“The idea that government grants should not be used towards providing that level of much-needed protection has been problematic.”
Families are bearing the cost of the extra security required at Jewish schools on top of tuition fees, the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion heard this week.
Representatives of Jewish schools from across the country told the commission that parents were paying annual security levies totalling millions of dollars, as leaders warned the financial and emotional toll was falling disproportionately on their communities.
Bialik College charged an $840 security levy in 2026 for every student at the Jewish school in Hawthorn, in Melbourne’s inner east, board president Tyson Wodak revealed on Tuesday. Those fees had increased by 230 per cent since 2022 because of rising security demands, Wodak said.
Some parents also volunteered to provide “extra eyes and ears” around the school at drop-off and pick-up times to assist armed security guards, the inquiry heard.
Wodak called on authorities to increase security funding for Jewish schools, noting that students at the two public schools next to Bialik College could play basketball on weekends and were not greeted by armed guards every day.
“I want my school to be funded to a point that it would be as safe as the school we are literally next door to,” he said.
Parents at Mount Scopus Memorial College, Victoria’s largest Jewish school, were charged a $1130 security levy per student in 2025. Principal Dan Sztrajt said the school absorbed further safety costs, with the security bill estimated at $3000 per student that year.
Despite the school receiving state and federal funding, the government covered only one-third of its security costs because most grants could not be used to hire armed guards, Sztrajt said.
“The idea that government grants should not be used towards providing that level of much-needed protection has been problematic,” he said.
Sztrajt told the commission the financial burden reflected a broader escalation he had witnessed since his appointment in 2024, including threats directed at the school, antisemitic graffiti at its gates, online abuse and primary school children being abused for being Jewish while on an excursion.
“No child should have to think about security on their way to school. No parent should have to weigh that risk when choosing where to send their family. That is not a normal burden and it should not be treated as one,” he said.
He said the levies and guards were only the visible cost. Just as significant, he said, was the quieter toll of every dollar, staff hour and piece of leadership attention diverted from education into safety, a cost he said families were bearing largely on their own.
“I want to be clear that this isn’t solely about one school. It’s about what happens to social cohesion when hatred is allowed to escalate unchecked,” Sztrajt said.
He told the commission he hoped its recommendations would give governments and institutions practical tools to confront antisemitism “so that Jewish schools, and Jewish Australians more broadly are not left to shoulder this burden alone.”
Linda Emms, principal of Sydney’s Emanuel School, said government grants often came with conditions that made it difficult to apply the funding to the school’s needs. She feared families would soon be priced out of the Randwick school if security levies continued to rise.
“I don’t believe our parents should have to be 100 per cent responsible for paying for security which is over and above what any other school in NSW would need to have,” Emms said.
The royal commission was established after 15 people were killed and dozens more injured when two gunmen opened fire at a Chanukah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14.
Hearings in Melbourne this week are examining security risk assessments and the relationship between law enforcement agencies and Jewish security groups.
Earlier on Tuesday, the commission heard that a firebombed synagogue had been unable to secure government grants to improve security in the years before the attack. Two buildings belonging to the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea, in Melbourne’s south-east, were gutted in a blaze on December 6, 2024.
Synagogue board member Benjamin Klein told the commission that grant application letters had been sent to local, state and federal governments in 2023 and 2024, but the applications were unsuccessful. Klein said technical requirements and “a lot of red tape” had complicated the process.
The state government has pledged $100,000 to begin a donation drive for the reconstruction effort. The synagogue’s doors are expected to remain closed until 2029 while it is restored.