 84 per cent (ANU). I’d guess today it’d be 100%. As one student put it,

“Almost every day, I see/hear/witness one or more antisemitic groups or antisemitic incidents. These come from staff, students, materials shown in class… These range from comments like ‘Nazis were good people’, which was made by an arts faculty chief examiner … to being told that I would not be welcome in a mainstream progressive club because I am a Zionist…

Fifty-seven per cent had to hide their Jewish identity to avoid antisemitism. This rose to 67 per cent after experiencing antisemitism. A quarter of the female students stayed off campus out of fear. [2]

Here’s a roll call of our universities.

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

As a B.Ec. (ANU) myself, 1974, I’ve followed the university’s wallow into woke under Vice-Chancellors Gareth Evans and Brian Schmidt and Chancellor Julie Bishop. Its annual reports and plans are a welter of servility to “First Nations” identifiers and diversity kowtowing. At the moment, 27 ANU staff are neither male nor female.[3] Bishop loftily  introduces the ANU current strategic plan:

We aspire to strengthen the bond that exists between ANU and Australia based on trust and engagement. We will use our expertise as a national resource, challenging orthodoxies to transform society in the spirit of fairness… Our student experience will be equal to the best in the world… We want our campus and community to be the best place to work and study in Australia, a welcoming and safe place for all … built on a commitment to equity as the platform for excellence.

The sorry reality: ANU is more a Centre of Excellence for Anti-Semitism. Here are some grabs about ANU from submissions to the Senate on the Opposition-proposed judicial inquiry:

♦ On ABC radio, student representatives of the ANU Student Union openly supported Hamas, which raised serious concerns about the promotion of extremist views.

Radio host: Surely if you’re going to protest against that, you’ve also got to send a message to Hamas to release the hostages, don’t you?

Student rep in response: ‘Well I actually say that Hamas deserve our unconditional support’ and ‘I do not condemn [Hamas]’.

♦ ANU student: ‘The message is not that the university condemns these [antisemitic] actions. The message is that the university kind of supports it, even if they’re not [officially] supporting it’ [4]

♦ Australasian Union of Jewish Students: Some [ANU] Jewish students have been personally targeted and physically threatened, and there has not been appropriate involvement of police in such instances. We also note that there has been a proliferation of antisemitic propaganda around the campus and a failure to remove such materials, or to make formal complaints to the police about the vilification of Jews through the use of materials by organisations that are present on campus. (Submission p17).

♦ Executive Council of Australian Jewry: A counter-protest to the “pro-Palestine” encampment at ANU on 29 April 2024 involved the singing of the Australian and Israeli anthems. It was met with “death to the Jews”, “Heil Hitler” and “Jewish rats” from the encampment …The University’s failure to address parents’ concerns and the Jewish community’s pleas for safety highlighted a lack of support and recognition of the severity of antisemitism on campus. (p7)

SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

Sydney University is of course anti-Semitism’s epicentre. Last August, a student council general meeting voted near unanimously against condemning the October 8 atrocities and approved motions for “armed resistance” by Hamas terrorists, despite their targeting of civilians and using families and kindergartens as human shields. The Sydney administrators had advance notice but tolerated the motions.[5]

Just last Friday Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott (and ex-ABC managing director 2006-16 ) apologised to the Senate inquiry, saying both he and the university had failed Jewish students, hence they have made significant improvements to policies. Scott must have had a rush of retrospection. In August he sent the Senate his bob-each-way submission citing the university’s high-minded free speech and zero-tolerance anti-racism policies while acknowledging that the Jews weren’t reassured. He wrote (p3),

“Regarding the recent campus unrest…we were pleased that our management of the situation was able to bring the encampment to a peaceful conclusion on June 24.”

