‘They came to kill us’: royal commission hears horrific accounts of antisemitism faced by Jewish children in Australia | Royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion

Jewish children in Australia face antisemitic abuse at school, see swastikas painted on walls and witness classmates giving Nazi salutes: A Jewish mother from Sydney lives with antisemitism “all day, every day”, a royal commission hearing has told.

The woman, known before the commission as Dina, said Australia had become a more hostile, more dangerous place for Jews, most horrifyingly evident in the Bondi massacre in December, when 15 people were shot dead.

“And it is impossible for children not to internalize that they are experiencing this reality.

“They hear antisemitism around them all the time… They see the stickers… They see the graffiti, they know about Bondi. It’s become part of their psyche.”

Dina told the commission she had heard Jewish children say they would now be too afraid to go to a Hanukkah party, and said that when her family went to Bondi, her eight-year-old child started crying and told her, “When I come to Bondi now, I think about dying.”

Dina said Australia’s Jewish community “lives a very different reality” to the non-Jewish community and that the Bondi massacre was a violent manifestation of uncontrolled antisemitism across Australia.

“The truth is that they came to kill us. We weren’t there. And living with that fact makes it very difficult to feel safe as a Jew in Australia.”

The second day of public hearings before Commissioner Virginia Bell heard testimony from Jewish parents who said they fear for the safety of their children growing up facing a growing wave of anti-Semitic harassment, graffiti and attacks.

In testimony before the committee, Natalie Levy said her daughter was one of two Jewish children at a Sydney public school.

“She sees swastikas carved all over the school, kids saying ‘Heil Hitler’ and raising their hands in salute. She sees things no 15-year-old should see,” Natalie said of her daughter.

“She’s a very proud young Jewish lady, but she’s afraid. She’s afraid of me being here.” [giving evidence to the commission] Today.”

Levy told the commission that antisemitic rhetoric had become normalized in contemporary Australia.

He said he was called a “kike”, “dirty Jew”, “dirty Jew pig”, “baby killer”, “baby eater” and “genocidal” on social media.

“Chants, protests, lyrics and online rhetoric: It feels so surreal.

“I can’t believe how normalized anti-Semitism has become in this beautiful country in 2026. People are shamelessly anti-Semitic and say the most vile things about Jews and Jewish children… it’s a real shock.”

Levy said he was born and raised in Australia and had not experienced antisemitism.

“It’s heartbreaking. I really grew up believing that this kind of rhetoric only existed in the past. It’s a real shock that it’s reemerged so aggressively.”

Another Jewish mother, given the pseudonym AAP and giving evidence from Victoria, said her children would come home from school and tell her they did not want to be Jewish.

He said his children were bombarded with anti-Semitic content on social media.

“Some of the things the kids showed me were: ‘We owe Hitler an apology, the Nazis should have finished them off’; ‘Jews control the government’; ‘Israel has no past, only a criminal record’.”

AAP has proven that slurs against Jews are common at her children’s school, and that her children told her they were afraid to attend a street food festival recently organized by a Jewish community group in Melbourne.

“They didn’t want to go. They said they might get shot. I said, ‘There will be police there, there will be security there.’ They said, ‘They don’t have a chance against the gunman.’ They just didn’t have confidence in themselves.”

The royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion was established after the Bondi massacre in December, when two gunmen allegedly inspired by the Islamic State shot and killed 15 people and injured 40 others as they attended a beachside Hanukkah event for the Jewish community.

The first block of fortnightly hearings focuses on identifying antisemitism, its historical and contemporary manifestations, and its current impact on Australian Jews.