“Children saying heil Hitler”: What we’ve learned from the antisemitism hearings

Summary

---

Episode Overview

Podcast: 7am
Episode: “Children saying heil Hitler”: What we’ve learned from the antisemitism hearings
Air Date: May 10, 2026
Host: Ruby Jones (Solstice Media)
Guest: Historian David Slucki, Monash University

This episode dives into the first week of hearings at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Australia. It explores testimony from Jewish Australians about their daily experiences with antisemitism, the complexities of defining antisemitism—especially around Israeli politics—and discusses what meaningful progress from the Royal Commission might look like both for Jewish Australians and the broader society.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

First-Hand Testimonies: The Everydayness of Antisemitism

• Children Facing Hostility
  • Stories of Jewish children feeling unsafe, seeing swastikas at school, and not wanting to identify as Jewish due to fear ([00:00]-[01:34]).
• Public Harassment and Threats
  • Testimony details everyday incidents: Nazi salutes, racial slurs, public threats, being spat at for visibly being Jewish ([01:34]-[03:19]).
  • Quote:

    “Some guy just came up to me and just said, you dirty fucking pig Jew. Right to my face, this close and spat in my face.” — [Historian relaying testimony, 02:49]

• School Safety
  • Jewish schools avoid public outings in uniform due to safety concerns, with students facing abuse or threats on sporting excursions ([04:09]-[04:22]).
    • Quote:

      “We can't go into the CBD in Melbourne anymore in school uniform because of what we'll face at sporting events. We have had Hitler salutes and Jewish slurs.” — [Bialik College Principal, 04:22]

• Wider Impact
  • Non-Jewish staff in Jewish organizations also targeted, highlighting the breadth of hostility.

The Challenge of Defining Antisemitism

• The “Contested” Definition
  • No agreed-upon definition in Australia; debate over the difference between harm and mere offense ([05:38]-[06:04]).
  • Quote:

    “Free speech isn't limitless. There's guardrails... The question is, what is harm?” — David Slucki, [06:39]

• Political Speech vs. Harassment
  • The line between legitimate criticism of Israel and hate speech is blurry ([07:59]-[08:19]).
    • Quote:

      “Criticism of Israel is really important, as is criticism of Australia, as is criticism of any government, any country. Where you start to get into these blurry lines... is when historically harmful images, ideas, language tropes start to get wheeled out...” — David Slucki, [08:19]

  • “Double standards” (criticism of Israel but not other countries) are recognized, but difficult to police or measure fairly ([08:19]-[10:12]).
    • Quote:

      “To say antisemitism involves double standard of criticizing Israel and not other countries in equal measure, that’s a kind of difficult thing to measure.” — David Slucki, [09:35]

Risks and Backlash

• The Royal Commission as a Proxy for Israel-Gaza Debates
  • Concerns that the Commission could become a political battleground over Middle East conflicts, risking distortion of its core focus ([10:12]-[10:35]).
• Backlash Against the Jewish Community
  • Fears that public focus on antisemitism may actually drive an uptick in antisemitic incidents, especially online ([10:35]-[11:56]).
    • Quote:

      “What I’ve seen since Bondi, and particularly since the announcement of the Royal Commission, has been an absolute explosion online in antisemitism and in ways that I hadn’t seen before Bondi.” — David Slucki, [10:54]

Jewish Diversity and Representation

• Intrapolitical and Intracommunity Diversity
  • The Commission will and should hear from a broad range of Jewish voices—including critical and anti-Zionist perspectives ([11:56]-[13:35]).
    • Quote:

      “There’s many ways in which we’re diverse, religiously, culturally, linguistically and politically... Even within terms like Zionist, anti-Zionist, non-Zionist... there is a huge diversity of thought.” — David Slucki, [12:30]

What Would Success Look Like?

