Jewish staff, students describe enduring antisemitic jokes, Nazi salutes

A Jewish Australian woman says a "low level of hum of antisemitism" at the Australian National University escalated into Nazi gestures and salutes, and being called a "baby killer".

The young woman, using the pseudonym "Liat", gave evidence at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Monday, its first day in Melbourne in its fourth block of hearings.

The commission's initial focus is on the lived experiences of students and staff at Australian universities, especially since October 2023 following the attack by terrorist group Hamas against Israel.

It will then move on to surveys and studies of Jewish Australian university experiences, responses from the universities and evidence from the Department of Education.

Liat, like several of the witnesses giving evidence on Monday, has chosen to be partially de-identified to protect her safety.

The commission heard Liat had been raised within the Jewish faith with a strong belief in Zionism as the right of Jewish people to self-determine their ancestral homeland.

She told the hearing she left home in 2022 at the age of 18 to attend the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and excitedly approached the Middle Eastern student club during orientation week.

She was surprised to be told "you're not Middle Eastern, you're Jewish" and that it was not the right club for her.

Liat described "a low level hum of antisemitism" in the form of "unsavoury jokes" like people mentioning big noses and Jews being good with money.

"I didn't feel that I was capable of pushing back against that, regardless of how inappropriate it was,"

she said.

When the attacks on Israel by Hamas happened in October 2023, Liat said she felt "numb horror and terrible foreboding" about what was to come on campus.

She said non-Jewish friends stopped talking to her, with one telling her they could not remain friends because she was Zionist.

"I was very taken aback and deeply hurt," she told the commission.

When an ANU student magazine published an article describing Zionism as a "far-right political project" run by "war criminals and proponents of genocide" she took exception and wrote to the university management.

Liat said the dean of ANU told her they had no authority to remove the article.

She said an 110-day encampment set up in the heart of the ANU's grounds to protest Israel's actions in Gaza, apparently the longest running of any university in Australia, caused her and fellow Jewish students immense strain.

Liat said encampment members regularly called her a "baby killer and genocide supporter".

"I'm also a pretty small person and, I think in that sense, I felt very physically unsafe,"

she said.

She said while the Palestinian flag is not inherently antisemitic, the saturation of such symbols produced "conditions" for antisemitism.

The young woman said the key slogans that caused distress were "intifada revolution" and "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free".

The word "intifada" means "shaking off" in Arabic and has been used to refer to two periods of violent Palestinian protest against Israel.

Members of the Jewish community have described it as a hateful call for violence.

During that period, Liat said she would hide her Jewishness as best she could, such as not giving her real name when she bought a coffee on campus.

"That series of micro calculations that you make every single day in every single instance is exhausting," she said.

Liat said during a counter-protest by her and other Jewish Australian students a person not connected to the university turned up and performed a Nazi salute at them.

And during a large Zoom meeting of the university's student association, other students reported to her that while she was speaking some students made Nazi "gestures" and a Nazi "moustache" action.

Outside the hearing, Liat said she gave evidence at the royal commission in the hope that no other university student would experience abuse like she did.

"I was scared," she said.

"Living by yourself is hard enough. When you're confronted with what is a surge of hatred against you and your community it's very difficult."

Former UNSW staff member describes 'lacklustre' response to Nazi salutes

The commission also heard from a University of New South Wales PhD candidate, referred to by the pseudonym ACJ, about four students who did Nazi salutes at him during a business class he was teaching.

"I was incredibly shocked and offended and threatened" he told the commission.

His grandparents' survival of the Holocaust and family history in Jewish pogroms in Poland meant his reaction was "visceral".

"So when someone does a Nazi salute at me it feel like they want to kill me,"

ACL said.

The academic said UNSW's response was "offensive" and "lacklustre" because it only gave a verbal warning to the students, rather than treating the salutes as a criminal incident.

He went to police himself to report them and said shortly after that he was not offered any more casual teaching shifts at UNSW.

ACJ told the commission he then submitted a complaint to the Fair Work Commission, alleging that the university ceased his employment as a reprisal for his report to police.

"It was a long, protracted, drawn out process which really affected my wellbeing," he said.

He eventually began working at UNSW again but said his relationships with everyone there were "strained" and he decided to leave.

The witness said there were many other antisemitic incidents he experienced but, after early 2025, he decided to stop reporting them for fear of his employment being terminated and because he did not have "the will or the strength".

Speech pathology academic Andy Smidt gave evidence about her experience at the University of Sydney in 2023.

She said her son was a student of the university at the same time and was offered a security escort between classes, such were the safety concerns for Jewish students.

She told the hearing that at this point she "broke down" and wrote to the university management out of anger that, while they were protecting her child, they were not ensuring pro-Palestine protests took place in a safe way.

Outside the hearing, Dr Smidt said she gave evidence on behalf of friends from the university who had formed a Jewish support group after the October 7 attacks who felt they could lose their jobs if they spoke out.

"I actually left the University of Sydney in February 2024," she said.

"They couldn't fire me. I no longer worked there so I was safe."

She said the university started to take action after almost a year of receiving complaints.

"We were constantly fighting with the university to be heard, as well as fighting with everything that was going on on campus that was overwhelming anyway.

"People were burnt out from just the complaints process."

Universities had a role to educate students about tolerance and cultural sensitivities, Dr Smidt said.