Rabbi Daniel J Lieberman, leader of the Perth Hebrew Congregation, has warned that the creeping normalisation of anti-Semitism has fundamentally changed the Australia he once loved. Writing in a personal reflection, he described how the country has shifted from a place of mateship to one of political polarisation and cultural fracture, where hatred—especially toward Jews—has become increasingly tolerated.
Lieberman recounted that his concerns were dismissed until the recent terrorist attack in Bondi. He had earlier warned at a rally outside Parliament House in Perth that violence would come to Australia if the current path continued, drawing on his experience as someone from Manchester where Jews were murdered on Yom Kippur and as someone whose close friend was critically injured in a terror attack.
The rabbi, who moved to Australia after an anti-Semitic attack on his family in Liverpool, said he chose the country deliberately, became a citizen at the first opportunity, and serves as a chaplain in the Australian Defence Force. However, he noted that over the past two years, anti-Semitic slurs have been hurled at his own children, graffiti has appeared on Jewish homes and businesses, and synagogues have been firebombed—each incident minimised or rationalised.
Lieberman highlighted a concerning encounter in Israel, where supermarket staff warned him not to return to Australia, saying, “They hate us there.” He argued that when hatred is tolerated against one group, it eventually spreads to others, and that excusing intimidation or glorifying extremism dismantles peace rather than preserves it.
He called on Australians to take notice of anti-Semitism now, before the next tragedy, and to demand better from leaders, institutions, media, and themselves. “We can reclaim the Australia that so many of us believed in,” he wrote, “but only if we act, together, before it is too late.”