• Beyond Policy: Cultural Change
  • Success demands more than stronger laws or increased security; it means fostering belonging and multicultural respect so all minorities feel safe ([13:35]-[15:09]).
    • Quote:

      “…it can’t only be about what prevents a Bondi. It has to also be about what prevents a 10-year-old being spat at in a public place because they’re wearing a Kupa. It can’t only be what can the government do from a policy perspective... the question has to be around how do we create cultural change?” — David Slucki, [14:13]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Children losing pride in their identity:
  • “Both my older kids came home telling me that they didn't want to be Jewish.” — [Parent testimony, 00:00]
• The pervasiveness of fear:
  • “The way that children are being co-opted into this, to me that really stood out.” — David Slucki, [04:38]
• The burden of navigating society:
  • “It really strikes at the heart of their well-being and their capacity to just face a day when that's always in the back of your mind.” — David Slucki, [05:24]
• Importance of diverse representation:
  • “We do need to hear the spectrum of the Jewish community and that's something that helps people understand the complexity, the humanity, the nature of our communities...” — David Slucki, [13:10]

---

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• First-hand testimonies of antisemitism: [00:00]-[04:09]
• School safety and specific incidents: [04:09]-[05:38]
• Defining antisemitism: [05:38]-[07:59]
• Criticism of Israel vs. antisemitism: [07:59]-[10:12]
• The Royal Commission’s potential as proxy and backlash risk: [10:12]-[11:56]
• On the diversity of Jewish voices: [11:56]-[13:35]
• The mark of a successful commission—policy and culture: [13:35]-[15:09]

---

Tone & Language

The conversation is empathetic, candid, and nuanced. Ruby and David avoid sensationalism, instead focusing on lived experience and the complexity of the societal, political, and cultural questions at stake. The tone is urgent yet measured, seeking understanding rather than outrage.

---

Summary: For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode provides an unflinching look at rising antisemitism in Australia through the voices of Jewish children, families, and community leaders appearing before the Royal Commission. It explores the deeply personal impact of everyday hostility, weighs the thorny problem of defining antisemitism amid heated debates on Israel, warns of potential backlash, and calls for both government action and cultural change. Through thoughtful analysis, it captures the urgent need to preserve a multicultural, respectful Australia—where all communities, Jewish or otherwise, feel safe and at home.

Transcript

[A]

Both my older kids came home telling me that they didn't want to be Jewish. The first week of hearings at the Royal Commission into Anti Semitism and Social Cohesion opened with Jewish Australians describing what life now feels like. She sees swastikas etched all around the school. Jewish community groups say anti Semitic incidents in Australia have surged since October 7. But the Commission is not only hearing about what's happened, but it's also being asked to answer a difficult question. What counts as antisemitism? And where is the line between political speech, criticism of Israel and hatred directed at Jews? I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am today. Historian David Sluki, who leads Monash University's research into antisemitism on how it should be understood, measured and responded to. It's Monday, may 11th. David. The Royal Commission has opened and we've heard from Jewish Australians who have described anti Semitism that they have experienced in daily life. So we've heard stories of children who've seen swastikas and Nazi salutes at school, Jewish Australians who've been abused and threatened at Bondi, and people who've said that they're being held personally responsible for Gaza. So what picture is emerging from this first week of testimony?

[B]

I think to me it's not that surprising. The stories we're hearing, they're stories that, you know, within the Jewish community have been circulating for a long time. They're things that a lot of different people are experiencing.

[C]

As I started walking, a man, a white man wearing military style clothing and a military backpack approached me.

[B]

I think what's probably most surprising or shocking to people who are tuning in, who don't know these stories is the kind of everydayness of it.

[C]

And started calling me all sorts of racial slurs. Among them, dirty Jew, started doing the Nazi salutes and started doing a gunfinger at my forehead, imitating like he wanted to kill me.

[B]

There's the biggest outpourings where there's violent attacks, where there's, you know, bombings of institutions. But it's that everydayness that people experience, the being abused. On the train. I heard a bit of a commotion behind me and then I heard someone screaming words to the effect of how many babies will you need to kill in Gaza before you will be happy, you effing Jew, being spat at. Some guy just came up to me and just said, you dirty fucking pig Jew. Right to my face, this close and spat in my face. The ways in which, you know, Jewish schools have to be really cautious, even just about an excursion to a museum.

[A]

Roughly what age were the students from the other schools?

[C]

So I can't guarantee what they were. What I do know is they were significantly older than my students and obviously were physically intimidating towards this boy in particular.