Yes, Mark, that was by capitulating to the eight-week-long pro-Hamas rioters.[6] As Zionist Federation President Jeremy Leibler submitted (p2),

“Sydney University has disgraced itself with its vice-chancellor, Professor Mark Scott, publicly and blatantly misrepresenting what actually took place on his campus, and his appeasement of those who intimidated Jewish students…”

The capitulation sequence, according to the Australian Jewish Association (AJA), began with a Zoom meeting hosted by the Australian Jewish Association on May 24. It was infiltrated and attacked by students dressed as Islamic terrorists. Other intruders photographed and doxed (published) Jewish participants’ personal details on pro-Hamas websites. They traumatised elderly attendees and relatives of October 7 victims. Some of the attackers were office-bearers with the encampment’s Sydney University Muslim Students Association (SUMSA). VC Scott acknowledged AJA’s complaint personally but conveyed no further response. AJA was then shocked at the university striking a deal with the same Muslim Students Association concerning military research information. “AJA has zero faith in the complaints’ procedures of the University of Sydney,” the group says.

AJA on campus “heard horrible stories, such as how anti-Israel activists would burst into classrooms and disrupt studies while interrogating students on their views.” Jewish students cite a litany of further abuses at Sydney University:

♦ A student pushed a Jewish student from a bike, while shouting ‘Heil Hitler’. The university refused to act because the incident happened two metres from campus.[7]

♦ Student:  ‘At the moment I am doing Indigenous studies, and every place you look there’ll be something related to Israel/Palestine and not Indigenous Studies. For history, every time the lecturer speaks it’s about what is happening right now in Israel.”[8]

♦ At a student exchange fair, two female Tel Aviv University (TAU) academics with no connection to Gaza were invited, but their room was invaded by shouting protestors in a 90-minute ordeal with no help from Sydney University security, after which they were escorted off the premises. TAU president Ariel Porat sent a stern letter to Scott describing the invasion as “a violent instance of verbal assault against two women, preventing them from fulfilling the purpose for which they were invited.”

♦ Scott accepted as ‘freedom of expression’ a Hamas-promoting event decorated with photos of the October 7 attack.[9]

♦ Student: “I have never been so unhappy. This place was once my dream, and now I can’t wait to get out of here.”[10]

♦ Jewish employees also complain: “I’ve been told by a colleague all the usual stuff: ‘There’s definitely no evidence of [October 7] systemic rape. But even if it did happen, they deserved it’, which to me is the same as saying you deserve it.’[11] Another employee: ‘You know, it’s depressing. I feel so depleted. I feel so exhausted. Instead of having the space to mourn and grieve over what’s happening in Israel, I’m using every ounce of my energy just to survive at work.’ [12]

I’ll return to other university’s profiles shortly.

On the first page of her submission, Special Envoy Segal submitted that university antisemitism is systemic across Australia:

“The Jewish students are traumatised and feel isolated and unsafe. They are not participating as they should in university life. They have been told by their university administration to stay home for their own safety.

This normalised antisemitism is incredibly dangerous to our society as it is an attitude and behaviour that eats away at the fabric of the mission of the tertiary sector. To date university leadership is either in denial about how serious and normalized antisemitism has become on their campuses or has not received information as to the seriousness of the situation (bad news does not travel upwards) or has failed to truly understand what constitutes antisemitism and has responded by placating activist forces.”

A further issue she raises is the need to pry out from universities the facts about whether and how they have gone soft on anti-Semitism to protect funding from pro-Hamas sources overseas. This has been demonstrated in some other countries’ universities. Here, “they have been very opaque in their answers” (p2). That’s partly why she wants a judicial inquiry able to demand documents and evidence on oath. For example, she is aware that when outraged Jewish donors withdrew funds, certain universities offset their losses with greater funding from offshore parties. Incidentally, Segal was Deputy Chancellor of UNSW from 2010 to 2019 and knows how the sector works.

In her office’s half-hour interviews with 65 Jews, every single one described prolific posters, graffiti and stickers with hostile content. UNSW seemed quicker to remove offensive material than rival universities. Eighty per cent of student interviewees reported antisemitic incidents in at least one lecture or tute.

Seventy percent of staff suffered an antisemitic harassment from peers or encampment chants like “F*ck off, Zionist scum!” Online courses – which are now prevalent at universities – are commonly invaded by hostile activists. Despairing of departmental action, some Jews got results only by putting pressure on the administration by complaining to police. Rather than combating vilification, universities seemed more keen to minimise bad PR and legal risks.

