4 days ago
6
May 11, 2026 — 11:45am
I am not Jewish. That, I discovered at the weekend, does not make my family immune from antisemitism.
I spent last week inside a windowless room in an office tower on Sydney’s Clarence Street, listening to and reporting on devastating stories from Jewish Australians about their lived experience of antisemitism. Many of the stories relayed to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in its first block of public hearings were truly horrifying.
Many times I was close to tears as I heard of young children being subjected to Nazi salutes and swastikas in the playground, or having a police escort on a school excursion. A Holocaust survivor warned that the rise of antisemitism in Australia was “not a faint echo of a distant past”. A gay Jewish man thought he might be killed in Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade, and a university student said she was kicked out of her share house for Zionist views.
As shocking as these stories were, they were removed from my experience. There are no armed guards at my kids’ schools. I do not need to make adjustments to my jewellery choices when I leave my house. I feel safe in my neighbourhood.
And then I saw antisemitism first-hand.
My daughter plays netball for the Jewish club Maccabi. After some particularly nasty netball politics at another club, my daughter and her teammates needed to find a new club on the eve of the winter season. It was Maccabi that came to our rescue.
The girls, all of whom but two attend Jewish schools, were adamant they would not go to Maccabi if the non-Jews were not welcome. They moved as a team or not at all. Maccabi did not bat an eyelid, welcomed us with open arms, and the girls’ seemingly doomed winter season was saved.
I arrived on Saturday at their first game for their new club to see several NSW Police officers standing near the Maccabi game day tent. “Jews even need police at netball”, I messaged my husband, feeling very naive. A Jewish mum from our team hadn’t clocked the police. She is conditioned to seeing armed guards and law enforcement outside schools and synagogues.
But I was wrong. The police had been called because a mother in a team playing Maccabi had allegedly hurled antisemitic bile from the court sidelines. This, I must stress, happened during an under 12s game. One of the Maccabi mums told me that a player from our club may have used a choice word towards her opponents. Sure, not appropriate.
But for an adult to retaliate with such hatred was beyond the pale. “F--- the Jews,” several witnesses reported the mother from the Saints Netball Club saying. She allegedly finished her tirade with “they should have been eradicated”. On Sunday, police charged her with offensive language in a public place. She is due to face court on June 17.
Any parent familiar with the Heffron netball courts in Maroubra knows how crazily busy they are on a Saturday. Hundreds of girls (and the rare boy) play across about 30 courts. This mother could not have chosen a more public place to spew hatred.
I watched on, incredibly saddened, as one of the mums could barely manage to keep the score for our team because she was so shaken by what had taken place. Others shared video footage of the altercation that took place between the woman and Maccabi parents after the alleged outburst. Several asked: “How could this happen in the middle of the royal commission?”
But perhaps the most confronting moment was when one of the Jewish mums apologised to me. “I am so sorry your daughter is exposed to this,” Bec Abraham said. “Our girls are used to it, but your daughter doesn’t deserve this.” Her grace was astounding. My daughter loves her teammates. She has been to bat mitzvahs and considers them friends. But she is not exposed to the increasingly hurtful world that her Jewish teammates face every day. My daughter is fortunate.
The only ray of light was the response. The club involved, Saints Netball, swiftly put out a statement condemning antisemitism “in all its forms” and stressed that “such remarks do not reflect the values, principles or standards of our club, our members, our players or our wider community”.
“The Saints Netball Club offers our sincerest and most unreserved apologies to the Jewish community,” the statement said. The Randwick Netball Association was unequivocal in its messaging, too. Its president told Maccabi: “You are welcome, you belong, and you are valued.” Netball NSW banned the woman from attending courts or being involved with the game while investigations continue.
The royal commission continues public hearings this week, when I will be listening again to the testimony of Jewish Australians living with antisemitism. There will be more moving stories.
My experience on Saturday provided just a tiny window into the world that many Jews are subjected to daily. It also reinforced to me just how mammoth the job is for Commissioner Virginia Bell, the woman asked to find answers to a problem that is now so impenetrable that even children’s sport is not spared.
Alexandra Smith is a senior writer and a former state political editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.
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