Attacks by The Australian newspaper against the head of the Jewish Council of Australia — including publishing neo-Nazi slurs — have left her fearing for her safety and unable to get help from police.
Sarah Schwartz, a prominent human rights lawyer, said she and members of her organisation faced widespread attacks from neo-Nazis and pro-Israel advocates.
Appearing before the antisemitism royal commission today, Schwartz said News Corporation’s “targeting of me” meant it was no longer safe for her to report to threats against her to police, despite police requests she do so.
“I’m depicted as my image on a train to concentration camps,” said Schwartz. “I am referred to as Hitler’s Jew.
“This is extremely common and voluminous material that circulates about me online from accounts and people who I know to be high-profile pro-Israel actors online.”
“This is extremely common…(from) people who I know to be high-profile pro-Israel actors online” – Sarah Schwartz
In one case, after Schwartz reported neo-Nazi threats she had been receiving to Victoria Police.
Victoria Police responded by taking out a personal safety intervention order (PSIVO), in her name, against an individual.
“I became aware of it via a phone call…from a journalist at The Australian,” Schwartz said.
“(He) said that there was a front page story running the next morning and said it was about the personal safety intervention order.
“I informed him, I hadn’t been informed of the nature of the PSIVO, and I asked him if he could provide me with a copy.
“He said he couldn’t provide me with a copy, he didn’t provide me with time to respond to any of the material, but of course because I didn’t know its contents,” Schwartz said.
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Sarah Schwartz gives evidence to the Royal Commission this morning. Source: Royal Commission on Antisemitism
The following day a page-one story appeared.
“The next day there was a front-page news story in The Australian that suggested that I had been trying to suppress free speech and that it was I, and not police, who had applied for this application.
“(The) front-page news story…suggested that I had been trying to suppress free speech” – Sarah Schwartz
The newspaper “then proceeded to run a number of different stories about the case”, Schwartz said.
“What was most distressing to me is The Australian chose to republish some of the offensive imagery that was the basis on which police applied for the PSIVO,” she said.
“(It) republished content that took my image and placed it on a train to concentration camps, republished content calling me a Kapo and other various slurs.
“(The Australian) republished content calling me a Kapo and other various slurs” — Sarah Schwartz
“Kapo” was the “historical name for a Jewish person who collaborated with Nazis”.
As a result of the attacks by the newspaper, Schwartz said she didn’t want to proceed with a PSIVO, as she considered it was making her less safe.
“Because of that coverage, I had to inform police that I didn’t want to proceed with a PSIVO and they subsequently withdrew that application.”
Sarah Schwartz, executive director of the Jewish Council of Australia. Source: Jewish Council of Australia
She had now stopped reporting to police altogether.
“It became very clear to me after that…that actually having reported these matters to police, although police were doing their very best, was actually something that was going to make me less safe, because of the media coverage,” she said.
“It became very clear to me that…(reporting) these matters to police…was going to make me less safe” — Sarah Schwartz
“Police have later asked me to come in about to discuss other neo-Nazi and far-right content.
“With all due respect to them, it’s become very clear to me that because of the media interest in me as a person but particularly because of News Corp targeting of me, that it’s not going to be safe for me to engage in reporting because it’s going to become a media circus if I try to protect my safety,” Schwartz said.
“Particularly because of News Corp targeting of me…it’s not going to be safe for me to engage in reporting (to police)” — Sarah Schwartz
News Corporation, publisher of The Australian, is nation’s biggest media company.
“I feel pretty sad that I’ve been unable to seek assistance in that regard and just sort of sad because I think that media reporting really normalises the use of these terms against other Jewish people,” Schwartz told the royal commission.
“People see that coverage and think that it is legitimate to call a Jewish person Nazi-aligned or to place our face on a train to concentration camps.
“I’m…really concerned that some of these memes, dehumanising memes, about me that have circulated, she said.
“I’m concerned that people will take that further”.
“I’m concerned that people will take that further” – Sarah Schwartz
Prominent Jewish community member Louise Adler has previously warned the pro-Israel lobby is fighting to “outlaw protest and constrain free speech”. Source: The Klaxon
Schwartz said that before the attacks by The Australian over the personal safety intervention order, she had contacted police when she noticed periods when “online campaigns against me” were “accelerated”.
“Those are often periods involving sort of intensified news coverage that involves me”, Schwartz said.
“Judenrat”, “Self-Hating” and “Traitor”
The Jewish Council of Australia, which has around 2.500 members, was created in 2024 to provide members of the Jewish community “a home outside of Israel”, Schwartz said.
Within days of it being created Schwartz began “being personally targeted by what I believe to be either neo-Nazi or far-right actors” in a “really coordinated campaign”.
She said attacks on the group came from neo-Nazis and the far-right and from “pro-Israel advocates”.
“From the pro-Israel side, these are messages that refer to me as self-hating, as a traitor,” Schwartz said.
“There have been memes circulated about me, which contain images of me as a rat.
“There’s often Nazi references, images of me with a yellow star of the type that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
“I’m referred to as Judenrat,” a term Nazis created during the Holocaust in an attempt to make Jewish people complicit in their own persecution, Schwartz said.
The attacks from Neo-Nazi and far-right actors used “various dog whistles”, including terms like “cultural Marxism”, referring to Jews as “the enemies of the white people”.
“Neo-Nazi and far-right actors used dog whistles, including terms like “cultural Marxism”
“A “cabal of Jewish Marxist academics”, “cultural Marxism”, all these sort of very notable dog whistles that are based in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” Schwartz said.
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Anthony Klan
Editor, The Klaxon