Others reported being spat on by encampment occupiers, who posted films of them online with identification and trolling, and their home façades were vandalised with Nazi and Hamas symbols. Some were pushed out of accommodation by roommates or humiliated in class for stating any Jewish or Israeli perspective.

A common practice was for the students to self-censor their work to avoid antagonising superiors and getting poor marks. Several said they were failed for refusing to endorse their marker’s ideology. As soon as they were identified by superiors as Jewish, they were expected – with a threatening undercurrent – to justify Israeli policies and alleged genocides.

Almost all students were recommended to study and work online from home, regardless of loss of human contact and feedback – and in Victoria, after years of lockdowns. Among the worst incidents Segal cites[13]

♦ Students performing Nazi salutes to Jewish academics

♦ Jewish property defaced with swastikas and Hamas triangles

♦ Localised social media posts with prayers for Hamas to kill Jews, and October 7 denialism

♦ Students at orientation booths spruiking “gas the Jews” and ripping Israeli flags

♦ Meetings even of left-wing and pro-Palestine Jews being harassed

♦ Gay Jews excluded from LGBTQIA+ groups

♦ Jewish academics at staff meetings getting constant comparisons of Israel and Nazis

♦ Introduction of anti-Israel tropes even into courses like architecture, Aboriginality and medicine

♦ Blood-libel references to baby-killings

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY

Antisemitism is rife. Instances:

Student: Before the lecturer began speaking, two students entered and filmed the class while forcing students to vote by raising their hands for or against the ‘genocidal Zionist regime.’ This created an environment where students felt judged by their peers for not participating in an intentionally divisive vote, leading to significant distress. [14]

Academic: ‘Universities are the Ground Zero today of the antisemitism, of the growth of antisemitism, and it’s very fearful to think that the students that today are protesting and are getting increasingly radical are going to be the leaders sitting on the government benches in 20 years’ time. That’s terrifying, because they’re actually developing a world view in which Israel and Jews are, in fact, the enemy. They’re actually demonizing Israel as completely bad…and it’s not very long before Jews are included in that dichotomy…and I think that’s terribly, terribly dangerous.’[15]

Academic: ‘So one of the most egregious [incidents] was an academic who had been invited to give a talk, a Dean of Engineering at the Technion. The students smeared him on social media as being genocidal and all that sort of stuff, and the university just capitulated and cancelled his lecture…When this academic, this Dean of Engineering [was] removed from giving a talk, the reaction of [the] Vice-Chancellor [was], ‘what were people thinking’ inviting someone like that in this time?’ [16]

 Student: ‘I’ve almost lost all motivation to continue my studies here, as both the students and institution clearly cares more about their public reputation than protecting the lives and safety of their Jewish students. I feel abandoned and discarded by the university, left exposed to the antisemitic mob that is slowly taking over. I have never felt more alone.’ [17]

MONASH UNIVERSITY

This university is named after one of Australia’s greatest sons, the Jewish Sir John Monash.

Student: ‘I have seen many other posts from students [in my cohort] which say things like ‘Zionism is Nazism’, there is no di􏰀erence between Jews and Nazis. [18]

Student: ‘You name it, I have seen it. Lots of violent content, Holocaust inversion, misinformation and disinformation, Jew hatred masked as anti-Zionism or as political content and much more…I am really just seeing the tiniest fraction of the antisemitic content coming from my cohort and the medical profession.[19]

Student: A lecturer supported a group presenting on a social cause in a sociology class, suggesting the ‘pro-Palestinian movement’ as their topic. The lecturer guided the group before and during their presentation and mentioned that his friend organises pro-Palestinian rallies in the city on Sundays and that he supports ‘Free Palestine.’ This created an unsafe and discriminatory environment for a Jewish student.[20]

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY

Academic: There should not be messaging around my workplace insinuating that people from my culture or from my country or from my homeland, are not welcome or should f^^k off or should not exist.” [21]

