Why New Zealand is not immune to rising antisemitism concerns after incidents in Australia - The Front Page

Police officers are seen collecting evidence at the scene of an arson attack at one of Melbourne's oldest synagogues after a firebombing last week. Photo / Getty Images

 Extreme antisemitic sentiment seen across the ditch is closer to home than New Zealander’s think.

A man has been charged after a Melbourne synagogue was set alight last Friday. The antisemitic attack has seen the country’s Home Affairs Minister describe it as an “attack on Australia”.

Holocaust Centre of NZ chair Deborah Hart told The Front Page NZ shouldn’t feel “too high and mighty” as there have been “skyrocketing levels of Jew hatred” here, especially since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“We did a survey about his time last year. Actually, 80% of parents who answered said their children had suffered antisemitic incidents at school,” she said.

An NZ Jewish Council report last year found that in the 12 months from October 7, 2023, there were 227 recorded antisemitic incidents, a jump from 166 in the 8.5 years before.

In one incident, a Jewish intermediate school student was pushed to the ground and threatened with a stick. In another incident, a Jewish student at a NZ high school had their shirt graffitied with anti-Semitic slogans and swastika.

A lot of sentiment against Israel and the IDF has come from those who are opposed to the Gaza conflict.

“Israel is a sovereign nation state. Its government is going to do what its government is going to do. Jewish New Zealanders are not responsible for the actions of a foreign nation state, and Jewish people have all kinds of feelings about what Israel is doing.

“It’s not antisemitic to criticise Israel, but it is antisemitic to make Jewish people here responsible somehow for the actions of the state, the actions of Israel,” she said.

“I’d just say to those who are ramping up this hatred to take pause and to take more care in what you say and what you do and who you will stand beside and what you will stand beside, because we can see the effects of it.

“The real-life effects of it are impacting the Jewish community.

“If you think to yourself, well, I’m not Jewish, it doesn’t affect me... It’s about who we are as a society, and if you let one hatred grow, then boy, you’ll let other hatreds grow in due course.

“It’s a very worrying time for New Zealanders,” she said.

This story has been updated since it was first published.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about the rise of antisemitism here and how we might be able to combat it.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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