Antisemitism royal commission as it happened: Daughter of Bondi terror victim, Jewish leaders give evidence

Thank you for reading our live coverage of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Sydney. The hearing has adjourned until 10am tomorrow. We’ll be back with live updates when proceedings commence at 10am.

Here are some of the key parts of today’s evidence.

• Sheina Gutnick, the daughter of Bondi Beach terror attack victim Reuven Morrison, said there had been a “massive shift” after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1200 people were killed and a further 250 were taken hostage. “From that point onwards I felt as though antisemitism was being allowed to come into the open,” she said. “That was completely unprecedented. All of a sudden it was socially, morally acceptable for antisemitic comments to be made in public.”
• Holocaust survivor and Jewish-Australian Peter Halasz, the co-founder of iconic swimwear brand Seafolly, said that in the years before he fled persecution in Hungary he “lived with antisemitism next to me”. Now he is concerned about the future in this country. “If things don’t improve, one day we might have to think about leaving [Australia],” he said.
• Stefanie Schwartz, president of the board of Mount Sinai College, an independent Jewish day school in Sydney with about 400 students, said students participate in “simulations and evacuation drills” to prepare for terrorist attacks. “I would imagine most schools would have a regular fire drill; something like that. At our school we do that, but we also have evacuation drills in the event of a terror attack.”
• The youngest students at the college are two years old because there is an early learning centre, Schwartz said, and the oldest are only 11 or 12. She said the campus now “looks a lot more like a prison than a primary school”.
• Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said there has been “soaring antisemitism” since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

Dr Jeffrey Engelman is the co-founder of the not-for-profit, volunteer-driven, emergency medical response organisation Community Health Support (CHS), chiefly in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

CHS was involved in responding to the Bondi terrorist attack in December last year, the royal commission heard.

“We provided a service which we’ve been acknowledged by the ambulance that if we weren’t there, more lives would have been lost,” Engelman said.

Anthony Halas said his greatest fear was that “this country will not be a safe place for my children, or their children, and we will have to leave”.

“I will fight with all my might to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Halas said.

Anthony Halas, the son of Peter Halasz, is giving evidence after his father.

While his father spoke of fleeing persecution in Hungary, Halas said he had “applied for my Hungarian citizenship” as a “Plan B” if things did not improve in Australia.

Halas said he had a “wonderful upbringing” in Australia and did not attend Jewish schools. He had Jewish and non-Jewish friends.

But he said he became “horrified” by far-right antisemitic conspiracy theories he read online, starting at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Nothing was being done about it.”

Halas said that the demonstration on the steps of the Sydney Opera House after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel in 2023 “chilled” him “to the bone”.

Toby Raphael, vice president of Newtown Synagogue, said that on the night of the Bondi attack the synagogue was also holding a Hanukkah event.

There was a joint Christmas and Hanukkah party on the street, he said, and it was a lovely atmosphere. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and federal government minister Tanya Plibersek were in attendance.

He said after he lit the menorah (an eight-branched candelabra) they had to evacuate immediately.

“That could have easily been us. You just don’t know where those people are going to choose to get you.”

He said the Bondi attack “changed the course of my life” and that of many others.

“Why do kids have to go to school like that? It’s not right,” he said of security measures required to keep children safe. “Now everyone is scared all the time.”

In the past he had never considered security measures were needed at his synagogue.