Academic: ‘I’m just disgusted and I feel so upset and it’s impacting my everyday ability to do my work. And I feel really let down. I’ve worked so so hard to get to where I am. And I’ve gone above and beyond.’[22]

Student: ‘I am grappling with the fact that I didn’t spend the last three weeks [of my diploma] celebrating or having fun with my friends, instead, I have been fighting for my right to exist safely on campus.’ [23]

Student (Burwood Campus): The launch rally for the encampment included numerous anti-Israel chants such as ‘fuck the Zionists,’ ‘Zionists off of campus,’ ‘fuck you Zionist dogs’ [and] ‘fucking Zionists, genocidal creeps.’[24]

UNIVERSITY OF NSW

Employee: ‘I saw a [non-Palestinian] colleague, a staff member, wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh on 10 October [2023] into class. If I was a student in that class, how kind of frightened would I be?’ However, UNSW also gained some praise:

UNSW’s collaboration with AUJS (Australasian Union of Jewish Students) has been notably effective, particularly in managing protests and ensuring Jewish students’ safety during these events. The University’s commitment to preventing encampments and maintaining a strong security presence during protests has reassured Jewish students. While there have been some reported incidents of antisemitism as well as some incidents that remain confidential, the UNSW administration has generally been proactive and has considered its responses.[25]

UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG

Student: “[Pre October 7] I was working at the AUJS stall and someone came past, like, a couple of guys and said, “gas the Jews”, and were laughing at us and stuff…[26]

SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY

Student: ‘ It’s already doing stuff to me physically, like I’m getting sick more often. I’ve got like, my eyes this because I rubbed them so often, at this skin, like coming off like my mouth is like, I don’t know what’s happening to it. I need to go to a doctor. But it’s insane. Like my physical health is just going downhill and my mental health is going downhill because of what people have said to me. It’s terrible how people have made me feel.’ [27]

UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA

A food science lecturer claimed Israel did not have the right to exist and Hamas was not a terrorist organisation. The university said he was exercising free speech rather than hate speech.[28]

QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY

Student: Activists flew the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, deemed a genocidal terrorist organisation in the USA, European Union, and Canada.[29]

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY

A study room by a designated safe space for Jewish students was vandalised with swastikas and a drawing praising October 7 terrorists. Display of Nazi symbols breaches NSW and Commonwealth law.[30]

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

Student: ‘Graphic, violent, and antisemitic posters … have made me feel unsafe and caused me to become anxious, unsafe, and intimidated while on campus. This all affected me to a point that I was unable to complete and subsequently failed a subject… I feel unsafe, unwelcome, and intimidated.’ [31]

Last word on the proposed judicial inquiry – which Labor doesn’t want — could go to Dr David Adler of the Australian Jewish Association: “All options must be on the table, including withholding federal funding for universities which don’t combat anti-Semitism.”

Tony’s latest book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95 from Connor Court here

[1] Williams, Justine, Anger & Love. Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1993 p76.

[2] ZFA Senate submission, p4.

[3] ANU Annual Report, Table 13, p115

[4] Segal, p17

[5] ECAJ, p5

[6] Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s submission: “The University of Sydney agreement has been widely and rightly condemned as a capitulation by the University and celebrated by extremists. A group working in concert with [antisemitic] Hizb ut-Tahrir declared last Friday that “[Our] resilience has worked in our favour across many fronts, most particularly being the catalyst for the negotiations with the Uni.”

[7] Union of Jewish Students, p10

[8] ZFA p13

[9] AUJS p9

[10] AUJS p15

[11] Segal p12

[12] Segal p13

[13] Segal p8-9

[14] AUJS p8

[15] Segal p17

[16] Segal p41

[17] AUJS p14

[18] Segal p12

[19] Segal p9

[20] AUJS p8

[21] AUJS p11

[22] Segal p37

[23] AUJS p14

[24] AUJS p10

[25] AUJS p16. Western Sydney University also drew praise for proactively combating antisemitism and drawing red lines against unacceptable conduct.

[26] Segal p12

[27] Segal p14

[28] ECAJ p8

[29] AUJS p8

[30] AUJS P10

[31] AUJS p14