Dear supporters,

Today marks 237 years since the commencement of the violent dispossession of First Nations peoples from this land. It represents a day of mourning and protest. We are reluctant to email you about anything other than this today, but we feel it is important to keep you informed about the vicious and escalating attacks on the Jewish Council and our Executive Officer, Sarah Schwartz, in response to Sarah’s anti-racism work. 

Over the last week, Sarah has been subjected to a strategic, coordinated and racist campaign by the Murdoch press, far-right social media accounts and right-wing pro-Israel groups, which aims to silence her voice and the voices of diverse Jewish people such as ourselves.

Sarah was invited by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) ‘Symposium Unifying Antiracism Research and Action’, led by First Nations academics, to give a presentation at a comedy event titled ‘the Great Race Debate’. The event aimed to critique, in a humorous way, conversations around race in Australia. 

Sarah’s speech critiqued and challenged racist stereotypes of Jewish people, pushed by Peter Dutton, Donald Trump and the far-right, which are used to promote division, attack diversity, and push an anti-immigration agenda. In her presentation, she used an image of ‘Dutton’s Jew’ as a visual representation of Dutton’s racist and reductive conception of Jewish people as the defenders of “Western civilisation” against other racialised groups. 

Sarah’s reference in her presentation to ‘Dutton’s Jew’ was about Peter Dutton’s racist conception of Jewish people, not actual Jewish people. Against this conception, Sarah spoke about how the Jewish community is diverse and not a monolith. Sarah has worked tirelessly as part of the Jewish Council to open up space for these diverse voices in the beautiful Jewish communities we are a part of and aim to support.

A single image and parts of Sarah’s presentation were leaked to the Murdoch press by a bad-faith actor, who, in his own words, has “co-supported … suppression of” our voices at the Jewish Council of Australia. The sharing of a single image of Sarah’s speech, devoid of any of the context of her presentation, has resulted in a gross misrepresentation of the content and intention of her presentation. 

QUT, Education Minister Jason Clare MP, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, are all receiving pressure from the Liberal National Party and Israel lobby groups to condemn Sarah’s presentation.

Our Executive and Advisory Committee have written this letter to the Vice Chancellor of QUT urging her to defend Sarah’s presentation and the right of Jewish people to critique and challenge racist stereotypes which are projected onto us.

This is all part of a campaign to try to silence Sarah, to distract the Jewish Council from our work in fighting against antisemitism and all forms of racism, for human rights and for Palestinian freedom and justice. The campaign aims to send a warning to other Jewish people that they will be smeared, bullied and defamed if they dare to do the same. 

The campaign against Sarah includes threats of coordinated complaints to Sarah’s workplaces, attacking her role as a lawyer, targeting her academic affiliations, and threatening to drag her into baseless legal actions. Sarah has been flooded with racist abuse and threats. In particularly egregious examples, the Australian Jewish Association, the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, have made defamatory social media posts attacking Sarah, and some of these groups have allowed offensive and antisemitic comments about Sarah to proliferate on their social media pages.

We are not going to back down in the face of this malicious bullying from the Murdoch Press and Israel lobby and we’re not going to be silent in criticising Peter Dutton for fuelling racism!

We encourage media outlets not to promote this offensive and defamatory campaign aimed at silencing critical Jewish voices. Doing so is not only engaging in an inaccurate and defamatory misrepresentation of Sarah’s presentation, but is sending a message to other Jews that they will be punished if they fail to comply with what is commonly ‘expected’ of us as Jews.

We thank the hundreds of people who have already reached out to Sarah and to us to express your solidarity and support. Our fight is the fight against all forms of racism, including antisemitism, and for human rights and liberation for all. We hope you will continue to walk with us in this fight.

The Jewish Council of Australia