Vic Alhadeff awarded honorary doctorate

Vic Alhadeff has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Sydney in recognition of a career “championing human rights, combating hate speech and fostering community cohesion through his work as a journalist, public servant and advocate”.

The Doctorate of Letters (honoris causa) was presented by Chancellor David Thodey on Tuesday this week after Alhadeff was nominated for the award by Media and Communications Professor Catharine Lumby.

Alhadeff served as chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies for 17 years, spearheading a campaign that achieved the passage of s93Z of the NSW Crimes Act, legislating against incitement of violence on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual identity.

Currently a non-executive director of SBS, he is a former Chair of Multicultural NSW and former editor of the Australian Jewish News. He received the Premier’s Award from then-Premier Gladys Berejiklian for his contribution to civil society and last year was made a Member of the Order of Australia.

Addressing the graduation ceremony, Alhadeff traced his journey to the Greek island of Rhodes, from where 151 members of his family, including his paternal grandparents, were deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis and murdered.

“The shadow of that past impacted my world – encountering Nazi swastikas on my boarding-school locker in Zimbabwe and speaking out against South Africa’s racist apartheid system, where I began my journalistic career,” he said. “My struggle to make sense of bigotry, and the need to challenge bigotry, permeated my worldview, informing personal choices, shaping professional decisions.

“I was therefore troubled by the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when neo-Nazis yelled chants which were commonplace under Hitler. I flew to Christchurch to pay my respects at the mosques where 51 Muslim congregants were murdered, so I am troubled by Instagram and Tiktok posts threatening `another Christchurch’.

“And I am deeply troubled by the upsurge of antisemitism which has plagued this country for 19 months – synagogues firebombed, cars set alight, artists cancelled, university students assailed, politicians’ offices attacked. A staggering 2062 incidents in 2024 – the most far-reaching outbreak of anti-Jewish racism in the history of this country, corroding values which have shaped the character of this nation.

“We are at a defining moment in this country,” he said. “Where is the nation which championed multiculturalism as a badge of honour? Where are the civil-society leaders who condemn manifestations of bigotry with unhesitating principle? What has happened to our beloved country, where social cohesion is being tested like never before, with almost one in five Australians experiencing bigotry based on race, religion or ethnic identity in the past 12 months?

“There will be moments in your careers,” he told the graduating students, “when a situation demands leadership, impels you to summon the courage to speak for the minority, to choose leadership over popularity, to demonstrate strength of character. When the alternative is indifference. Leadership is not primarily about the leader. It is about keeping faith with those who look to you to lead. Do it with courage. Believe in yourself. Own yourself. Write your own story.”

Alhadeff’s journalism career took him to several frontlines, reporting from Moscow on the fall of the Soviet Union, from East Berlin on the collapse of the Berlin Wall, from Jerusalem on the First Gulf War and from South Africa on its historic elections which saw Nelson Mandela elected President. On Mandela’s passing, he was invited to write a front-page tribute for The Sydney Morning Herald. 

His play, Torn Apart By War, based on his father’s Holocaust story, was performed at two Sydney theatres.