September 2024
• University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott tells a Senate committee it was unacceptable that Jewish students were made to feel “unsafe” on campus. Weeks earlier, Jewish students held a demonstration to demand Scott’s resignation amid a storm of antisemitism on campus.
• On a visit to Australia, Britain’s Queen Camilla drops in on the charity OzHarvest founded by Jewish philanthropist Ronni Kahn.
October 2024
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong calls for a “clear timeline” to recognise a Palestinian state in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
• Australians across the country solemnly mark the first anniversary
of October 7, 2023 with community gatherings, vigils and statements from political leaders highlighting resilience, remembrance and solidarity.
• In what is labelled “a slap in the face to the Jewish community”, a Senate committee rejects holding a judicial inquiry into antisemitism on university campuses.
• Sydney kosher restaurant Lewis’ Continental Kitchen is firebombed.
November 2024
• Sydney’s Jewish House honours John Howard at its annual gala, where the former Prime Minister receives the Dennis Clifford Humanitarian Award and calls for stronger condemnation of antisemitism following October 7.
• It is announced that Australian Jewish communal stalwarts Sir Frank Lowy and Mark Leibler are to be honoured with Israel’s presidential medal.
• Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is awarded the Jerusalem Prize from the World Zionist Organisation, Zionist Federation of Australia and Zionism Victoria.
• Sporting sisters Jessica and Noemie Fox jointly win the Don award after inspiring Australians with their gold medal heroics in Paris months earlier.
• AIJAC condemns the visa denial to former Israeli justice minister Ayelet Shaked, calling the move a disgraceful act of hostility toward a democratic ally, even as Zionism Victoria pushes back against protesters targeting synagogues in Sydney.
December 2024
• The Executive Council of Australian Jewry reveals in a report that there
has been a 316 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents in Australia between October 2023 and September 2024.
• Family and friends in Australia mourn the loss of IDF officer Zamir Burke, who fell while fighting Hamas in northern Gaza.
• Legislation federal Parliament. Earlier in the year, ever 600 Jewish creatives were doxxed.
• An arson attack at the Adass Israel shule in Melbourne shocks the Jewish community to its core. Congregants rescue Holocaust-linked Sifrei Torah and tefillin, symbolising the enduring resilience of the Jewish community in the face of hate.
• Sydney reels from the second overnight antisemitic graffiti and arson attack in the suburb of Woollahra in as many months.
• The federal government pledges $8.5 million towards the expansion of the Sydney Jewish Museum.
• Former Israeli Eurovision contestant Eden Golan shines while performing at Mount Scopus Memorial College’s 75th anniversary gala, with the school also announcing it has procured land at Caulfield Racecourse to relocate.
• Sydney’s Jewish community is subjected to a summer of terror, with firebombings and graffiti attacks on residential streets and childcare centres; the spate of attacks included the former home of ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin being set alight. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese finally convenes a National Cabinet meeting to address rising antisemitism, following pressure from opposition leaders and community advocates.
• In an attempt to mend strained relations, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus makes an official visit to Israel on behalf of the Australian government.
• The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) wins Student Union of the Year at the World Union of Jewish Students Congress.
• Well-attended Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies in Sydney and Melbourne mark the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation.
• Anger ensues after a slide at an “anti-racism” conference at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) features a stereotype parody of [Opposition Leader Peter] “Dutton’s Jew”.
• Police announce that a caravan containing explosives and a list of Jewish target sites has been found in the north-west Sydney suburb of Dural.
February 2025
• Motions condemning antisemitism are introduced into the House of Representatives and the Senate by Independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender and Senator Jacqui Lambie respectively.
• The AJN and Jewish community remember former AJN CEO and journalist Joshua Levi, five years on from his sudden passing.
• A statement condemning violence and antisemitism and calling for unity is signed by 21 mayors across Sydney.
• A social media video of two nurses at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney making threats against Israeli patients sends shockwaves though the community. The healthcare workers are stood down.
