I reported on antisemitism, but then it hit me first-hand – at my daughter’s netball game |
I reported on antisemitism, but then it hit me first-hand – at my daughter’s netball game
May 11, 2026 — 11:45am
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I am not Jewish. That, I discovered at the weekend, does not make my family immune from antisemitism.
I spent last week inside a windowless room in an office tower on Sydney’s Clarence Street, listening to and reporting on devastating stories from Jewish Australians about their lived experience of antisemitism. Many of the stories relayed to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in its first block of public hearings were truly horrifying.
Many times I was close to tears as I heard of young children being subjected to Nazi salutes and swastikas in the playground, or having a police escort on a school excursion. A Holocaust survivor warned that the rise of antisemitism in Australia was “not a faint echo of a distant past”. A gay Jewish man thought he might be killed in Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade, and a university student said she was kicked out of her share house for Zionist views.
As shocking as these stories were, they were removed from my experience. There are no armed guards at my kids’ schools. I do not need to make adjustments to my jewellery choices when I leave my house. I feel safe in my neighbourhood.
And then I saw antisemitism first-hand.
Mother charged after police........