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Natalie James loved going to her local cafe in her progressive and diverse inner north Melbourne neighbourhood.
But her feelings changed after graffiti including “F*** Israel”, “Free Palestine” and “Land Back” appeared days after a mass shooting targeting the Jewish community in Bondi last December killed 15 people.
James reported the graffiti – which included a crossed-out Star of David – to Darebin City Council, thinking it would be removed swiftly. It was not, and she began to feel that her neighbourhood was turning hostile to Jews like herself.
It took six months and multiple complaints for Darebin City Council to remove the graffiti that was spray-painted over a mural. The cleanup took less than a day.
In the meantime, James – a former Fair Work Ombudsman and former secretary of the Federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations – was left confused and distressed at what had happened to her neighbourhood.
“It’s a sign that people who wrote it don’t think Jews are welcome in this neighbourhood. It’s a sign that the neighbourhood might not be safe,” James told The Age.
James has reflected over the past two years on use of terminology like “get out, Zionist”, which she has also observed around Darebin, trying to understand “who do they mean”, she said.
“But they mean me. I don’t know who they are trying to get out other than Jewish people in Darebin,” she said.
James appeared at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in late July. She was one of more than 20,000 individuals and organisations to lodge a submission and was asked to prepare a witness statement which focused on the public service.
But in her full submission, shared with The Age, James explained how the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the Bondi Beach shooting upended her professional and personal life.
“I am not religious. But I am unambiguously Jewish: by culture, by family, by history, by DNA,” her submission read.
She was profoundly affected by the December 14 killing of 15 people at a Jewish celebration at Bondi Beach, which came at a key point in her professional life.
“On the evening of 14 December 2025, I was preparing to fly to Canberra the next morning for what I knew would be the announcement of my exit from my role.
“After watching the event unfold on my television with disbelief, I was almost paralysed. I didn’t want to go to Canberra. I wanted to be with my family.”
After the attacks at Bondi, James said a tension between her love of the neighbourhood and her feelings of isolation as a Jew emerged.
“I love my progressive, politically engaged, diverse community,” she said in her submission.
But “anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jew material began to appear on everything from posters to traffic-light stickers”, her submission read.
“As the protests became a weekly fixture, stories emerged about Jewish business owners being targeted and hounded out. I began to feel that my neighbourhood had become hostile to me.”
In March, Darebin City Council lowered the Palestinian flag it had flown for more than two years above a council building in Preston, after councillors voted on the municipality’s new flag policy.
The flag was lowered after a drawn-out and divisive consultation process that attracted 500 submissions, including one from James, and heated debate among councillors.
James had noticed other examples of graffiti around the neighbourhood, including swastikas, “Zionists out” and “protect jews, destroy Israel”.
James briefly mentioned the graffiti in her appearance at the Royal Commission on July 28, but in her full submission, she detailed a six-month quest have it removed.
James said she first reported the graffiti in mid-December via the Snap, Send, Solve app, used for reporting issues to councils.
“[Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is not going to see this graffiti. People making decisions about the conflict in the Middle East are not going to see this graffiti. But ordinary people, including Jewish people, who are members of this neighbourhood, are going to see it,” she said.
James said she got no response to her initial December report, but in January followed up and was told the Council could not take action unless graffiti is on council or public property, but she could ask the property owner to remove it herself.
James said she felt distressed. “You want me to out myself to a person who runs a coffee shop and then ask them to spend their money removing this offensive piece of graffiti that they didn’t put there,” she said.
Darebin City Council was contacted for comment, but did not issue a response before deadline. The council’s graffiti policy states offensive graffiti is deemed to be “priority one”, and efforts should be made to remove it within two days of a report regardless of location.
Offensive graffiti is defined as having the “potential to insult members or groups of the community and commonly includes defamatory or degrading remarks about race, religion, sex or personal privacy”.
Despite several calls and emails there was again no action until June 30, when James said a different officer called her, apologised and told her the graffiti would be removed that day. It was, James said.
James said she understood people have “strong points of view about things they’re seeing and hearing”.
“I’m not naive. Peace is not going to break out because we have some good conversations, but I think people that I speak to observe that the space we might have had for interfaith dialogue, for sitting down and having these conversations that might not be comfortable, but can be respectful, we’re not sure where that space is any more.
“I think we need to be working to create those spaces. Frankly, I think local councils are in a prime position to be facilitating that.”
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