The number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in Australia has jumped by more than 40 per cent in the past two years, with almost 300 cases of verbal abuse or assault reported between 2021 and 2022 – statistics a Jewish leader labelled “just the tip of the iceberg”.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry will report that 478 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in 2022 when it releases its annual Report on anti-Semitism in Australia on Friday – a jump of 180 when compared with an eight-year average of 298.
The numbers represent a 41.9 per cent increase over the past two years, including a 35 per cent jump during the year ending September 30, 2021, and a further 6.9 per cent increase during the year ending September 30, 2022.
Cases of verbal abuse were most common in NSW, with one Jewish man wearing a kippah skullcap accosted and spat at on an Albury street on January 28, 2022, and another two men told “Every Jew must be killed … If I see you around here again, I am going to cut your f..king heads off, you c..ts” at a supermarket in Rose Bay on April 14, 2022.
Melbourne also recorded several disturbing incidents, with one rabbi told “You’re one of those that Hitler didn’t finish”, at Crown Casino on November 30, 2021, and a teacher outside a Jewish school told “90 per cent of Jews are pedophiles … the rabbis in the school just wanted to f..k you up the arse” in St Kilda on December 1, 2021.
Read the article by Carly Douglas in The Australian.