Jews ready to flee Australia over anti-Semitism fears

Alex Ryvchin told the inquiry that seeing his former Sydney home attacked in early 2025 felt to him like an attack on the entire Jewish community and around that time many told him they were considering leaving the country.

"I've had families calling me and saying completely calmly, 'will you tell me when the time to go is?" Mr Ryvchin said.

He emigrated to Australia from Ukraine as a refugee when he was four years old and said it wasn't the fear of widespread violence his family feared most, but the daily ridicule and humiliation they experienced.

''The Jewish people had their lives in value wholly debased, and when that occurs, you see rampant violence when the opportunity presents itself,'' Mr Ryvchin said.

''You see a complete dehumanisation of people.'' 

Chief Minister of Sydney's Great Synagogue, Rabbi Benjamin Elton, told the inquiry members of his congregation had been physically assaulted and he and his staff had been threatened and abused for being Jewish.

While not calling them anti-Semitic, Dr Elton said banners stating ''sanction Israel'' and stickers with ''Free Palestine'' could have the effect of making Jews legitimate targets for any resentment towards the government of Israel.

''You're holding Jews in Australia responsible for any actions of the Israeli government you feel are reprehensible,'' he said.

''Hatred for Israel becomes hatred for Jews … and then that hatred eventually leads to violence.''

Dr Elton pushed back on what he saw as efforts to paint Jewish people as trying to shut down criticisms of Israel under the guise of anti-Semitism, which he said wasn't the case. 

''We are an Australian Jewish congregation. We do not have a foreign policy, and we don't have jurisdiction in that part of the world," he said.

Mount Sinai College board president Stefanie Schwartz told the inquiry her five-year-old daughter was at Bondi on the day of the attack and remains highly traumatised.

Ms Schwartz said since the attack, which killed 15 people, her Jewish school looks more like a prison because of the high level of security required to keep parents and students safe.

"Since ... the Bondi attack, the level of guarding, police presence, is much more extreme," she said.

"You walk past our school and it looks a lot more like a prison than a primary school."

The school in Maroubra, in eastern Sydney, was targeted with graffiti branding Jews as ''terrorists'' and ''dogs'' in January 2025.

''It was clear that the intent was to intimidate children,'' Ms Schwartz said.

A nearby day care centre was destroyed in an arson attack Ms Schwartz said she believed was mistargeted and intended for her school.

The first witness to give public evidence at the inquiry was daughter of one of the Bondi terror attack victims, Sheina Gutnick, who recounted being abused for being Jewish while in a shopping centre with her baby.

Ms Gutnick's 62-year-old father Reuven Morrison was killed after hurling a brick at one of the gunmen involved in the December 14 attack.

Ms Gutnick said in December 2024 - a year before the deadliest shooting since the Port Arthur massacre - she was walking through Westfield Bondi Junction with her baby when a man pointed at her Star of David necklace and called her a ''f***ing terrorist''.

''I felt shocked, exposed and unsafe. There were many people around me, but no one intervened,'' she said.

The commission's initial hearing block will run until May 15.