Yes, we feel unsafe, but many Jews know we always will while others live in peril

March 20, 2026 — 8:30am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Save this article for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.

Earlier this week, federal Liberal senator James Paterson confirmed he had referred the AFL to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion because of “evidence of deeply ingrained cultural problems in our sporting institutions”. The AFL’s apparent transgression was that on March 5, at the season-opener at the SCG, the Sydney Swans failed to name the Jewish community in its tribute to the victims of the Bondi shooting, altering the script before the speech to make it “more inclusive”.

Instead of naming Jewish people specifically, Swans chief executive Matthew Pavlich paid tribute more generally to the victims, their families and the emergency services who responded to the December 14 massacre. He later issued a heartfelt apology for the omission.

Paterson accused the AFL of insulting Jewish victims of the Bondi shooting and “erasing their Jewish identity”.

Mercifully, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies rejected Paterson’s call for the AFL and Swans to be scrutinised, with its president David Ossip declaring: “The royal commission is charged with addressing serious and substantive issues of antisemitism in this country. The tribute by the Sydney Swans to the Jewish community and the victims of the Bondi terrorist attack – as well as the care extended to the Jewish community more broadly over the past three months – was motivated by the purest of intent and warrants gratitude, not sanction.”

What this overblown episode highlights, however, is the extent to which some of our leaders, political and non-political, continue to genuflect to so-called Jewish sensibilities, as if Jewish people speak........

© WA Today