Why some Australian Jews think they will be safer in Israel

Emma ConnorsSenior editor and writer

Adam Lippmann has made new friends in Israel after becoming socially ostracised in Sydney since the October 7 Hamas attack. He’s considering leaving Australia, the country his German grandfather and Iraqi grandmother fled to in the 1940s.

The 37-year-old gay man, writer and filmmaker says he used to feel at home in Sydney’s progressive circles, where he mixed with other creative types. Now, he says, he’s isolated and politically homeless. He’s also fearful and stunned as age-old hatreds rear up.

“You have to distinguish between personal safety and collective safety. In Australia, there is at least lip service paid to collective safety, but private safety is at the mercy and peril of those around us. In Israel, collective safety faces existential threat, but private safety is more assured. People there will not be vilified on the street because they are Jewish.”

Australia is a long way from the Middle East, but increasingly Australians have taken sides against, not just Israel, but the Jewish diaspora as well.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry documented 662 anti-Semitic acts in Australia in October and November. That compares to 79 in the same period last year. Recent events include verbal abuse to a Jew on a train – “If I could get a hold of a machine gun I’d gun down 10,000 of you tomorrow”.

There have also been death threats and homes vandalised, with “Kill Jews. Jew live here” painted in large letters outside a Melbourne dwelling. In the Sydney suburb of Arncliffe a Jewish man was bashed in a park after taking down a poster advertising an anti-Israel protest. He was hospitalised for four days.

In Sydney’s Martin Place there is a forlorn four-sided poster wishing the city a happy Chanukah. The eight-day festival also known as Hanukkah commemorates a second century BC event when Jews in Jerusalem rose against their Greek-Syrian oppressors. The annual commemoration is traditionally a celebratory time. This year, it’s the modern day that is pre-occupying the community.

The Albanese government is hardening its line against the Netanyahu government. While it continues to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself, as the death toll in Gaza mounts Canberra is with those calling for a ceasefire and demanding Israel respect international humanitarian law.

While the government has not moved fast enough or far enough for many of Labor’s pro-Palestinian party faithful, every action sparks a reaction, Jewish leaders say. Antisemitism has always been present in modern Australia, but not like this, according to Australian Jewish Association chief executive Robert Gregory.