‘Immense’ pressure stretches Jewish security group
Eleanor Wilson |
Thinly stretched Jewish community security groups are in desperate need of help to manage surging safety demands, an inquiry has been told.
The anti-Semitism royal commission on Monday heard volunteers for the Community Security Group’s Victorian branch provided more than $9 million worth of security at Jewish events in 2025.
The group’s paid and volunteer staff members liaise with the Jewish community and law enforcement to secure schools, religious sites and community events across Australia.
A CSG Victoria witness told the inquiry he had concerns about the organisation’s ability to sustain its security presence without “ongoing, committed amounts” of funding.
Its budget has tripled since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, to meet a swell in community events and synagogues that needed security presence, the commission heard.
“The pressure has been immense on all of our staff and volunteers,” said the witness, speaking under a pseudonym.
“We ask more of them now than we ever have.
“There shouldn’t be this financial burden on being Jewish today.”
The inquiry was called after 15 innocent people were killed and dozens more injured when two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14.
Most of CSG’s funding is supplied by the community and philanthropic donations, along with state and federal government grants.
A separate volunteer told the commission the demands of the role had “escalated significantly” since the October 7 attacks.
Also speaking under a pseudonym, the witness described the feeling like he was “always on call” and said he discouraged his family from attending Jewish community events when he volunteered.
“Selfishly, I don’t want to put myself in a position where I would have to decide between extracting them, or dealing with a threat if something arose,” the witness said tearfully.
Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies president Jason Steinberg said the burden of anti-Semitism in Queensland, where the Jewish population was much smaller than in Victoria and NSW, was “carried by few”.
Volunteers juggled full-time work with the competing demands of community safety and some turned down professional opportunities to carry out their volunteer duties, Mr Steinberg said.
Earlier on Monday, former Labor attorney-general Mark Dreyfus suggested Australia look at banning protests outside synagogues and Jewish schools to protect the community, similar to legislation that bars rallies outside abortion clinics.
Victoria and NSW recently adopted legislation that bans protests which blocks or threatens a person accessing a place of worship.
Every Jewish school and synagogue in Melbourne has had its exterior “hardened” because of security risks, Mr Dreyfus said.
“No other religious group in Australia, in going to worship, has to walk past guards,” he said.
Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia increased 22 per cent in 2025 to a record 1300 incidents, according to CSG records.
Of those incidents, less than 350 were reported to police, resulting in 76 charges laid, the inquiry heard.
Mr Dreyfus called on the Commonwealth to adopt stricter hate speech laws similar to those recently legislated by the Victorian and NSW governments, which criminalise serious vilification.
The former frontbencher described multiple instances of anti-Semitic abuse he said began in April 2024 when he was labelled a “genocidal Zionist” before a violence against women march outside the State Library of Victoria in April 2024.
“No one had ever hurled abuse at me because I am Jewish,” Mr Dreyfus said.
The senior Jewish MP then detailed a “deeply wounding attack” the next month in which his electoral office in Melbourne’s southeast was vandalised with red paint and a message reading ”who does AG Dreyfus serve?”.
“It invokes all of those old anti-Semitic tropes about dual loyalty and treachery to Australia, all of which are false,” Mr Dreyfus said.
The inquiry will continue in Melbourne on Tuesday.
AAP