{"id":461821,"date":"2026-05-27T01:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T01:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/461821\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T01:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T01:56:09","slug":"australian-jews-testifying-at-bondi-commission-report-harassment-intimidation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/461821\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Jews testifying at Bondi commission report harassment, intimidation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the Australian government commission looking into the Bondi Beach terror attack<\/a> reported Tuesday that witnesses who testified before the commission were facing an onslaught of online harassment and intimidation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Virginia Bell, head of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism<\/a> and Social Cohesion, warned that those who engage in such behavior could face prosecution and that the police had been contacted about at least one case so far. The former high court judge made her comments ahead of the second day of a second round of public hearings to assess the timeline and circumstances surrounding the December Hanukkah attack in Sydney that left 15 people dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have received reports from a number of witnesses concerning a dramatic increase in online hate messages,\u201d she said, adding that at least one of the instances was referred to the Australian<\/a> Federal Police, Australia\u2019s ABC News reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make it unequivocally clear,\u201d Bell stated. \u201cThe intimidation of witnesses assisting a Royal Commission is an extraordinarily serious matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that the commission is monitoring, recording, and archiving the posts, noting, \u201cWe will not tolerate attempts to subvert this inquiry or silence those who have been brave enough to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople stand near flowers laid as a tribute at Bondi Beach to honour the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on Sunday, in Sydney, Australia, December 16, 2025. (credit: REUTERS\/Flavio Brancaleone)<\/p>\n

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese<\/a> announced the launch of the inquiry in January following mounting pressure from Jewish leaders to establish one.<\/p>\n

On Monday, a New South Wales police officer told the commission that no threat assessment was prepared for the \u200bHanukkah celebration in Sydney, where two attackers killed 15 people and injured dozens, despite warnings from a local Jewish security group of the risks.<\/p>\n

Spy chief: Antisemitism ‘left unchecked’<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s spy chief, Mike Burgess, also told the inquiry Monday that antisemitism in the country had been \u201cleft unchecked\u201d following Oct. 7, 2023, leaving Jewish Australians \u201con the receiving end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natalie Levy, a volunteer with a local Jewish security group, was among those who testified during the first hearings after the commission asked members of the community to share their \u201clived Jewish experience.\u201d She told the commission, \u201cMy daughter sees swastikas etched all around the school; children saying \u2018Heil Hitler\u2019 and putting up their arm in a salute,\u201d The Guardian reported.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI can\u2019t believe that this, in 2026, in this beautiful country, that antisemitism has become so normalized and people are unashamedly being antisemitic and saying the most vile things about Jewish people, Jewish children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slurs used against Levy<\/p>\n

Speaking about her own experiences, Levy said, \u201cI\u2019ve been called a \u2018k***,\u2019 a \u2018dirty Jew,\u2019 a \u2018dirty Jewish pig,\u2019 a \u2018baby killer,\u2019 a \u2018baby eater\u2019 and \u2018genocidal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Jillian Segal, the Australian government\u2019s special envoy to combat antisemitism, also testified, stating that hatred towards Jews was becoming \u201calmost fashionable.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Dec. 14 attack, 15 people were killed – including Chabad emissary Rabbi Eli Schlanger and a 10-year-old girl – and dozens were injured after two heavily armed men opened fire on a crowd of hundreds attending a gathering known as \u201cChanukah by the Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of the Australian government commission looking into the Bondi Beach terror attack reported Tuesday that witnesses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[33147,111,16607,972,106841,1903,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-461821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-australia","tag-bondi-beach-mass-shooting","tag-diaspora","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}