Abuse prompts Jewish congregants to conceal identity

Allanah Sciberras and Eleanor Wilson | July 22, 2026

Jewish Australians are concealing signs of their own religious identity to avoid abuse, a senior rabbi has told a royal commission investigating anti-Semitism.

Rabbi Moshe Kahn, president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, said personal safety had significantly deteriorated in the past year, with many in the community falling victim to hatred and violence.

The commission heard evidence on Tuesday that 90 per cent of rabbis surveyed by the council in April had observed congregants concealing or minimising outward signs of their Jewish identity.

Of the rabbis surveyed, 85 per cent had personally experienced anti-Semitic conduct.

“Rabbis are very visibly Jewish … and many live in communities which they are the only visibly Orthodox people, therefore are easily identifiable,” Mr Kahn said.

“The incredible amount of abuse just walking to and from the synagogue on a Saturday morning is something that we’ve just normalised, that’s accepted.

“It’s something that for the rabbis they could tolerate to a degree, but when they have their children and they’re walking with their families, that’s incredibly confronting and challenging.”

Mr Kahn appeared on Tuesday alongside representatives of Jewish schools who revealed parents were paying annual security levies totalling millions of dollars.

He also spoke about the burden of security on the community, adding that anti-Semitic incidents were being investigated at an inconsistent rate by authorities.

Referring to the survey from earlier this year, he revealed that only 15 per cent of the rabbis felt incidents were actually followed through.

“(That) is incredibly low,” he said.

He noted that smaller synagogues and community events such as camps lacked resources and faced disproportionate risk in deciding daily whether events could go ahead. 

Victoria Police Superintendent Amanda Bowden also appeared before the commission, where she explained data was not specifically collected on anti-Semitic conduct. 

She said recording whether a crime was motivated by anti-Jewish prejudice was not mandatory in its main crime database.

The commission earlier heard a firebombed synagogue was unable to secure government grants to boost security in the years prior to the blaze.

Two buildings belonging to the Adass Israel Synagogue, at Ripponlea in Melbourne’s southeast, were gutted in a blaze on December 6, 2024.

The royal commission was called after 15 people were killed and dozens more injured when two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14.

Hearings in Melbourne this week are probing security risk assessments and the relationship between law enforcement agencies and Jewish security groups.

People speaking at the inquiry on Wednesday include Jewish Community Council of Victoria chief executive Naomi Levin, and Acting Commander Kelvin Gale of Victoria Police’s Crime and Counter Terrorism Investigation Services.