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The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has heard chilling evidence of schoolyard bullying against Jewish students, including a child’s head being forced into a confined space and sprayed with deodorant to simulate “gas from the chambers”.
The royal commission this week has delved into the experience of Jewish Australians in various fields including the health system, the arts and education.
Commissioner Virginia Bell AC on Thursday heard evidence from parents speaking under pseudonyms, educators within the Jewish school systems and Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal, whose work has zeroed in on schools and universities.
Segal said she had heard of terrible incidents at schools even before October 2023. But, after the war in Gaza began, two more incidents in schools had particularly shocked her.
“I was very upset to hear of one student who had been accosted in the corridor and had his head pushed into an enclosed area and sprayed with deodorant … as if it was gas from the chambers,” she told the commission.
“Another story from a student in a school – they’d gone out to recess and when they came back the desks and chairs were all rearranged in the form of a swastika.”
Segal said it was upsetting and chilling for young people to behave in such a way, even if they didn’t truly appreciate the gravity of their actions.
“It’s necessary to think about how we inculcate in the next generation a sense of values and respect for everyone,” she said.
Segal said her office has been bringing groups together for roundtables to create, distribute and promote programs and lessons for teachers.
Thursday’s hearing began with evidence from a mother who said her child in high school was targeted with horrific antisemitic slurs and stereotypes by other students.
The woman, giving evidence under a pseudonym, told the commission her son had requested his school host an information session for year 10 students.
“We have (seen) the way vile university protesters have behaved, and we younger Jews are fearful for our future, since these are the people we will live with,” the boy wrote to the school.
The school invited two authors who spoke about their experience pushing for peace in the Middle East and family experience of the Holocaust.
The woman also said her son felt “culturally unsafe” when a teacher at school wore a “Free Palestine” badge.
“When my son saw this badge, he said to his teacher, I do not feel comfortable with you wearing that badge in the classroom because classrooms and schools are neutral territories,” the woman said.
She also said there was a difference between “antizionism” and “anti-Zionism” with a hyphen – the hyphenated version contains criticism of Israel, the other was a veil for people who wanted to eradicate Israel.
The commission heard Jewish students would have coins thrown at them, or swastikas drawn on their lockers, or their kippahs flicked off their heads.
“There were often taunts that invoked the gas chamber and statements like, ‘Hitler should have finished the job,’ and other Nazi or neo-Nazi references,” the Board of Jewish Education’s John Hamey said.
“On one occasion there were members of the public who stormed one of our school buses as it was coming to school and were chanting antisemitic slurs at young primary school children on that bus.”
The shocking thing for Hamey, he told the commission, was how the Jewish community seemed resigned to the harassment as part of ordinary life, with no consequences expected for their assailants.
Courage to Care’s Mike Zervos OAM told the commission their charity, which provides education resources, is being asked whether it is safe to send children to school wearing a uniform that identifies them as Jewish.
“I still cannot comprehend that if I just go to a meeting which happens to be in a school, a shul or a synagogue, there’s an armed guard outside it, and that’s considered to be typical, normal and acceptable,” he said.
The commission continues.
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