A Hellenic submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion

Dean Kalimniou, arsenic Secretary of the Jewish Hellenic Association of Victoria (JHAV), has confirmed that the organisation ahs submitted to the Royal Commission connected Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

JHAV was established successful 2021 to strengthen ties and communal understanding betwixt Victoria’s Greek and Jewish communities done acquisition programs, commemorative events, taste activities, nationalist forums, and creator partnerships.

The submission underscores shared humanities experiences of Greeks and Jews arsenic diaspora communities — shaped by migration, persecution, displacement, resilience, and the preservation of taste individuality — and however those experiences equip some groups with the perspectives to lend to nationalist conversations connected extremism, inclusion, and κοινωνικά cohesion.

Jewish Hellenic Association of Victoria submission to the Royal Commission connected Antisemitism and Social Cohesion

The Jewish Hellenic Association of Victoria (JHAV) welcomes the constitution of the Royal Commission connected Antisemitism and Social Cohesion and thanks the Commission for the accidental to lend to this important nationalist inquiry.

JHAV was founded successful Melbourne successful 2021 with the intent of fostering dialogue, friendship, and taste understanding betwixt the Greek and Jewish communities of Victoria. Through lectures, commemorations, acquisition initiatives, creator collaborations, and taste events, our organisation seeks to strengthen relationships betwixt two past diasporic communities whose histories person been shaped by migration, persecution, memory, survival, and taste continuity.The Greek and Jewish communities person agelong and intertwined histories.

Greek speaking Jewish communities flourished passim the Eastern Mediterranean for centuries, peculiarly successful Thessaloniki, erstwhile 1 of the large centres of Sephardic Jewish life. During the Nazi concern of Greece, Greek Jewry suffered catastrophic destruction. Entire communities vanished. At the aforesaid time, galore Greeks risked their lives to structure Jewish neighbours and compatriots. These memories proceed to signifier the motivation consciousness of some communities successful Australia.

JHAV believes that antisemitism constitutes a profound menace to Australia’s antiauthoritarian civilization and κοινωνικά cohesion. Hostility directed toward 1 number assemblage ultimately weakens the civic trust upon which multicultural societies depend. The emergence successful antisemitic incidents, intimidation, rhetoric, vandalism, and communal anxiousness witnessed successful Australia since October 2023 has caused heavy interest some within Jewish communities and amongst galore Australians committed to pluralism and peaceful coexistence.

In our view, responses to antisemitism indispensable widen beyond transgression enforcement and reactive information measures. Protective information remains essential, peculiarly successful airy of the horrifying Bondi terrorist onslaught and the morganatic fears experienced by Jewish Australians. Long term κοινωνικά resilience, however, depends upon the strength of civic relationships betwixt communities, the cultivation of humanities literacy, and the beingness of institutions susceptible of fostering meaningful intercommunal engagement.

Australia’s multicultural colony represents a important civic achievement. It emerged gradually done shared workplaces, schools, neighbourhoods, sporting clubs, taste institutions, and section associations that enabled communities of antithetic backgrounds to brushwood 1 different arsenic chap citizens alternatively than arsenic distant abstractions shaped solely by inherited overseas conflicts. Recent years person revealed the fragility of this equilibrium. International conflicts are progressively imported straight into Australian nationalist beingness done integer media ecosystems that reward outrage, polarisation, and ideological simplification.

Contemporary multicultural societies whitethorn execute demographic diverseness without needfully cultivating reciprocal humanities understanding betwixt communities. Communities tin so beryllium beside 1 different physically while remaining emotionally, historically, and informationally separate. Individuals whitethorn work together, study together, and enactment within the aforesaid civic institutions while possessing minimal understanding of 1 another’s humanities experiences, communal anxieties, oregon taste memory. Under such conditions, overseas conflicts tin penetrate home civic beingness with alarming speed due to the fact that insufficient intercommunal familiarity exists to defy imported antagonisms.

Multicultural cohesion ultimately depends not simply upon coexistence, though upon the gradual cultivation of civic trust betwixt communities. Communities present often brushwood 1 different done slogans, algorithmically curated imagery, and emotionally charged online narratives alternatively than done lived κοινωνικά relationships. Under such conditions, individuals hazard becoming representatives of abstract governmental categories alternatively of neighbours shaped by family, memory, humour, grief, and mean quality experience. Antisemitism flourishes astir readily where communities stay socially distant, historically unfamiliar with 1 another, oregon confined within isolated informational environments.

For this reason, JHAV believes that stronger intercommunal engagement constitutes 1 of the astir effectual agelong term safeguards against antisemitism and extremism. Shared taste brushwood restores proportionality and quality complexity to nationalist life. Direct interaction betwixt communities weakens caricature, suspicion, and inherited hostility successful ways that purely regulatory responses cannot execute alone.