[A]

Your students were year five, which is primary school. Do you think that these other students were high schoolers?

[C]

I can almost guarantee it, yeah. They were much older, Much older students.

[B]

You know, we tend to focus on the sort of big outbursts and the worst instances. And you know, obviously the massacre of Bondi is just, you know, kind of unimaginable horror and the stories that are emerging day after day and for people who are watching, it's, you know, it's hard watching, it's hard listening. It's that everydayness that I think is really hard to cope with in a lot of ways.

[A]

Is there any particular person's testimony that stuck with you?

[B]

I was really struck by listening to the school principal of Bialik College talking about some of the experience of his students out on excursions.

[C]

We can't go into the CBD in Melbourne anymore in school uniform because of what we'll face at sporting events. We have had Hitler salutes and Jewish slurs. Children attending university campuses have been spat on.

[B]

The way that children are being co opted into this, to me that really stood out. The other thing I think that was really striking to me was the testimony from the CEO of Jewish Care and the ways in which the staff members at Jewish Care were, you know, many, maybe most of whom aren't Jewish, are themselves experiencing antisemitism for the fact that they work in a Jewish organization. And, you know, I think that this stuff isn't to be downplayed. It's, you know, it's really seriously affecting the way people within the Jewish community and people adjacent to the Jewish community move about the world. How they feel a sense of belonging as Australians. And, you know, it really strikes at the heart of their wellbeing and their capacity to just face a day when that's always in the back of your mind.

[A]

And the Royal Commission hasn't yet landed on its own final definition of anti Semitism. The first hearing block is looking at what that definition should be. And that is perhaps the most contested part of this process because that definition will go on to shape what institutions and governments treat as anti Semitic. So can we talk about that? What do you think the line is between someone being offended by a political view and someone being harmed because they're Jewish?

[B]

Yeah. So the definition question is it's vexed and it's fraught and I think necessarily definitions are, you know, they're messy and they're contested. And as a, you know, university lecturer and a historian, you know, I'm really sensitive to the fact that the way we talk about things in 2026, you know, concepts like anti Semitism or racism or, you know, other forms of discrimination, they're not static. So, you know, consensus is hard to come by. In Australia we developed, and I was a co author with a colleague from University of Queensland, Professor Kath Gelber. We worked with a group of eight on a definition that we saw as fit for purpose for the university sector. And in that case it was principally around, you know, the question of Israel and discourse around Israel and Palestine. So this question about harm versus offence that you raise is a really important one and it's something that we've started writing more and more about in thinking about. In a society where free speech is, if not a kind of legislated value, but an underlying value in our democracy, how do you protect robust public discourse and protect people from harm? Free speech isn't limitless. There's guardrails around free speech and in the case of universities, academic freedom, in the case of the arts, artistic freedom. Right, there's gotta be some guard rails to protect people from harm. The question is, what is harm? But often we're talking about, you know, things that exist in the gray area and that's where this gets really difficult

[A]

and you touched upon this. But the. One of the anxieties around all of this is that antisemitism could end up being defined so broadly that it captures legitimate criticism of Israel. So how do you draw that line without diminishing the fear and the hatred that Jewish Australians are experiencing?

[B]

Yeah, criticism of Israel is really important, as is criticism of Australia, as is criticism of any government, any country. Where you start to get into these blurry lines, particularly with when you're talking about criticism of Israel, is when historically harmful images, ideas, language tropes start to get wheeled out as part of that and then reproduced that. And on the one hand it's a criticism of power relations and structures and dynamics, but there's also this sort of fanciful notion, I think, of really damaging ideas about Jews controlling governments, controlling the levers of power. There are ideas around, well, why is Israel subject to criticism that other countries aren't? And why is there this focus and targeting of Israel? And you know, sometimes I think that's a really good question. You know, the targeting by the Iranian government of its own citizens as one Example where there was sort of relative silence, I would say sometimes you do wonder why, because there's many tragedies around the world. But I also think, you know, if you're saying antisemitism involves double standard of criticizing Israel and not other countries in equal measure, that's a kind of difficult thing to measure. You know, how, say on a university camps, how are you going to enforce that? The fact that students aren't protesting China or Iran to the same extent as Israel, it's the kind of thing that, you know, it's really difficult to do and it doesn't invalidate necessarily people's criticism of Israel. And so we need to be really clear about what is criticism and what is harassment, abuse of people as well.

