Anti-Semitic Attacks in Australia in 2007

Anti-Semitic Attacks in Australia

This page is part of a list of anti-Semitic attacks, by country, that took place in 2007.

The year began and ended with violence against Jews in Australia.

In a report issued in November, 2007, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry documented the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since it began aggregating these statistics in 1989. In the 12 months preceding the report more than 630 incidents of anti-Jewish violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation have been reported to various Jewish community institutions, including the ADC.

This figure is double the annual average. Just as troubling is the fact that in the last two years we have witnessed an unprecedented level of serious anti-Semitic incidents, which included the use of weapons such as knives and baseball bats. Australia has witnessed one of the most drastic rises in (worldwide) anti-Semitic violence.

The anti-Semitic rhetoric of Islamic preachers is also a critical issue in Australia. Two of the more notorious recent examples are Sheikh Taj el-Din el-Hilali, mufti of Lakemba Mosque, Sydney, and Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, former leader of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney, whose anti-Semitic rantings were disseminated in the Death Series DVD that was distributed in Australia.

Here is a partial list:

2007

A Jewish woman was attacked on Carlisle St, St Kilda in December, 2007. Two youths attacked Ester Weiss, 54, and her son Sharon, punching their heads, after riding around on mountain bikes shouting anti-Semitic taunts. Ms Weiss said her son was subjected to anti-Semitic abuse and his yarmulke was ripped off and thrown away. Ms Weiss, said she had been abused for years on Carlisle St because of her faith. "Do you know how many times I've gone past kids who yell 'Heil Hitler'?" she said.
January, 2007: The Muslim preacher, Sheik Feiz Mohammed, has referred to Jews as evil in a videotaped lecture still being sold in Sydney despite threats of legal action by the federal and state governments.
Justice served: Attorney Sylvia Stolz represented Ernst Zuendel in his first trial, which was thrown out after Stolz was barred from the courtroom for what judges said was an attempt to sabotage the proceedings. Last month Mr Zuendel was convicted of Holocaust denial for doubting that Nazi Germany had exterminated six million Jews. He was given the maximum sentence of five years in prison. During the proceedings Ms Stolz concluded one of her written legal documents with the words "Heil Hitler", prosecutors in the city of Mannheim said. In addition to incitement of hatred against Jews and attempting to undermine court proceedings, Ms Stolz has been charged with using symbols of the Nazi party, a banned organisation, the prosecutors said.
Justice served: The Federal Court of Australia has declared that material published in the internet newsletter of the self-titled Bible Believers' Church, based in western New South Wales, was unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act. The newsletter is published by Anthony Grigor-Scott, who calls himself a non-denominational Christian minister and who claims Jesus was not Jewish. Material on the web-site implied that a Jewish international conspiracy successfully extorts money and guilt from non-Jews.
June: An identifiably Jewish man was assaulted by a group of six youths on a train. The victim was hit over the head with a rolled-up newspaper and ridiculed for wearing a skullcap.
August: A yeshiva student was the victim of an apparent anti-Semitic attack in Australia. Alon Tam, 17, was walking home from a kosher restaurant in a Melbourne suburb heavily populated by Jews on Saturday night when two men armed with baseball bats confronted him. He told the Australian Associated Press the men yelled "Jew, you deserve to die," as they beat him. Tam sustained injuries to his torso, arms and shoulder, and is expected to have X-rays to determine the extent of the damage, according to the Australian Jewish News. "This is Melbourne, you don’t expect things like this to happen," he told the newspaper. "I’ve been called a f***ing Jew, a bloody Jew on public transport, but I didn’t report it [before]."

December 23 2007 Posted by under 2007 by Country

	To my husband, to my children. To my parents and sister and brother, and their families. To my brothers-in-laws and sisters-in-law.
	To the victims of terrorism over the last few years.
	To the soldiers of Israel.
	To mothers.
	To the Jews who are no more, and to the Jews yet to be.
	To those around the world who understand that the path to peace is not reached through violence, to my Arab friends and neighbors.
	To my international friends and email pals...

Anti-Semitic Attacks in Australia in 2007

Anti-Semitic Attacks in Australia

2007

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