ANTI-SEMITISM IN AUSTRALIA – AFTER THE BONDI MASSACRE – GEMMA TOGNINI

Sydney’s Bondi Beach massacre during Hannukah celebrations on Sunday 14 December 2025 shocked Australians. That years of anti-Semitism, especially following the atrocities of 7 October 2023, waged against Israeli citizens in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists, had led to such a bloody outrage changed Australia. But how? On Tuesday 10 February 2026, Arsen Ostrovsky, human rights lawyer & head of AIJAC’s Sydney office, and Gemma Tognini, social and political commentator, columnist with The Australian and founder of GT Communications addressed The Sydney Institute to evaluate what happened and what next.

ANTI-SEMITISM IN AUSTRALIA – AFTER THE BONDI MASSACRE

GEMMA TOGNINI

It is the big question. The biggest.  What next? My reaction? First up – I don’t have the answer – singular, but I want to share some insights that I’ve gained over past two years that can help shape a response.

To attempt to answer the question about what next, I need to go back in time for a little bit. There are a few things I’ve said verbatim since October 7 to my Jewish friends, and others. I have said it on air, at work, in my columns at Caulfield Shule, St Kilda Shule, Central Shule here in Sydney and so many other community events across Australia including my home state of WA.

• You have more friends than you know
• You’re not alone
• The overwhelming majority of Australians are with you.

All objectively true. But here’s the thing. It, sort of, felt like cold comfort.  And as I look back, and especially in the wake of Bondi, I see that with even greater clarity.

True words can concurrently be words that carry no weight. I found this out at first hand in Israel in December 2024 – the war was well and truly still in play.  I had been asked to go as part of an AIJAC visit, to bear witness to the Hamas atrocities and the broader impact of the conflict.

It involved a visit to Sheba hospital, speaking with psychologists trying to deal with the tsunami of mental health trauma in the wake of October 7. Meeting with families of hostages, desperate for news or proof of life. Meeting with the people trying to achieve a ceasefire. And yes, even meeting with senior officials in the Palestinian Authority – this via teams, as there was a travel ban to the territories.  The DFAT liaison told us they were travelling in and out in armored cars.

This was a visit to what I call the killing fields. What was left of Kfar Aza or Nir Oz? There was the emotional impact of hearing, first hand, from survivors and first responders and the responsibility of carrying their story and that truth back to Australia and sharing it – being a custodian of sorts.

At a Nova party, I met my new friend Shaliv Biton, a musician – whose life and that of eight other young Jewish kids was saved by Yunis Alkarnawi – an Israeli Bedouin Muslim who lied to Hamas terrorists, risking his own life, and told them there were no Jews on his farm.

As an apartheid state, Israel is the biggest failure on record.

It was no small decision to go.  I had the first taste of being woken in the night to race to bomb shelters.  What Israelis have lived with every day. There was much about that trip that left a mark on my heart that will never be erased.

But, in the context of today, the question, what now?

It was a short interaction accompanied by a seemingly innocuous, speedy shopping trip that offered an insight, a pathway forward, even if it’s not necessarily an easy one. For context – I needed to get a skirt to wear. Going to a mall, the assistant asked me, where I was from. And then she asked – what did we ever do to you?

My response was that it was not all Australians; the silent majority was with Israel.

The woman just looked at me. At that moment the words felt empty and inadequate.  Because on reflection, they were; but they were the best I had. If you’d have asked me I’d have said that’s okay, you know? It’s enough.

But it’s not.  Not even close.

So, after Bondi? Now what. The answers aren’t easy or quick or simple and they rely on all of us. Everyone in this room and watching and listening virtually.

Let me draw on words I wrote six months before that trip, on the 8 June 2024, what would have been my dad’s 79th birthday. Looking back, what I wrote feels a bit prophetic:

The inconvenient truth is simple. It is easy to take a principled position when most of the world agrees with you.  Nobody can argue against advocating for equality, for the end to gendered violence, for closing the gap. Nobody should.

But you’re not going to find anyone violently opposing these views and causes and you certainly won’t face vile, violent and extreme tactics of intimidation of the pro-Palestinian movement.  You know the ones. Masked faces.

That was before Bondi.

Bondi woke up corporate Australia, and the silent majority. All it took was blood on the sand. All it took was 15 dead Australians. A Jewish child at a Hanukkah festival. Holocaust survivors.  Dead Jews hunted like game on a golden summer afternoon in Bondi. What a terrible, awful price to pay for broader Australia to wake up and find its voice?

So. What now; and what next?

The answer is simple but complex to deliver. The silent majority must, MUST become the vocal majority. The forthright majority The fearless majority. The informed majority. The morally clear, majority. The tenacious majority.

We can no longer let conversations go unchallenged. We can no longer allow the words of polite anti-Semitism to infect workplaces and social situations. What do I mean by that? A person implying, ever so gently that October 7 is somehow warranted because of Middle Eastern geopolitical complexities. The genteel suggestion that Jews influence things in the dark, behind closed doors – normalising phrases like Jewish Influence, or the Jewish lobby when used in a derogatory sense.

Accepting that Jewish kids need to go to school behind security fences and under armed guard. Accepting that Jewish Australians should be living in fear, simply because of their Jewish identity. Accepting any culture or ideology that seeks to impose and normalise foreign conflicts or hatreds in Australian society which is historically accepting, tolerant, pluralistic and egalitarian. It is up to every one of us.  It is a daily practice. I get it, believe me. I understand that it comes with a price but what’s the alternative?

We end up with a society that reflects the values that the very vocal, vile and aggressive majority are willing to fight for – literally on our streets.

I wish I had a simple solution for you. One that comes without cost. It doesn’t exist. Anything worth fighting for comes at a cost.

But I believe I have given you one that each of us can action, and play our part in, and carry at some level in our workplaces and social interactions.  Find your voice. And use it.

I’d like to leave you with a line from that same column in June 2024 before we take questions:

The place I keep coming back to when I look at all of this with a clear mind is simple. It’s time to speak up when it counts, not just when it suits.