• New laws strengthening provisions against hate speech pass through the federal Parliament.
• A report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by Jewish Macnamara MP Josh Burns, calls for urgent reform at universities to counter anti-Jewish hate.
• Former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg announces the launch of the Dor Foundation, a new organisation to combat antisemitism and hate.
• Australians join Jews around the world in mourning Israeli children Ariel and Kfir Bibas, aged four and nine months, along with their mother Shiri who were murdered by Hamas while in captivity in Gaza.
• Sky News and ECAJ convene a national summit on antisemitism, engaging leaders and Jewish community members to develop concrete strategies on education, legislation and security.
• Jon Polin and Rachel-Goldberg Polin, whose son Hersh was murdered by Hamas in September 2024, headline UIA Australia’s fundraising events.
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong is slammed for meeting representatives from Iran and the Palestinian Authority, but not Israel, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
• Wentworth MP Allegra Spender writes to Foreign Minister Penny Wong calling on the government to defund UNRWA.
• Political discourse shifts sharply as AJN polling reveals a plunge in support for the two-state solution among Jewish readers post-October 7, signalling deep community introspection and anxiety.
• Waverley in Sydney becomes the first council in Australia to adopt a local government strategy for combating antisemitism.
• With the Dural caravan found to be a hoax, communal leaders caution that antisemitism is still a very real threat in Australia.
• ECAJ president Daniel Aghion represents Australia at the Anti-Defamation League’s “Never Again is Now” summit in New York.
• Advocate Elica Le Bon headlines UIA Australia’s Women’s Division events across Australia.
• The government and opposition both pledge funding to rebuild the Adass Israel synagogue.
• Videos from an anti-Israel protest in Melbourne’s CBD appear to show police pushing pro-Israel counter- demonstrators as a rowdy mob chants “all Zionists are terrorists”.
• The Jewish community mourns the passing of Rabbi Richard Lampert, Emeritus Rabbi of North Shore Temple Emanuel.
• The federal Labor government pledges $25 million towards building the Jewish Arts Quarter in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick.
• Melburnian Menachem Vorchheimer launches legal action against The Greens political party, accusing it of engaging in or authorising anti-Jewish incitement at rallies.
• Yom Hashoah events are held in Sydney and Melbourne.
• A heated candidates’ forum is held in Kooyong, where Jewish community concerns about Gaza, UNRWA and antisemitism test political pledges ahead of the federal election.
• Melbourne’s Adass Israel community uses undamaged areas of its synagogue building to bake shmurah matzah for Pesach.
• In a historic first, a bipartisan Victorian parliamentary delegation travels to March of the Living in Poland.
• Julian Leeser declares the upcoming election “of great consequence for Jews”, railing against Labor and Greens while calling on the community to support consistent allies in the Coalition.
• Australia’s oldest rabbi, Rabbi Dr Shalom Coleman from Perth, is remembered as a “towering figure” after passing away aged 106.
• Australia holds a federal election on May 3, returning Anthony Albanese’s Labor government in a historic landslide, with Jewish communal forums in key seats such as Kooyong and Macnamara addressing issues including Gaza, antisemitism and UNRWA funding. Jewish MPs retain their seats, and leaders from the ECAJ and ZFA congratulate the Prime Minister while urging swift action on pre-election antisemitism commitments. Greens leader Adam Bandt loses his seat of Melbourne.
• Israeli President Isaac Herzog praises NSW Premier Chris Minns for his “outstanding leadership” and support of the Jewish community, in a letter read by ambassador Amir Maimon at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Yom Ha’atzmaut cocktail event.
• Jewish leaders welcome the election of Sussan Ley, a previous champion of the Palestinian cause, as the first female federal Liberal leader.
• Longtime Jewish Labor MP Mark Dreyfus is dumped from Albanese’s cabinet in a factional deal.
