October 7 Did Not Create Antisemitism. It Released It from Embarrassment.

At precisely 6.29am on October 7, we will gather again for StandWithUs Australia’s third annual dawn commemoration of the October 7 massacre.

We first gathered at Bondi Beach in 2024, one year after Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and began their campaign of murder, rape, torture, and abduction. We gathered again last year, and we will do so once more this October.

The time matters. There was a world before 6.29am on October 7, 2023, and there is the world Jewish people have lived in since. As we prepare for this year’s commemoration, I keep returning to how much has changed—and how much has not.

On paper, Australia has done a great deal. There have been vigils, bipartisan statements, and repeated assurances that antisemitism has no place here. The Commonwealth appointed a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, adopted her national plan, established a National Student Ombudsman and an Antisemitism Education Taskforce, and strengthened laws dealing with hate and extremism. After the terrorist attack at a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach in December 2025, a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion was established.

These measures are welcome. But they sit uneasily beside the day-to-day experience of Jewish Australians.

What has changed most is what people are now prepared to say—and what our........

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