On a Sunday in October, Rabbi Shmueli Feldman was hosting a small celebration, when suddenly teenagers swerved in front of his house and cursed Jews before they sped off. The list of anti-Semitic abuses directed at the Rabbi and his Jewish community over the past year or two is long. He says he “has been egged, and that a rock was thrown through his child’s bedroom window.” Objects have also been thrown through the window of his Jewish center on multiple occasions. “For the first time in my life, I don’t feel safe in Australia,” said Rabbi Feldman. “I have little children who don’t feel safe playing outside. They’ve already
seen too much.” Rabbi Feldman is not the only one experiencing theses incidents. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry found an increase of almost 10 percent in religion motivated incidents against Jews in the past year, and almost 20 percent over the past two years. Tim Soutphommasane, Australia’s race discrimination commissioner, said “It’s concerning to see this rise,” “The difficulty with monitoring racism is that the vast majority of incidents go unreported. So if we’re seeing a 10 percent rise in the number of reported acts, then it’s a concerning development.” Right now the council and people are more concerned about group signaling out Jews. A group called the Antipodean Resistance, formed just over a year ago and claiming to have just a couple of members, has already caused alarm throughout Australia. The group has put the group put up posters near high schools in parts of Melbourne and Sydney that called for Australia to legalize the execution of Jews. Mr. Soutphommasane said “For a long time extremist racist organizations in Australia have operated largely underground,” “But in more recent times, they’ve shown greater confidence and a greater willingness to operate in public sight” (Betigeri).