• Students at the University of Sydney turn their backs on their Jewish peers at an SRC meeting convened to reject an antisemitism definition agreed to by the Go8 Australian universities and to call for a “single, secular democratic state across all of historic Palestine”.
• The Sydney Jewish community mourns stalwart Rabbi Aron Amzalak, who passes away at the age of 85.
• Over 1000 members of the community attend JCA NSW’s major communal event to hear the keynote speaker, UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer.
• Australian Eva Fischl is honoured with the Joint Distribution Commitee’s Ma’asim Tovim Award for exceptional devotion to Jewish and humanitarian causes.
• International Israeli soccer player Yonatan Cohen scores the winning goal for Melbourne City in the A-League grand final.
• 200 people, 85 of them Holocaust survivors, attend a reunion lunch at NSW Parliament House.
• Anti-Israel protesters gatecrash a Shavuot event in Brisbane, calling Jewish attendees “baby killers” and screaming “all Zionists are terrorists”.
• Jewish community leaders demand a review after the federal government cancels the visa of Israeli tech speaker and activist Hillel Fuld on character grounds. Fuld was meant to speak at events to raise money for Magen David Adom; he ended up doing so via video link.
• As Israel bombs Iranian nuclear targets, Prime Minister Albanese urges a “return to diplomacy” at the G7 summit.
• The ECAJ wins its landmark legal case in the Federal Court against Islamic preacher Wissam Haddad, who is found to have breached Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act with comments about Jews in three sermons he made in November 2023.
• An attempted arson at East Melbourne Synagogue while worshippers are inside and the storming of an Israeli restaurant nearby once again thrust Australia into the epicentre of global antisemitism. The shockwaves are felt even in Israel, where PM Benjamin Netanyahu demands stronger action by the Australian government.
• A NSW Parliamentary Inquiry hears how Jewish school students are being excluded, stigmatised, gaslit and called “cockroaches”.
• Community leaders criticise delays by the federal government in implementing Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s antisemitism plan – announced to much fanfare in a press conference with PM Albanese – calling for political urgency as incidents on the ground escalate.
• Communal leaders condemn a one- sided joint statement on Gaza signed by Australia and 27 other countries, saying it “absurdly accepts Hamas propaganda” and pressure should be brought on the terror group, not Israel.
• Australia’s Jewish community rallies behind local Druze as hundreds are massacred in Syria.
• For the first time, Australians have a direct say in voting for the delegates at the World Zionist Congress.
• Jewish primary school students are subjected to antisemitic taunts while on an excursion to Melbourne Museum.
August 2025
• The Jewish community reels as 90,000 people join an anti-Israel march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge waving flags, anti-Israel placards and terror symbols. The march is permitted to go ahead after being blocked by NSW Premier Chris Minns and NSW Police due to a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Belinda Rigg.
• Prime Minster Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong announce that Australia will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. The decision is strongly criticised by the Jewish community, federal Opposition, Israel and the Untied States, but praised by Hamas.
• Founder of the “I’m That Jew” movement Eitan Chitayat inspires audiences around Australia.
• Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman has his visa to enter Australia cancelled. The right-wing politician was due to speak at Australian Jewish Association events.
• The ECAJ attempts to lower the temperature as a war of words erupts between Benjamin Netanyahu and Albanese following Rothman’s visa cancellation and Australia’s announcement to recognise a Palestinian state.
• Sydney’s Emanuel Synagogue announces the retirement of Senior Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins after nearly four decades of service.
• In a bombshell revelation, the government announces that Iran was behind the Adass Israel synagogue and Lewis’ Continental Kitchen arson attacks. The Iranian ambassador is expelled, the first time such a step has been taken since the Second World War. In addition the government signals its intention to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
September 2025
• Australia’s first Mayors’ Summit Against Antisemitism, bringing together civic leaders from across the country, is held on the Gold Coast.
• Former Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi tells his tale of surviving Hamas captivity to audiences at JNF events in Sydney and Melbourne.