Jewish students bullied while learning about Holocaust
The Royal Commission has heard how Jewish students were bullied while learning about the Holocaust.
Jewish students were subjected to antisemitic bullying while learning about the Holocaust, an inquiry has been told, while outside, a man wearing a swastika-emblazoned T-shirt was removed by police and later arrested.
Virginia Bell – Day 1 Royal Commission
The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is holding two weeks of public hearings into the lived experiences of Australia’s Jewish community.
A Jewish year 10 student, speaking under a pseudonym, said students performed Nazi salutes towards her in class while studying the Holocaust book “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”.
The girl told the inquiry that, at other times, she had coins thrown at her, was called an Israeli spy and had a swastika scratched next to her name.
A former high school history teacher told the inquiry that after the attacks by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, the antisemitism increased, with students “parroting” what they were seeing either online, from family, or elsewhere.
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“Even though they know it’s wrong and it’s offensive … they actually don’t really know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it,” she said.
While leading a group of Jewish year five students on an excursion to the Melbourne Museum in July 2025, teacher’s aide Blake Shaw told the commission they were targeted with antisemitic abuse by much older students.
“There was a group of about five or six students that were sort of circling,” Mr Shaw said.
“One stepped forward … and started saying, ‘free, free, Palestine’, laughing.”
Mr Shaw said his concerns were dismissed by a teacher from the high school, who said those were just the students’ beliefs.
The impact on his students, who were aged 10 or 11, was visibly noticeable, he said.
“They looked smaller, almost like they were kind of crouching down,” Mr Shaw said.
“A lot of them started scrunching up their tops to hide the school emblem.”
Outside Wednesday’s hearing, police removed a 68-year-old man wearing a shirt bearing the slogan ‘Antisemitism’. Proud to be accused. Speak up!”
It is illegal to display swastikas in public in NSW, with police saying the man later attended Manly Police Station, where he was charged with offensive behaviour and displaying a prohibited Nazi symbol in a public place.
Melbourne man Dean Cherny told the commission Israel’s actions in Gaza were not something the Jewish community in Australia could control.
“I hope, and have always hoped, there will be a two-state solution,” he said.
“But when other people are saying, ‘from the river to the sea’, and they’re calling for a one-state solution … who are the people here that are really the ones showing hatred?”
By: Duncan Murray/AAP
