Jewish man feared for life during Mardi Gras parade
A gay Jewish man said his experiences with anti-Semitism were scarier than those with homophobia and he feared for his life while marching in the Mardi Gras parade in Sydney.
The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion continued to hear about the lived experiences of Australia’s Jewish community on Friday.
Benjamin, who speaks under a pseudonym and converted to Judaism in 2022, said he truly feared for his life while walking with the Jewish LGBTQ+ group Dayenu at the 2026 Mardi Gras and contacted his loved ones to tell them where he was.
“The hatred I felt towards myself and those around me was very deep,” Benjamin told the commission between sobs.
”I was subjected to slander. I have been called a supporter of genocide.
”I’m gay, you hear insults and stuff like that; “I have never been called a supporter of genocide in my life.”
Mia Kline, a 22-year-old Jewish student from Canberra, told the inquest she was forced to leave the shared house after her housemates claimed they were “walking on eggshells” and the house was not a safe space for them.
Ms. Kline said she felt “judged” for Israel’s actions.
Sharonne Blum, a Jewish studies teacher at a Melbourne Jewish school, said Israel was framed as the antithesis of human rights.
”It’s perceived as some kind of evil monster and everything that Western civilization feels guilty about, like colonialism, apartheid and genocide,” he said.
Virginia Bell, the former Supreme Court justice who chaired the commission, asked Ms. Blum whether she accepted that people might have the view that Israel responded disproportionately to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Criticisms of Israel’s policies are legitimate and many Jews agree with those criticisms, Ms. Blum said.
He then argued that anti-Zionism was the latest example in a long history of various forms of antisemitism, and that the “current war” was used as justification for this.
Ms. Blum condemned a political cartoon published in a national newspaper that was shown by the investigation to perpetuate historic anti-Semitic tropes.
In the cartoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seen boarding a balloon depicted as US President Donald Trump.
“There are conspiracy theories and innuendos… Jews control the media, Jews control politics, we are somehow nefarious puppet masters working behind the scenes,” Ms. Blum said.
He likened elements of the cartoon to Jews in the Middle Ages who were accused of killing children and using their blood for rituals.
Ms Blum said her students sent a letter to the editor of the Australian Financial Review magazine, which published the cartoon, saying they felt “excluded and dehumanized” by the cartoon.
The newspaper later issued an apology acknowledging that the cartoon had caused offense.
