The evidence gap: how do we know what works in antisemitism education?

What can we pin down about what works in education to reduce antisemitism and build social cohesion? What does evidence, rather than ideology, illuminate?

The (Gonski) Antisemitism Education Taskforce was part of the package adopted by the Federal Government after the Bondi murders in December 2025. No one claimed then that education would have prevented the two gunmen from acting as they did, nor would it have stopped the Australian gunman who carried out the Christchurch mosque shootings some years earlier.

Rather, the government package reacted to the mixture of fury, fear and frustration expressed by Jewish community members and their spokespeople at what they identified as the failure of governments to adequately address the rising level of antisemitism. This took the form of behaviours in the real world, such as synagogue attacks, physical and verbal harassment, anti-Israel demonstrations, graffiti in Jewish neighbourhoods, and intimidation on the streets and in universities, especially of Jewish young people.

It also included behaviour in the online world: doxxing, the weaponisation of cancel culture, the spreading of disinformation and misinformation, one-sided or inflammatory coverage in parts of the media, and an explosion in conspiracy theories, which merged political criticism of Israel with traditional antisemitic tropes to create poisoned pools of online interaction.

Now the Federal Government has responded to the Islamophobia envoy’s report, A National Response to Islamophobia – which also has major recommendations on education. Drawing on the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission study of racism at universities, it is moving to a common educational strategy that engages all racisms, including those directed at First Nations, as well as antisemitism and Islamophobia, not forgetting the racism and xenophobia encountered by Australians from all over the non-British world. Experiences from the Jewish community can help inform all of these challenges.