Jewish mothers tell of online and schoolyard hatred in second day of Royal Commission hearings

Testimonies of online hatred, school yard bullying, and community anxiety have opened the second day of the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion in Sydney.

Among witnesses was a mother who shared how her Jewish children where subjected to jokes from Year 12s at their school about dressing up as Hitler or the Bondi shooters for their “muck-up day” — the last day of school celebration for leavers.

Another told how she would cry each day when dropping off her three children at their Australian Jewish school, both in fear they could be attacked but also because of their level of security they needed.

Jewish woman Natalie Levy was the first to appear at the high-profile inquiry on Tuesday and said her son has now had to “become used to” anti-Semitic threats. His school has tripled its security amid fear students could be targeted.

She also described the fear her 15-year-old daughter faced at a public school, including “swastikas etched all around the school” and “children saying Heil Hitler and putting up their arms (up) in a salute”.

Another Jewish mother, who appeared under the pseudonym AAP, told the commission about shocking insults her children have experienced online and in the school yard included “you dirty Jew” and chants of “Jew, Jew, Jew”.

She said the hatred increased in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terror attack and even prompted her children to claim they didn’t want to be Jewish.

“Very soon after, the sentiment towards Jewish people became very negative,” the third witness said.

“That was shown through the way that the kids spoke at school through social media.

“Some of the things that the kids have shown me (included words like) ‘we owe Hitler an apology’, ‘the Nazis should have finished them off’, ‘Jews are controlling the government’.

“On Holocaust Memorial Day… There was a comment that said ‘I’m so happy. This makes me so happy’.

“Then comments under another Jewish video (included) ‘why are we normalising racism? Racism only applies to humans’.

“Soon after both my older kids came home telling me that they didn’t want to be Jewish.

“It’s been really hard for them. They don’t, they can’t understand it. They can’t understand why people don’t like Jews.”

Another testimony, provided by a woman known only as “Dina”, insisted that anti-Semitism had been rising in Australia since the October 7 Hamas terror attack.

Dina’s family moved to Bondi after her grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust.

She told the inquiry that she felt “scared” during the pro-Palestine protest at the Opera House on October 9 just days after the massacre at the Nova music festival in Gaza.

“We heard the vile chants that were coming, expletives about Jews,” she said, giving examples of ‘f..k the Jews’ and ‘where are the Jews?’.

“When you hear angry, violent protesters burning an Israeli flag and shouting ‘where are the Jews?’ encircled by police who are not interfering, as a Jew, you feel scared.”

After the chants, she and her husband discussed taking their Mezuzah off their front door — which is a parchment scroll that identifies the home as Jewish — in fear they could be targeted.

Dina also described the concern she had when taking her daughter to an emergency department in her Jewish school uniform over whether she would be treated with the same care and respect as others.

Ms Levy had also shared her “absolute disbelief” that protesters would say “devastating and awful things about Jews” at the Sydney Opera House just days after the horror attack.

She spoke about feeling safe growing up in Australia but then experiencing a rise in anti-Semitism incidents after the October 7 Hamas terror attack.

Ms Levy said her family had been at a Hanukkah party on the evening of December 14 when the Bondi Beach terror attack occurred and went into lockdown as they heard the shocking news.

“All the safety and security I felt my entire life had been shattered on the 14th of December,” she said.

“We can’t afford to lose any more people. It was a big, big knock to our the Australian community, and we’re all broken and it’s a pain that won’t go away.”