[A]

Coming up, why the Royal Commission could spark a backlash against those it's supposed to protect. David, could we come back to the Royal Commission because you have warned in the past that it could become a proxy fight over Israel and Gaza. So are we seeing that happen?

[B]

Not yet, I don't think. I haven't heard much that suggests it yet. But I do expect once we move past the kinds of focus that we're hearing now, which is really around this question of lived experience and the way people experience it on a day to day basis, I think we will still end up getting there. And I will say that one of my concerns about the Royal Commission, as well as it becoming this proxy for debates over Israel and Palestine, what I've seen since Bondi, and particularly since the announcement of the Royal Commission, has been an absolute explosion online in antisemitism and in ways that I hadn't seen before Bondi. And so, you know, as valuable as I hope the Royal Commission will be, and I think even just listening to all the, all the stories we're hearing, it is the ways in which that sparks a backlash against the Jewish community has been pretty shocking to me as someone who like, is writing about and working on antisemitism every day and is usually pretty desensitized to a lot of things. I see. But that's been really striking, the rise in antisemitism since Bondi.

[A]

And so as, as the Royal Commission continues on, how important do you think it is that it hears from diverse Jewish voices? Specifically, I think politically diverse?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it will. And I know that the Commissioner talked about giving leave to the Jewish Council of Australia to appear. I think it is very important. You know, we're 117,000 roughly according to the 2021 census. We're mainly concentrated in Melbourne And Sydney with a small but substantial community in Perth and then smaller communities dotted around the country. And, you know, looking from the outside, Jews probably look reasonably homogenous, but that's not the truth of the Jewish community. There's many ways in which we're diverse, religiously, culturally, linguistically and politically too. So even when we're talking about terms like Zionist, anti Zionist, non Zionist, even within those frameworks, there is a huge diversity of thought. So I expect that the Royal Commission will hear and ought to hear from a range of Jewish voices, including Israel critical voice, including anti Zionist Jewish voices. I think we do need to hear the spectrum of the Jewish community and that's something that helps people understand the complexity, the humanity, the nature of our communities to see, you know, warts and all that. We are simply humans and we do move about the world as like everyone else.

[A]

So what would a successful Royal Commission look like in your view? What would this process leave behind?

[B]

I mean, I think there's a couple of different aspects. One of the things that I think has been already really important and will continue to be is the storytelling aspect and the helping people understand what the Jewish community is and who the people that comprise that community are. The other question is about what will the recommendations be? And I think already seeing some of the recommendations from the interim report is really helpful to see that, okay, are there gaps in the way our security and intelligence apparatus works? But it can't only be about what prevents a Bondi. It has to also be about what prevents a 10 year old being spat at in a public place because they're wearing a Kupa. It can't only be what can the government do from a policy perspective to shape this, the question has to be around how do we create cultural change? How do we strengthen the multicultural fabric of this country that allows for diverse communities to, you know, walk about the world freely? And that's true not only for Jews, that's true for all diverse, culturally, religiously, linguistically, nationally. It's true for all communities. How do we make sure that our democracy and our multicultural society protect people?

[A]

David, thank you so much for your time.

[B]

Thanks, Ruby. I really appreciate you having me.

[A]

Also in the news, Pauline Hanson says she's coming for seats around Australia, declaring one nation wants to take the country back. One nation candidate David Farley easily won the Farabai election, winning the party's first lower house seat and taking Susan Lee's former electorate from the coalition for the first time in history. Angus Taylor says the Liberals will take hard lessons from the loss. The two coalition parties combined won just over 20% of the primary vote, well behind Farley and independent Michelle Millthorpe. And DFAT officials are working out how to safely repatriate five Australians on board the cruise ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak. So far, none of the Australians are displaying symptoms, but authorities say quarantine testing and health monitoring arrangements are being put in place. Three passengers have died, but officials say the likelihood of the outbreak becoming more widespread is very low. I'm Ruby Jones. This is 7:00am thanks for listening.