Sydney's synagogue leaders give evidence on antisemitism to Royal Commission following Bondi attack

"We need all three, but only education really addresses the problem before it begins," Wolff said. "Education should encompass how Jews live, not only how Jews died."

Dr. George Foster, a member of the South Sydney Synagogue, told the commission that he does not believe Australia is becoming "another Germany", saying its institutions are protecting it, ABC cited.

However, Foster warned of "disturbing parallels in the social atmosphere," noting "warning signs that Holocaust survivors, and indeed the Jewish community, recognize because they have seen where such patterns can lead if they're left unchallenged."

Tyson Wodak, the president of Bialik College, an independent Jewish school in Melbourne, spoke to the commission next, ABC reported.

Wodak explained the impact of increased security at the school on the welfare of pupils, including his own children.

"I worry a lot, I fear a lot both as a parent and in my institutional role, about the impact of constant security," he told the royal commission. "My kids have spent their whole life under security."

He added that he is worried about how his children's idea of Australia and their position in the country will be affected by the security.

Mr Sztrajt, the principal of Mount Scopus, another Jewish school in Melbourne, also spoke to the royal commission, ABC reported.

He explained that "being probably the most prominent Jewish school or the most well-known Jewish school in the state, that comes with it… being a target."

Sztrajt explained that the school employs a counterterrorism expert to handle security following a series of antisemitic events targeting the school in recent years.

In 2015, the school changed from unarmed to armed security guards, following antisemitic attacks overseas. In 2025, they appointed a full-time security manager with a background in counterterrorism, Sztrajt told the commission.

He added that "It pains me tremendously to think of the horrendous opportunity cost that the security focus takes away from our school."

Another Jewish school principal, Linda Emms of Emanuel, explained that, while she was not Jewish, she had seen a very rapid increase in the level of security when she joined.

In her introductory letter to the community, she stated that she was focused entirely on the Jewish community's security and safety.

Antisemitic attacks, she added, "happen on a regular basis," with the situation becoming even more complex following the Bondi shooting.

"We basically canceled a day of our professional learning because we moved entirely to trauma-informed practice response," she said.

"In amongst the staff at my school, we had lots of people who were at Bondi, and I don't think there was anybody who wasn't affected by it."

The school had to divert funds from other programs in order to afford the increase in security required, Emms stated, and there was a concern that the added cost could prevent some parents from enrolling their children at the school.

"Many of our families are making sacrifices financially to have their children at a Jewish school. They're there because they believe in a Jewish education. Many are also there because they don't feel comfortable with their children being in other school systems at present," she explained.

Australian Supreme Court Justice Stephen Rothman, co-chair of the Australian Council of Jewish Schools, stated that Jewish schools had spent $58 million on security between 2022 and 2025, and that there were over 8,800 students attending Jewish schools.

"The poorer schools with the poorer parent body have less capacity to obtain funds from donations than, say, a wealthier school," he said. "There's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek line by members of the Jewish community that it's expensive to be Jewish, and it is.

"Since 2023, the level of vitriolic, antisemitic abuse has been significant and, in my view, normalized to such an extent that members of the community generally feel unwelcome and unprotected," he added.