JHAV notes with interest the caller illness of collaborative taste initiatives involving Greek and Jewish organisations pursuing heightened communal tensions and fears of nationalist backlash. Particularly troubling was the cancellation of a planned show successful Sydney of Mikis Theodorakis’ Ballad of Mauthausen involving Greek and Jewish choirs. This work, based upon the experiences of Greek Jews during the Holocaust, has agelong occupied an important spot within the shared humanities representation of some communities.

A taste work erstwhile understood arsenic a testament to suffering, remembrance, and quality solidarity became vulnerable to the pressures of modern polarisation. Such incidents show however rapidly civic trust whitethorn erode when intercommunal relationships weaken and communities retreat into suspicion and κοινωνικά fragmentation.

JHAV besides notes the increasing tendency within nationalist sermon to trim historically analyzable peoples into simplistic ideological categories. Contemporary governmental rhetoric progressively organises communities into binaries of oppressor and oppressed, coloniser and colonised, indigenous and foreign.

The histories of Eastern Mediterranean peoples seldom conform neatly to such frameworks. Jewish, Greek, Armenian, Assyrian, and different diasporic communities person histories shaped simultaneously by migration, empire, displacement, persecution, commercialized mobility, taste continuity, and survival crossed centuries.

Public sermon loses some humanities precision and motivation clarity when full peoples are reduced to ideological archetypes detached from humanities complexity. Digital media ecosystems person importantly intensified these pressures. Contemporary online environments progressively reward affectional intensity, outrage, motivation absolutism, and individuality based antagonism. Algorithmically amplified contented privileges worldly astir apt to provoke anger, fear, humiliation, oregon tribal reinforcement. Under such conditions, nuanced humanities understanding struggles to vie against emotionally satisfying simplification. Minority communities consequently hazard encountering distorted representations of 1 different mediated done struggle driven narratives alternatively than nonstop quality experience. The speed with which misinformation, conspiracy theories, and inflammatory rhetoric circulate within multilingual integer ecosystems presents a substantial situation for antiauthoritarian societies seeking to sphere κοινωνικά cohesion.

JHAV further observes a diminution successful humanities literacy crossed broader society. Younger generations progressively brushwood analyzable humanities subjects done fragmented integer contented alternatively than sustained humanities education. Concepts such arsenic Zionism, nationalism, colonialism, genocide, antisemitism, and indigeneity are often discussed successful highly reductive forms detached from humanities continuity and humanities context.

Historical illiteracy weakens society’s capableness to recognise recurring patterns of scapegoating, dehumanisation, conspiratorial thinking, and ideological extremism. Citizens unfamiliar with the humanities trajectories of antisemitism, sectarian conflict, fascism, totalitarianism, and radical persecution go progressively vulnerable to modern forms of manipulated grievance and individuality based radicalisation.

Historical acquisition so carries value extending beyond the transmission of factual cognition alone. It assists citizens successful recognising the mechanisms done which hatred acquires motivation legitimacy within nationalist discourse. Australian multicultural argumentation has historically emphasised representation, recognition, and coexistence. Comparatively little attraction has been directed toward the progressive cultivation of enduring relationships betwixt communities themselves. Communities whitethorn so enactment successfully within nationalist institutions while remaining socially unfamiliar with 1 another. Social cohesion requires much than demographic diverseness alone. It requires structures done which trust, familiarity, and reciprocal humanities understanding tin make gradually implicit time.

Within this context, JHAV respectfully submits the pursuing recommendations.

Former Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou (C), a banner speechmaking “80 years Thessaloniki Auschwitz Never again!” participates successful the soundless march of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust, from the Holocaust memorial successful Eleftheria Square to the aged railway station successful Thessaloniki, Greece, 19 March 2023.Photo: AAP/ACHILEAS CHIRAS

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Establishment of a National Intercommunal Civic Partnership Program

The Commonwealth should found a imperishable federally funded programme supporting collaborative initiatives betwixt ethnic, religious, and taste communities.

Funding should prioritise projects involving aggregate communities working together through: shared commemorations; youth exchanges; schoolhouse partnerships; creator collaborations; section humanities projects; sporting and civic initiatives; interfaith acquisition programs; and multicultural nationalist forums.

Priority should beryllium fixed to projects that make sustained relationships betwixt communities alternatively than isolated symbolic events.

JHAV submits that Australia invests sizeable resources into reactive information responses while comparatively constricted backing exists for preventative civic narration building. Intercommunal familiarity remains 1 of the strongest safeguards against antisemitism and κοινωνικά fragmentation.

2. Development of a National Multicultural Historical Literacy Framework

JHAV recommends the improvement of a broad humanities literacy inaugural crossed schools, universities, taste institutions, and nationalist acquisition programs.

This model should integrate: Holocaust education; the past of Greek Jewry; the Armenian genocide; exile and migration histories; histories of antisemitism and radical persecution; propaganda and conspiracy formation; and the relation of totalitarian ideologies successful dehumanisation processes.

