Today antisemitic activity in Australia has reached unprecedented and severe levels, solidifying a new, higher baseline for communal hostility. Data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and other security monitoring bodies confirms that the period between October 2024 and September 2025 saw the following trends:

Incident Volume and Spikes

• Total Incidents: There were 1,654 reported anti-Jewish incidents in this 12-month window. While this was a slight decrease from the absolute peak of the year prior (2,062 incidents), it remained triple the rate of the decade average before 2023.

• Persistent Threat: The volume established what researchers call an elevated plateau, where the daily frequency of harassment, graffiti, and abuse became a constant reality for the community.

Escalation to Physical Violence and Arson

The most critical shift in late 2024 and throughout 2025 was the move toward more destructive and lethal forms of antisemitism:

• Arson and Vandalism: This year saw the highest number of arson and vandalism attacks on record (33 cases).

• Bondi Beach Terror Attack (December 2025): While just outside the October cutoff, the climate leading up to this was defined by the first fatal antisemitic terror attack in Australian history, where gunmen killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney.

• State-Linked Targets: In August 2025, the federal government and ASIO confirmed a positive link between several arson attacks (such as the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue) and the Iranian regime, noting that targets were specifically selected for their Jewish associations.

Institutional and Systemic Shifts

• Educational Institutions: Reports from early 2026 indicate that racism became deeply embedded within schools and universities during the 2025 cycle. Only 6% of victims filed formal complaints, indicating a severe breakdown in institutional trust.

  Generational Gap:

• By late 2025, public sentiment surveys (such as the ADL Global 100 Index) found that 50% of Australians aged 18–35 held heightened antisemitic views—the highest proportion of any demographic and a significant increase over older generations.

Critical Intervention

Australia’s education system has moved beyond simple awareness and into a phase of active intervention.

• Antisemitism Education Taskforce: Chaired by David Gonski AC, this taskforce is currently developing the Social Cohesion Hub, launching in June 2026, to provide teachers with resources and specific skills to intervene when they witness hate.

The Big Picture

In 2026, the Australian social contract is being tested within the classroom. Traditional anti-bullying policies are structurally inadequate against the sophisticated methods of online influence. Schools must now choose between being passive victims of algorithmic hostility or becoming fortified hubs of social resilience.

Photography as a Tool of Deception

Roland Barthes observed that a photograph says this was — not this was true. The camera records without interpreting, which means the interpretation is supplied entirely by context: caption, crop, placement, sequence. Remove the context and you can make any image mean almost anything.

Susan Sontag argued that photographic images of suffering do not build empathy — they exhaust it. The image substitutes for understanding rather than producing it. We see, we feel briefly, we scroll. Social media has perfected this mechanism. The infinite scroll of images simulates witness while producing numbness — which is precisely the condition in which propaganda thrives.

Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935) remains the definitive demonstration of what happens when aesthetic beauty is weaponised as moral argument. The film is cinematically extraordinary — its use of light, mass movement and scale is genuinely powerful — and it is in service of extermination. The beauty was not incidental. It was the case. The film said: this movement is sublime, therefore it is right. Pleasure was made to function as persuasion.

Key references

• Roland Barthes — Camera Lucida (1980)

• Susan Sontag — On Photography (1977) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)

• Leni Riefenstahl — Triumph of the Will (1935, dir.)

• Jacques Ellul — Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)

• Errol Morris — Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography (2011)

• MIRRA Report — Antisemitism in the Cultural and Creative Industries (Monash ACJC, 2024)

Glossary of Terms

1. The Beautiful Lie | Aesthetic Propaganda

The act of using high production value—lighting, filters, and selective framing—to mask an unsustainable or terminal reality.

2. The Crop | Selective Framing

A tactical decision of what to exclude from the frame. The Crop is the primary tool of misinformation. By removing context—the root system—an image of distress can be reframed as an image of aggression, or vice versa.

3. Doxa vs. Epistēmē

• Doxa: Common belief or opinion that is accepted without questioning. An example is seeing a hateful symbol on a desk and dismissing it as just a prank.

• Epistēmē: Justified true belief or knowledge. This is the transition from feeling that something is wrong to knowing the systemic history and harm it represents.

4. Street Epistemology

A conversational technique based on the Socratic method. Instead of telling someone they are wrong, which triggers defensiveness, students learn to ask: What is the method you used to arrive at that conclusion, and is that method reliable?

5. The P.O.E.T. Protocol

The core diagnostic tool for digital literacy:

• P – Pause: Stop the emotional reaction triggered by the image.

• O – Outcome: Identify what the creator wants you to feel or do.

• E – Evidence: Look for what is missing from the frame such as water, roots, or context.

• T – Test: Ask: If this same technique was used by someone I disagreed with, would I still believe it?

6. Peaceful Agency

The ability to remain logically grounded and ethically active in a polarised environment. It is the transition from being a passive consumer of media to an active architect of school culture.

7. Upstander Vocabulary

A specific set of scripts and terms students use to intervene in real time. This replaces generic anti-bullying phrases with precise language to identify dog whistles, coded propaganda, and dehumanisation.

8. Irrational or Hostile Vessel

A metaphor for environments that cannot support life, such as a shoe, a briefcase, or a digital echo chamber. It represents the structural reality that is often hidden beneath the aesthetic glow of a polished media post.

Provisions Included

• Specialist Team: Delivery by three high-level practitioners - Belle Stewart, Eva Migdal and Lee Kofman (with guest artists from Jewish cancelled cohort) .

• Pedagogical Framework: A multidisciplinary curriculum based on Belle Stewart’s RMIT 'The Beauty Myth' program, adapted for secondary students to build critical thinking and communication skills.

• Research & Development: Access to a framework developed over 18 months specifically to address social cohesion and combat antisemitism in the current Australian 'intervention phase'.

2. The 'Upstander’s Tool-Kit’

• Foundational Texts: Physical copies of either Ruptured or A Brilliant Life

• Propaganda Workbook: Eva Migdal’s specialised Wellness Workbook - wellness mindset strategies for decoding visual, social media and peer misinformation.

• Creative Supplies: High-quality materials for journaling, poetry, and reflective practice, including coloured pencils, felt tips and adhesive tape.

3. Mobile Media & Production Studio

• Professional Lighting: Full studio lighting kits

• Cinematic Backdrops: A suite of professional coloured backdrops

• Ancillary Hardware: Props & Backup vessels (shoes, briefcases, tins)

4. Content & Immersive Resources

• Film & Media: Exclusive access to a 20-minute immersive preamble & short film (for schools not opting for the MJHM site visit) to anchor historical context.

• Supervised Foraging: Guided facilitation of the campus 'forage,' ensuring student agency is exercised safely within school grounds.

• Socratic Inquiry Resources: Facilitator-led 'Street Epistemology - Poet’ sessions, developed 'Upstander Vocabulary' for real-time intervention

Education Provider Requirements

• Space: A standard classroom or studio space that can be darkened for film screening/lighting setup.

• AV: A screen and projector for the 'Stage 0' preamble.

• Devices: Student mobile phones or school digital cameras.

• Post Production - Adobe Express or PhotoShop

• The 'Vessel': Students are briefed to bring their own 'irrational' vessel (e.g., a shoe or briefcase) as part of their pre-workshop engagement.