Published: 23 October 2024
Last updated: 24 October 2024
Australian universities have not been safe places for Jewish students over the past year and vice-chancellors must act urgently to ensure they will be safe by the time the new academic year begins, the Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told a Jewish community event this week.
“Jewish students have experienced fear and rejection and discomfort at a level that has never happened before, which we are endeavouring to do something about. The special Envoy for Antisemitism, Jill Segal, is working on this now with the vice-chancellors, who did not respond adequately in any way initially,” Dreyfus said after delivering the annual Colin Tatz Oration, hosted by The Jewish Independent, at Bondi Pavilion on Monday night.
“The vice-chancellors have started to get there, but they're not there. They're not anywhere close to there. I'm hoping that by the start of the next academic year, universities will again be safe places for Jewish students, but they have not been this year.”
The Attorney-General singled out two universities as exceptions to the general inadequate responses to the explosion of antisemitism on campuses. “Some universities have reacted properly to this. I'll single out University of Western Sydney, with Jennifer Westacott getting right down to it, and Monash, which was better because their vice-chancellor, Sharon Pickering, recognised the problem early and acted to end the encampment, push non-students off campus and speak publicly in a way that otherwise, chancellors didn't.”
We need to work with the universities. Judicial inquiry means a royal commission, which is not quick. We need action now.
Dreyfus said the urgency for addressing the problem is why he does not favour holding a judicial inquiry, as some politicians and Jewish advocates have called for. “We need to work with the universities. Judicial inquiry is a term that means a Royal Commission, and royal commissions are not quick. We need action now.”
Comments2
Janet Kossy27 October at 06:34 am
I would have thought that the Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus and The Jewish Independent editor, Deborah Stone are concerned about promoting social cohesion, lessening polarisation and increasing empathy in Australian society. They showed their sensitivity to the harms of antisemitism and the disguises it may wear.
Yet in speaking to a Jewish audience, who are presumably “independent” minded, I wonder why the word “Palestinian” did not pass their lips? Why was the experience of the many Australians connected to Gaza and Lebanon completely absent from their consideration? I can only imagine what Dreyfus or Stone might say of a talk to a non-Jewish audience about prejudice in Australian society and politics post-Oct 7 that ignored the experience Jews?
Unfortunately the conversation between Dreyfus and Stone never broke out of the entirely self-centred bubble of presumed Jewish and pro-Israeli government preoccupation. So disappointing that they missed this opportunity to promote broader empathy but instead took the easy path and reinforced polarisation.
Wesley Parish27 October at 03:17 am
““The label Zionist is used, not in any way, accurately. When critics use that word, they actually mean Jew. They’re not really saying Zionist, they’re saying Jew because they know that they cannot say Jew, so they say Zionist or words [such as] Zeo or Zio.””
I’ve encountered much the same argument myself, from Jewish Zionists, that my use of “Zionism” is coded for “Jew”, against my argument that I am protesting the political program which has inflicted state and state-sanctioned violence on non-Jews in Mandatory Palestine; only to have them turn around and argue that Zionism and Jewishness are irrevocably connected and any attempt of mine to deny that is antisemitism. The problem with having your cake and eating it too, is that you rapidly cease having a cake.