Students should beryllium equipped to understand however number groups historically go scapegoated during periods of political, economic, oregon κοινωνικά instability. Historical acquisition should promote nuanced engagement with humanities complexity alternatively than simplistic motivation binaries detached from humanities context.

3. Creation of a Multicultural Media Literacy and Ethics Initiative

JHAV recommends the constitution of a federally supported multicultural media inaugural involving: training for CALD media organisations; humanities literacy workshops; acquisition regarding antisemitism and radical vilification; support for collaborative journalism projects betwixt communities; and multilingual resources addressing misinformation and online extremism.

Ethnic and multicultural media environments person substantial power within Australian migrant communities. These ecosystems often stay underexamined within broader nationalist discussions concerning κοινωνικά cohesion and radicalisation.

JHAV believes multicultural media organisations tin play an important relation successful strengthening civic trust and resisting imported sectarian tensions when appropriately supported and engaged.

4. Community Based Civic Resilience and Deradicalization Programs

Government responses to extremism should spot greater accent upon assemblage institutions susceptible of fostering κοινωνικά transportation and civic participation.

JHAV recommends backing support for: section taste associations; religion communities; migrant assets centres; youth organisations; arts institutions; sporting clubs; interfaith organisations. Programs should absorption upon: youth dialog initiatives; struggle literacy; civic participation; captious media literacy; and intercommunal engagement.

Social isolation and informational echo chambers often make environments conducive to radicalisation. Community organisations stay uniquely positioned to interrupt these processes done nonstop quality engagement.

5. Establishment of a National Shared Histories Initiative

JHAV recommends the instauration of a federally supported yearly programme dedicated to shared humanities remembrance betwixt communities.

This inaugural could include: collaborative exhibitions; nationalist lectures; schoolhouse programs; oral past projects; creator performances; and commemorative events involving aggregate communities.

Particular accent should beryllium placed upon histories demonstrating solidarity betwixt communities, including the experiences of Greek Jews during the Holocaust, exile histories, migrant cooperation, and multicultural civic improvement within Australia. Social cohesion deepens when communities brushwood 1 another’s humanities experiences, inheritances, griefs, and taste memories.

6. Research and Monitoring of Online Radicalisation within Multilingual Digital Ecosystems

JHAV recommends accrued probe into the spread of antisemitism and extremist narratives within multilingual online environments.

Public statement often focuses upon English connection sermon while insufficient attraction is directed toward: encrypted messaging platforms; overseas connection integer ecosystems; transnational online propaganda; and algorithmically reinforced radicalisation patterns.

Government agencies should work collaboratively with multicultural organisations and world institutions to amended understand however extremist narratives circulate within divers linguistic communities.

7. Development of a National Social Cohesion Index

JHAV recommends the constitution of an autarkic nationalist model for measuring κοινωνικά cohesion indicators crossed Australia.

Social cohesion often enters nationalist statement lone pursuing acts of violence, communal rupture, oregon heightened κοινωνικά tension. Australia presently lacks robust organization mechanisms susceptible of identifying gradual deterioration successful intercommunal trust earlier situation emerges.

A nationalist model measuring κοινωνικά participation, intercommunal confidence, civic engagement, perceptions of belonging, patterns of segregation, and hatred related incidents would assistance governments successful identifying emerging κοινωνικά fractures astatine earlier stages.

Such a model could assess: levels of intercommunal trust; incidents of radical and spiritual hatred; civic information rates; perceptions of κοινωνικά belonging; trends successful κοινωνικά fragmentation; patterns of online radicalisation; and levels of intercommunal information within civic and taste institutions.

Governments routinely measurement economical indicators with sizeable precision while κοινωνικά cohesion often remains discussed lone successful abstract terms contempt its cardinal value to antiauthoritarian stability.

8. Continued Security Support for Jewish Institutions

JHAV supports the continuation and enlargement of information support for Jewish schools, synagogues, assemblage centres, taste institutions, and nationalist events. Jewish Australians should not beryllium required to take betwixt communal visibility and idiosyncratic safety.

At the aforesaid time, JHAV submits that agelong term κοινωνικά stability ultimately depends upon relationships of trust betwixt communities. Security measures support carnal safety. Intercommunal understanding strengthens the civic cloth within which information itself becomes sustainable.

Multicultural societies endure where citizens proceed to recognise 1 different arsenic participants within a shared civic inheritance contempt differences of history, religion, language, and governmental outlook. Once communities retreat into mutually hostile humanities narratives and digitally reinforced suspicion, antiauthoritarian cohesion becomes progressively fragile. Australia possesses the organization strength and civic traditions indispensable to defy such fragmentation. Preserving that inheritance will necessitate sustained concern successful humanities understanding, intercommunal relationships, civic participation, and the gradual cultivation of trust crossed communal boundaries.

*Dean Kalimniou is simply a writer, author, writer and lawyer and a regular contributor to Neos Kosmos.